Under Universal Jurisdiction a suspect can be prosecuted regardless of where a crime was committed, or the nationality of the perpetrator or victim. This covers war crimes under the Geneva Conventions act, torture and hostage-taking.

Significantly, Universal Jurisdiction is about preserving the rule of law away from vested political interests, most usually in the home country where the will to prosecute may not exist.

What are the proposed changes?

Currently anyone can apply, as a private prosecutor, for a warrant in respect of such offences for the arrest of a foreign national visiting England. A warrant may quite properly be issued by a court.

However, under intense pressure from Israel and the Zionist lobby after the issuing of an arrest warrant for former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the UK government is proposing to restrict the issuing of arrest warrants under Universal Jurisdiction.

The proposed change, initiated by the previous government and pursued by its successor, would mean that arrest warrants for Universal Jurisdiction offences would in future need to be approved by the Director of Public Prosecutions following evidential and public interest tests being met. This would make securing a warrant practically impossible as the threshold for the tests would be prohibitively onerous – it would have to be shown than any arrest would almost certainly result in a conviction.

The implications

The British Government is changing the evidential requirements for these warrants purely to suit its political friends. It is a politicisation of the UK judiciary; without the spur of arrest warrants secured by private prosecution, the Crown Prosecution Service will not pursue suspected war criminals if the political will does not exist for them to be convicted.

How will the changes happen?

The Government has attempted to introduce this change innocuously, burying it in the Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill 2010-11. This Bill was presented to Parliament on 30 November 2010 in its First Reading and there was no debate. It will now be on the Order Paper for a Second Reading with the date to be confirmed.

The Second Reading is the second of three stages for any bill going through Parliament and the House of Lords before it becomes legislation. The third and final stage will be the committee stage where each clause is debated and amendments are proposed. It is vital to start lobbying MPs and, even more importantly, sympathetic Lords to oppose the clause in this bill watering down Universal Jurisdiction.

How to oppose these changes

The most effective way to defeat this move to politicise the UK judiciary is to challenge this one clause in this bill that is important to the UK government. If enough MPs and/or Lords oppose this clause, the government may drop it just to ensure the safe passage of the rest of the bill into legislation. If a member (MP or Lord) refuses to back down over this clause the government will be forced to a vote.

The Lords are the most vulnerable targets here as they are very sensitive to attacks on the sovereignty of the UK judiciary. Please lobby MPs but ESPECIALLY sympathetic Lords. Show that this is a politicisation of the judiciary, violating the key democratic principal of the separation of the executive and judicial branch of government.

Known sympathisers in the House of Lords include:

Lord Andrew Phillips, andrew_w_phillips@yahoo.com, 01787 370 856

Rt Hon Lord Whitty, whittyl@parliament.uk, 020 7219 3118

Baroness Ashton of Upholland, 020 7219 5353

Rt Hon Lord Woolf, stevensonmm@parliament.uk, 020 7219 3156, Fax: 020 7219 0785

Lords’ contact details can be found here

A group of activists dropped a 12 foot dingy outside Downing Street at around 8.30am this morning to protest against the British government’s continued support for Israel in the wake of its deadly raid on the Gaza Freedom flotilla on Monday May 31^st.

The activists drew attention to the influence of the Zionist lobby over many MPs and the media, an influence that reinforces the impunity enjoyed by Israel even when it commits murderous crimes in breach of international law. The demonstrators made an explicit link between the Zionist lobby and the UK government’s proposed changes to universal jurisdiction, which are due to be introduced this month.

The boat was positioned directly in front of the gates of Downing Street and flew a sail reading ‘SOS! Israeli Pirates Sinking Our Laws! Rescue Universal Jurisdiction’. Protesters gathered around the boat chanting pro-Palestine slogans as well as ‘End Israeli piracy, no more impunity!’

There were no serious confrontations with the police, who seemed wary about engaging with the demonstrators in front of the video cameras and photographers present. After 20 minutes the activists decided to take the protest into the decision-making heart of the UK, and headed with the boat for parliament itself.

Police at parliament were shocked at the sight of a boat heading towards them and only reacted when the activists attempted to enter the grounds, pushing them back outside and shutting the gates. The boat was left in front of the Commons while the chants about Israeli impunity continued. Eventually the activists carried the boat over the road and left it with the Democracy Village camp in Parliament Square. Everyone dispersed peacefully around 9.45am.

While there has been much publicity surrounding Israel’s attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla, the UK government has managed to keep its plans for changes to universal jurisdiction very quiet. Following the political embarrassment caused by the issuing of an arrest warrant for war crimes against former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni last December, for her active role in the atrocities committed in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead, the government (both Labour and the coalition) has sought, under pressure from the Zionist lobby, to abolish private prosecution in universal jurisdiction and international cases.

This amounts to a gross politicisation of the British judicial system, placing the power to prosecute war criminals solely in the hands of the government. Strategic and diplomatic partners will thus enjoy even greater freedom to commit crimes against humanity safe in the knowledge that their friends in Westminster will not prosecute them should they come to the UK.

This is an issue that will have massive repercussions for those seeking justice not only for the Israeli crimes committed in the occupied Palestinian territories, but also for those people whose lives have been devastated in conflicts such as in Sudan, Rwanda, Cambodia, Former Yugoslavia, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Colombia and Sri Lanka, to name just a few. It is up to civil society to oppose the government’s proposed changes. British judicial tradition dictates that one is innocent until proven guilty. If the politicians and leaders of countries like Israel have nothing to hide, let them prove it before a court of law. The proposed changes will only make justice an even more distant possibility for those fighting for the rights of the dispossessed and destroyed in these conflicts.

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