Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what his policy is on the making of a request to the International Court of Justice to provide an opinion on the legal consequences of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories.

The UK is a strong supporter of the International Court of Justice (ICJ), and we respect the independence of the Court. The UK believes that the latest ICJ referral on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict represents an inappropriate recourse to the advisory opinion mechanism as this undermines the efforts to achieve a settlement through direct negotiations between the parties, which remains the only viable path to a lasting peace.