NEWLY PUBLISHED LEGAL advice from two professors of EU trade law has said that Ireland is able to pass the Occupied Territories Bill, which would ban trade with illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine.

The legal opinion has been published as part of a campaign to get the Bill passed, five years after it went through the Dáil, and also contradicts the long-held Government position that trade with Israel is an EU issue, meaning a unilateral trade ban would not be possible. 

The Bill, which was brought forward by independent senator Frances Black in 2018, seeks to prevent Ireland from trading in goods and services imported from Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories.

Although it does not mention Israel or Palestine specifically, it aims to prohibit “the import and sales of goods, services and natural resources originating in illegal settlements in occupied territories”.

“In the six years since I first tabled the Occupied Territories Bill, the situation in Palestine has rapidly deteriorated,” said independent Senator Frances Black.

“While the world is focused on the horrific, genocidal war in Gaza, across the West Bank we’re also seeing one of the biggest land grabs in decades – more homes destroyed, families displaced, settlements built.

“How can we repeatedly condemn this as illegal but continue to trade in the goods produced? It’s clear hypocrisy and it must stop.”

This year there has been a major surge in Israeli military and settler violence in the West Bank, the largest territory in the now broken up Palestine. Since last week, Israeli forces have killed at least 30 Palestinians in raids and other attacks in the area.

The implementation of the Bill was dropped from the 2020 Programme for Government and senior Government figures have repeatedly said that trade with Israel is an issue that can only be addressed at the EU level.

Taoiseach Simon Harris said he received new legal advice from the current Attorney General in May. 

“That legal advice, in short, is that trade agreements are a European competence,” the Taoiseach said. 

However, in the opinion published today by the two experts, professor Takis Tridimas of King’s College London and Panos Koutrakos of the City University of London, the Government position is incorrect and Ireland is in fact entitled to pass the Bill. 

Tridimas published advice along similar lines back in 2018.

The two professors have also criticised advice issued by the former Attorney General in 2020 that blocked the Bill’s passing, calling it “erroneous” and “at odds with settled EU case law”. 

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in July of this year that all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law.

Israel has occupied Palestine, which includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, since 1967. 

The newly published legal advice was sought by a group of civil society organisations, trade unions, academics and political figures, who are calling on the Government to pass the Bill. The campaign has been renewed today.

Professors Tridimas and Koutrakos have stated that while the Occupied Territories Bill was always compatible with EU law, the ICJ ruling adds further support and that the Bill is now “necessary… as it gives effect to the duties” outlined by the ICJ.

They argue that the advice from former Attorney General Seamus Woulfe, leaked in 2020, has a series of major omissions and flaws.

“It is striking that the AG should have ignored the judgements in [two cases] where the European Court of Justice (ECJ) expressly held that Member States may deviate from EU law, including… on public policy grounds in order to protect fundamental rights,” the two professors said.

They said the analysis and conclusions of the former AG are “not only unconvincing but also at odds with settled ECJ case-law”.

Conor O’Neill of Christian Aid Ireland has said the ICJ “has made crystal clear that all countries, including Ireland, must immediately stop trading with Israel’s illegal settlements”.

“Failure to do so makes us complicit. We launch this campaign today to say that statements of condemnation are not good enough, morally or legally. It’s time for action.”

CEO of Trócaire CEO Caoimhe de Barra said: “It is time for Ireland to take a stronger stance. We need to introduce sanctions, we need to enact the Occupied Territories Bill and we need to do it now.”

Éamonn Meehan, Chair of Sadaka, the Ireland Palestine Alliance said that, “following the clarification by the ICJ of the laws governing occupation, it may be illegal not to pass the OTB”.

He said that with no legal reasons not to pass the Bill, “only a lack of political will” remains an obstacle to it.

“We plan to bring this campaign to every constituency and every candidate in the run-up to the General Election.”

The UN’s High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, recently described the situation in the West Bank as “a matter of grave concern”, and that was before the recent incursion by Israeli troops.

“Israel allows and facilitates an environment characterised by fear forcing communities from their homes and lands,” he said. 

According to the UN, more than 3,000 people have been displaced by the demolition or confiscation of their homes in the West Bank since 7 October, more than double the number displaced in the ten preceding months.