An Israeli airstrike on a school-turned-shelter in Gaza City on Monday is believe to have killed 36 people. Photograph: Mohammed Saber/EPA
[Guardian] Exclusive: Letter to PM signed by retired supreme court justices among others says lack of action will imperil international legal system
The UK must impose sanctions on the Israeli government and its ministers and also consider suspending it from the UN to meet its “fundamental international legal obligations”, more than 800 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges, including former supreme court justices, have said.
In a letter to the prime minister, they welcome Keir Starmer’s joint statement last week with the leaders of France and Canada warning that they were prepared to take “concrete actions” against Israel. But they urge him to act without delay as “urgent and decisive action is required to avert the destruction of the Palestinian people of Gaza”.
The signatories, including the former supreme court justices Lord Sumption and Lord Wilson, court of appeal judges and more than 70 KCs, say that war crimes, crimes against humanity and serious violations of international humanitarian law are being committed in Palestine.
There is mounting evidence of genocide, which is either being perpetrated or at a minimum at serious risk of occurring, the letter states, highlighting recent comments by the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who said Israel’s army would “wipe out” what remains of Palestinian Gaza.
The signatories tell Starmer: “All states, including the UK, are legally obliged to take all reasonable steps within their power to prevent and punish genocide; to ensure respect for international humanitarian law; and to bring to an end violations of [the right to self-determination]. The UK’s actions to date have failed to meet those standards … The international community’s failure to uphold international law in relation to the occupied Palestinian territory contributes to a deteriorating international climate of lawlessness and impunity and imperils the international legal system itself. Your government must act now, before it is too late.”
UK Labour Party government ministers Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are partners complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide. The UK has provided Israel with arms, military and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.Genocide denier and Current UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer is quoted that he supports Zionism without qualification. He also confirms that UK air force support has been essential in Israel’s mass-murdering genocide. Includes URLs https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-100-spy-flights-over-gaza-in-support-of-israel/ and https://youtu.be/O74hZCKKdpAUK Conservative Party leader Kemi ‘not a genocide‘ Badenoch explains her reality that the Earth is flat, the Moon is made of cheese and that she was born from Unicorn horn dust
“The shift to a low-carbon economy is not just inevitable, it’s already happening. Yet the board is persisting with a transition strategy that is fundamentally flawed.”
A group of activist investors sued Shell’s board of directors on Wednesday for failing to “deliver the reduction in emissions that is needed to keep global climate goals within reach.”
ClientEarth, an environmental law charity and institutional investor in Shell, described the case as the first time a company board is facing a shareholder lawsuit for inadequately preparing to transition away from fossil fuels.
“Shell may be making record profits now due to the turmoil of the global energy market, but the writing is on the wall for fossil fuels long term,” Paul Benson, a senior lawyer at ClientEarth, said in a statement. “The shift to a low-carbon economy is not just inevitable, it’s already happening. Yet the board is persisting with a transition strategy that is fundamentally flawed, leaving the company seriously exposed to the risks that climate change poses to Shell’s future success—despite the board’s legal duty to manage those risks.”
The lawsuit, which is backed by large institutional investors that collectively hold 12 million shares of Shell, alleges that the oil giant’s 11 directors are violating the Companies Act, a U.K. law that requires corporate boards to “promote the success” of the business.
By failing to sufficiently manage climate risks and implement “an energy transition strategy that aligns with the Paris Agreement,” Shell is flouting its legal obligations, the lawsuit contends.
“Shell’s Board on the other hand maintains that its ‘Energy Transition Strategy’—including its plan to be a net-zero emissions business by 2050—is consistent with the 1.5°C temperature goal of the Paris Agreement,” ClientEarth notes. “It also claims that its plan to halve emissions from its global operations by 2030 is ‘industry-leading,’ however this covers less than 10% of its overall emissions.”
“It is in the best interests of the company, its employees, and its shareholders—as well as the planet—for Shell to reduce its emissions harder and faster than the board is currently planning.”
ClientEarth and its backers are asking the High Court of Justice in London to force Shell’s board to “adopt a strategy to manage climate risk in line with its duties under the Companies Act” and in compliance with a 2021 Dutch court ruling ordering the oil giant to cut its total carbon emissions by 45% by 2030.
“Long term, it is in the best interests of the company, its employees, and its shareholders—as well as the planet—for Shell to reduce its emissions harder and faster than the board is currently planning,” Benson said.
Jacqueline Amy Jackson, the head of responsible investment at London CIV—one of the institutional backers of ClientEarth’s lawsuit—said that “we do not believe the board has adopted a reasonable or effective strategy to manage the risks associated with climate change affecting Shell.”
“In our view,” Jackson added, “a board of directors of a high-emitting company has a fiduciary duty to manage climate risk, and in so doing, consider the impacts of its decisions on climate change, and to reduce its contribution to it.”
Shell said in response that ClientEarth’s suit “has no merit.”
ClientEarth filed its complaint a week after Shell announced that its profits doubled in 2022, surging to a record $40 billion as households across Europe and around the world struggled with high energy costs. The company said it returned $26 billion to shareholders last year through dividends and stock buybacks.
Earlier this month, the advocacy group Global Witness filed a complaint with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission accusing Shell of “lumping together some of its gas-related investments with its spending on renewables to inflate its overall investment in renewable sources of energy,” misleading investors and authorities.
“Shell’s so-called renewable and energy solutions category is pure fiction,” said Zorka Milin, a senior adviser at Global Witness. “The company is living in fantasy land if it thinks fossil gas has any place in the much-needed energy transition. Shell’s business model has always been, and continues to be, overwhelmingly based on climate-polluting fossil fuels.”
Shell is also facing lawsuits from nearly 14,000 Nigerians whose communities have been devastated by the company’s pollution and oil spills.
