Thread by @declassifiedUK

Thread of 17 UK foreign/security policies violating domestic or international law.

But are there others? Tweet us if you think so (must be in same foreign/security policy areas not other domestic issues, and must be ongoing not in the past).

bit.ly/376rCtG

1/UK operates its own drone war and supports that of US, which has killed 100s of civilians and is widely regarded as illegal, breaching fundamental human rights.

2/UK is defying the International Court of Justice and UN by refusing to end its occupation of the Chagos islands.

3/ UK is defying UN Committee on Decolonisation demands that it seek a negotiated settlement to resolve the dispute over the status of Falklands islands. bit.ly/376rCtG

4/UK permits trade with goods from illegal Israel settlements, defying UN resolutions obliging it to "distinguish" between Israel & OPT

5/UK is failing to ensure Israeli compliance with international law by collaborating with Israel navy enforcing the illegal blockade of Gaza.

6/UK exports surveillance equipment to repressive states, violating its own export guidelines not to aid "internal repression”.

7/UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia has been found by the courts to be illegal, failing to assess the risk to civilians in Yemen.

8/ UK is defying the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention and the UN special rapporteur on torture in the case of Julian Assange. UN special rapporteur @NilsMelzer has called on UK officials to be investigated for possible "criminal conduct" over complicity in torture.

9/ Covert operations to overthrow governments, such as the UK has been conducting in Syria, are unlawful under international law. As a recent House of Commons briefing notes, “forcible assistance to opposition forces is illegal”. bit.ly/376rCtG

10/ UK is refusing to hold enquiry into its role in torture of detainees, breaching the UN convention against torture. A parliamentary report found 232 cases where UK personnel supplied questions to foreign agents after they knew/suspected that a detainee was being mistreated.

11/ The Ministry of Defence was revealed in 2019 to be operating a secret policy allowing ministers to approve actions which could lead to the torture of detainees - which supports the breaking of law by ministers. bit.ly/376rCtG

12/ UK govt plans to grant immunity for offences committed by soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Northern Ireland. These plans have been condemned by the UN Committee Against Torture which calls on UK to "ensure accountability" by establishing a public enquiry to investigate.

13/ GCHQ has been revealed to be secretly intercepting, processing and storing data concerning millions of people’s private communications. In 2018, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that UK laws enabling mass surveillance were unlawful, violating rights to privacy.

14/ In 2019, MI5 was found to have for years unlawfully retained innocent British people’s online location data, calls, messages and web browsing history without proper protections. bit.ly/376rCtG

15/ MI5 has been operating under a secret policy that allows its agents to commit serious crimes during counter-terrorism operations in the UK, according to lawyers for human rights organisations bringing a case to the Investigatory Powers Tribunal. bit.ly/376rCtG

16/ British intelligence officers can be authorised to commit crimes outside of the UK, according to section 7 of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act - known as the "James Bond clause". bit.ly/376rCtG

17/ UK is the only country in Europe or NATO to allow direct enlistment into the army at the age of 16. One in 4 UK army recruits is now a "child soldier". UK has also admitted "mistakenly" sending under-18s to war zones, violating a UN protocol to which it is a signatory.