Love of the Land: Smoke and mirrors over 'lawfare'

Smoke and mirrors over 'lawfare'

Melanie Phillips
The Spectator
04 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

The Israeli paper Ha’aretz , along with the Kadima leader Tzipi Livni, appear to have been taken in by Gordon Brown’s noisy but misleading announcement in today’s Daily Telegraph that he will change the law to prevent the abuse of ‘universal jurisdiction’ through threats to arrest visiting Israeli dignatories for ‘war crimes’, an abuse which has caused the cancellation of a number of high-profile visits by Israelis to the UK of which the latest was the planned visit by Livni. Brown wrote:

There is a case now, therefore, for the evidential basis on which arrest warrants can be allowed to be tougher and for restricting the right to prosecute the narrow range of crimes falling under universal jurisdiction to the Crown Prosecution Service alone.

Livni and Ha’aretz naively take this at face value to assume that the UK is to change the law. But this is not so. Brown has merely said he intends to change the law and will consult on the best way to do this. But with a general election to be held by June at the very latest, and with no legislation actually being tabled, there is clearly no time for any such change in the law to occur.

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Love of the Land: Smoke and mirrors over 'lawfare'