Photo: Former UK Supreme Court justices Lady Hale, Lord Wilson and Lord Sumption have signed a letter calling for the suspension of arms sales to Israel.

The Guardian reports: “Three former supreme court justices, including the court’s former president Lady [Brenda] Hale [and Lord Nicholas Wilson and Lord Jonathan Sumption], are among more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges warning that the UK government is breaching international law by continuing to arm Israel.”

The article continues: “The 17-page letter, which also amounts to a legal opinion, was sent on Wednesday evening and says: ‘…the sale of weapons and weapons systems to Israel… falls significantly short of your government’s obligations under international law.’”

On arming Israel, the letter further says: “The ICJ’s conclusion that there exists a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza has placed your government on notice that weapons might be used in its commission and that the suspension of their provision is thus a ‘means likely to deter’ and/or ‘a measure to prevent’ genocide.”

Notably, The Guardian also reports: “The findings of a YouGov poll, conducted before the [Israeli air] strike [that killed seven international humanitarian aid workers], suggested that the government and Labour are out of step with public sentiment, with a majority of voters – by 56% to 17% – in favour of an arms ban.”

Canadian government

While the Canadian government has now pledged to “cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel to ensure compliance with Canada’s arms export regime and increase efforts to stop the illegal trade of arms, including to Hamas”, it has also stated that, “Given the nature of the supply chain, suspending all open permits [arms exports approved prior to January 8] would have important implications for both Canada and its allies” and will therefore proceed.

Canadian unions

On April 2, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW), the National Union of Public and General Employees (NUPGE) and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) issued a statement that says: “We urge the Canadian government to immediately suspend trade in arms and military equipment with Israel, in accordance with Canada’s legal obligations. Canada must impose an arms embargo to help end the horrors in Gaza.”

They also highlight: “Canada exports military equipment to Israel, including via the United States. This means that Canada is at risk of being complicit in the violence and human rights violations Israel is perpetrating in Gaza. Canada also imports military equipment from Israel, which anti-war groups argue supports Israel’s military industry and operations.”

Peace Brigades International continues to follow this situation and to “call on the international community to suspend the supply of arms to Israel.”

Excerpt from letter signed by more than 600 lawyers, academics and retired senior judges in the United Kingdom:

Suspend the provision of weapons/weapons systems to Israel

Rationale: The ICJ’s conclusion that there exists a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza has placed your Government on notice that weapons might be used in its commission and that the suspension of their provision is thus a “means likely to deter” and/or “a measure to prevent” genocide.

The provision of military assistance and material to Israel may render the UK complicit in genocide as well as serious breaches of IHL. Customary international law recognises the concept of ‘aiding and assisting’ an international wrongful act.

A State is complicit in the commission of genocide if: “its organs were aware that genocide was about to be committed or was under way, and if the aid and assistance supplied, from the moment they became so aware onwards, to the perpetrators of the criminal acts or to those who were on the point of committing them, enabled or facilitated the commission of the acts.”

On 23 February 2024, 34 UN experts called for the immediate cessation of weapons exports to Israel, including export licences and military aid, observing as follows:

“Such transfers are prohibited even if the exporting State does not intend the arms to be used in violation of the law – or does not know with certainty that they would be used in such a way – as long as there is a clear risk.”

“The need for an arms embargo on Israel is heightened by the International Court of Justice’s ruling on 26 January 2024 that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza and the continuing serious harm to civilians since then”, the experts said. The Genocide Convention of 1948 requires States parties to employ all means reasonably available to them to prevent genocide in another state as far as possible. “This necessitates halting arms exports in the present circumstances”.

Continued arms exports to Israel moreover give rise to concerns regarding the United Kingdom’s compliance with its obligation under The Arms Trade Treaty.

Mechanism: The UK Government should suspend licensing arms for export to the Government of Israel. The UK’s Strategic Export Licencing Criteria (“SELC”) require the UK government to refuse to licence military equipment for export where there “is a clear risk that the items might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law”. The same principles apply where arms or military equipment might be used to commit or facilitate acts which constitute genocide.

