Occupied Territories Bill: Cabinet to approve drafting of law to curb trade with illegal settlements

Vivienne Clarke

Ireland is set to become the first EU country to limit trade with Israel's illegal settlements as the reworked Occupied Territories Bill is brought to the Cabinet by Tánaiste Simon Harris.

Mr Harris will on Tuesday ask the Cabinet to approve the drafting of the general scheme of a Bill to ban the importation of goods from illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

The Fine Gael leader said last week he had a “legal view” that including services in the Bill was not possible.

It is understood the heads – a summary of each section of the legislation – are already at an advanced stage and will be published within a few weeks. They would then be sent to the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs for discussion before the end of June.

Senator s Black told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland that she was “very relieved to finally see some action” on the Bill which she first proposed in 2018. She said it was an important step that the Bill was finally going to Cabinet.

However, Ms Black said it was “horrible” to think that so many people had continued to suffer since she first proposed the Bill in 2018.

“It would have been great if we had it done back then, but it's never too late to do the right thing and we need to see action urgently.

Ms Black said her team had published detailed legal advice “from some of the most eminent lawyers in the world, making absolutely clear that we can include services in the legislation if the political will is there.

“Just last week, over 400 of Ireland's most high-profile lawyers wrote to Government saying we can do this. And the Tánaiste has said that he's open to being challenged on this. And he said he's no objection at all to include the services in the legislation if we can get the legal detail right and that is what the Dáil Foreign Affairs Committee has been asked to look at when the Bill goes through there in a few weeks.”

The Bill could be “done and dusted” by the autumn, she added, saying she would be willing for the Oireachtas to stay in session “well into the summer” to get the Bill ed in full.

She said she had been working on the legislation for seven years and would love to see President Michael D Higgins sign it into law before he leaves office as “he has played a blinder when it comes to Palestine.”

Meanwhile, Sinn Féin's Mairead Farrell said goods and services needed to be included in the Bill.

The Galway West TD told Newstalk radio that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) had “very clearly” said the settlements in the West Bank were illegal and that all trade must end with them.

Fine Gael TD Barry Ward pointed out that the amount of trade between Ireland and the West Bank settlements was small at less than €200,000, and said the Bill was “not going to stop a single bullet being fired in Gaza.”

“But the principle involved in this is hugely important,” he added. “And that's why Simon Harris has massively accelerated this Bill since he became Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade. And that is why the Government has committed to making it law.”

Mr Ward said the Bill originally drafted by Ms Black was “absolutely illegal” which was why a new Bill had to be drafted.

“The Government has committed to ing this law. There's no point in ing a law that is going to fall at the first hurdle in of any legal challenge. The reason that we can now do this, is not just because we want to, but because of the decision of the ICJ as a preliminary opinion that there is probably genocide happening in Gaza, and that's what empowers the Irish Government to actually make this legislation. It can only happen in relation, for example, to the West Bank.

“The Bill that s drafted applies to any illegal settlement anywhere in the world, including somewhere like Crimea or Western Sahara or wherever it might be. So it's important to that trade policy and trade legislation is extremely complex, and it takes time to put it together.”