Please sign our Open Letter to the Prime Minister, First Minister of Scotland, Lord Advocate & Police Scotland. We are Scottish Lawyers Against Genocide and call upon the UK and Scottish governments to meet their international legal duties to prevent and respond to the genocide in Gaza.

We want to ensure accountability and reinforce international law against genocide by identifying what the UK and Scottish governments can do to prevent and sanction genocide and famine in Gaza and the occupied territories.

Our Open Letter is below and we hope that Scottish lawyers will sign and support.

“Dear Prime Minister, First Minister of Scotland, Lord Advocate, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and Police Scotland

We are members of the legal community in Scotland who call upon the UK and Scottish Governments to uphold the Rule of Law and adhere to their legal obligations under international law to prevent and punish genocide; to ensure respect for international humanitarian law and to bring an end to violations of jus cogens norms of international law.

We endorse the UK Lawyers Letter published on 26 May 2025 and support its calls upon the UK Government to take the following concrete actions:

• Use all available means to secure an immediate, unconditional and permanent ceasefire in Gaza and to ensure the urgent, unconditional and unimpeded resumption of aid, at scale, to the population of Gaza;
• Use all available means to secure the lifting of Israel’s ban upon the United Nations Relief and Works Agency throughout the entire occupied Palestinian territory (“oPt”, Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem);
• Impose financial and immigration sanctions in relation to Israeli Ministers and other civil and military personnel reasonably suspected of involvement in unlawful conduct;
• Review existing trade ties with Israel; suspend the 2030 Roadmap for closer UK-Israel partnership; and impose trade sanctions upon Israel; and
• Confirm that the UK will adhere to its obligation to execute arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court in relation to the oPt.

We urge the Scottish Ministers to use all available means to demand the UK Government act in respect of reserved matters.

We support the motion agreed by the Scottish Parliament on 3 September 2025 and the Scottish Government’s decision not to give any new funding to arms firms who deal with Israel (or any nation “where there is plausible evidence of genocide being committed”). We call upon Scottish Ministers to publish a detailed plan, with robust independent checks and balances, to ensure that no Scottish public money is used in contravention of international law or in complicity of genocide.

We endorse the letter by the Scottish Human Rights Commission, dated 4 August 2025, on Policing of Pro-Palestine Protests and Human Rights. We call upon Police Scotland and the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service to ensure that people’s Article 10 and Article 11 rights under the European Convention of Human Rights are fully safeguarded while peacefully protesting.

Signed.“