Photo: “RCMP arrest and remove the protester’s designated police liaison representative shortly after arriving to enforce the injunction and break up the camp on the Salisbury Forest Service Road at the north end of Kootenay Lake.” Photo by Louis Bockner.

The Trail Times reports: “An independent review of RCMP actions in shutting down a 2022 logging protest near Argenta is still underway [more than] a year after it began, and the lawyer representing the people who were arrested says the delay is predictable.”

“Noah Ross, a Denman Island-based lawyer representing the arrested protesters, said the delays are an indication that as Canadians we do not value ‘timely, impactful police accountability’ as much as we value ‘getting people off the road so industry can happen’.”

Photo: Noah Ross.

The article continues: “Ross thinks the investigation should be about ‘officer misconduct’, not just about policies and systemic issues. ‘It’s not about what the complainants were most interested in, which was having an independent investigator look at RCMP conduct,’ Ross said.”

C-IRG operations should be stopped

A year ago, on March 17, 2023, the Kimberly Bulletin had reported: “Noah Ross, a lawyer who represents [Last Stand West Kootenay], told the Nelson Star that he thinks the CIRG should be disbanded, or at least its operations should be stopped, while the investigation is underway, because the unit committed a number of human rights violations while making its Argenta arrests.”

That article adds: “He said the CIRG created a large exclusion zone that blocked local residents from accessing their homes and travelling on a public road. The officers sealed the whole area off, he said, and aggressively arrested many people who were not actually blocking the road. ‘It seems a lot of these human rights violations or charter rights violations were planned into their operations,’ Ross said.”

Systemic investigation launched on March 9, 2023

The terms of reference for the CRCC systemic investigation launched on March 9, 2023, notes: “The file review will focus on the C-IRG’s governance, command and control, and operational planning, as well as its activities and enforcement operations with respect to at least three sites [including] the Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd injunction on Salisbury Creek Forestry Road.”

C-IRG arrests on Argenta forest service road

In May 2022, the C-IRG arrested 17 people positioned near the bottom of a forest service road at the north end of Kootenay Lake, near Kaslo.

As Louis Bockner has reported in The Narwhal: “[The road] was being occupied in an effort to protect a 6,200-hectare strip of forest surrounded by a provincial wilderness conservancy. Parts of the area, known as the Argenta-Johnsons Landing face, were set to be logged by Cooper Creek Cedar Ltd. in April [2022]. Due to the occupation, three weeks had passed without a chainsaw or feller buncher roaring to life.”

That article adds: “’It’s brutal that people got arrested that had no intention to’, says Noah Ross, a lawyer who is representing many of those arrested. ‘It’s scary and [there’s] a lot of stress and expenses.’”

“According to Ross, who is also representing land defenders arrested at Fairy Creek, the RCMP’s approach to land defenders has changed in the last decade. He’s observed an increase in the use of exclusion zones — areas where members of the press and legal observers are denied access in the name of creating safe work areas for officers.”

“Ross sees this as an escalation in tactics by the Community-Industry Response Group and believes that the arrests of people wishing to peacefully protest were unlawful. ‘It sounds like there were a couple of arrests of people in hardblocks, which were reasonable,’ Ross says. ‘But I don’t know that any of the other [people] were properly arrestable under the injunction.’”

The article further notes: “Ross says the same troubling approach was taken in November [2021] on Wet’suwet’en territory. ‘It seems like there’s a culture of non-accountability to civil liberties within [the Community-Industry Response Group], where they’re willing to kind of go beyond the injunction in order to try and break a camp,’ adding that extending that to a small blockade in the Kootenays just seems ‘completely out of historical tradition in relation to rural forests.’”

Webinar on C-IRG violence

To watch our 1-hour webinar from April 16, 2023, that features Bockner speaking about the situation at Argenta, click here.

That webinar also features powerful presentations from Wet’suwet’en land defender Jocey Alec, Professor Tia Dafnos, and frontline activist Molly Murphy. The panel was moderated by PBI-Canada Board member Phil Henderson.

We continue to follow this.

Photo: Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly.

Is Canada choosing to export “military goods” to Israel approved prior to January 8, 2024, based on commercial “implications” while disregarding human rights commitments in the Genocide Convention and the Arms Trade Treaty?

On March 19, the House of Commons passed a motion — in a 204 to 118 vote — stating Canada will “cease the further authorization and transfer of arms exports to Israel to ensure compliance with Canada’s arms export regime and increase efforts to stop the illegal trade of arms, including to Hamas.”

The Trudeau government weakened the original wording of the motion that had called on Canada to “suspend all trade in military goods and technology with Israel and increase efforts to stop the illegal trade of arms, including to Hamas.”

The Globe and Mail has reported: “By mid-day on March 18, one source said, more than 70 Liberal MPs had told the whip’s office that they would vote with the original version of the motion. Several sources said the government expected that number to keep rising to between 80 and 90. Others believed it could climb even higher, opening the possibility that the motion would pass.” This prompted the government to “scramble to convince New Democrats to accept amendments and avoid exposing deep divisions in the governing party.”

According to NDP Member of Parliament Heather McPherson, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly approached her before the vote and pushed for the softer language on arms exports because: “They didn’t want the liability of cancelling arms contracts.”

The following day, the Canadian Press reported this statement from Global Affairs Canada: “Since Jan. 8, the government has not approved new arms export permits to Israel and this will continue until we can ensure full compliance with our export regime. …Given the nature of the supply chain, suspending all open permits would have important implications for both Canada and its allies.”

As such, export permits issued before January 8 are still in effect.

This is significant because The Maple has reported: “The Trudeau government authorized at least $28.5 million of new permits for military exports to Israel during the first two months of the state’s brutal war on Gaza… The information provided by GAC does not indicate the time period for which the newly authorized permits are valid for, meaning not all the goods may have been exported in 2023.”

The case of LAV exports to Saudi Arabia

Back in April 2016, then-Foreign Affairs Stephane Dion, defending the controversial decision to export Light Armoured Vehicles (LAVs) to Saudi Arabia, told the House of Commons: “It was to honour the signature of a contract.”

He then added: “I have the power to allow the export permit or revoke them according to the behaviour of the country regarding human rights on the use of the equipment. The equipment has not been misused since 1993.”

Then in February 2018, speaking on the same issue of LAV exports to Saudi Arabia in the context of C-47, legislation that would bring Canada in accord with the Arms Trade Treaty, then-Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland highlighted: “Canada will honour, to the greatest extent possible, pre-existing contracts.”

The Canadian Press added: “Freeland said Canada’s word as a ‘trusted partner’ in international negotiations has to be protected.”

At that time, then Amnesty International Secretary-General Alex Neve rightly commented: “Honouring contracts is no defence to or justification for action that may lead to serious human rights violations.”

Brief suspension of arms sales to Saudi Arabia

In August 2018, in response to a Foreign Affairs Department tweet expressing concern about human rights in Saudi Arabia, their government responded by implementing a freeze on “all new trade and investment transactions”.

Then in November 2018, Canada announced it would review all Saudi arms sales and freeze new export permits.

But by September 2019, a Global Affairs Canada briefing note to Freeland stated it had found no credible evidence linking Canadian exports of military equipment to human rights violations by Saudi Arabia.

And the ban on new export permits was lifted by April 2020.

In March 2023, The Breach reported on the likely reasons Canada upheld its contract to sell LAVs to Saudi Arabia: “Cheap reliable oil, new markets for Canadian corporations, and a heavily-armed proxy for Western countries. According to a document obtained by The Breach, these are among the reasons Justin Trudeau’s government continues to send massive amounts of weapons to Saudi Arabia.”

The Arms Trade Treaty

It is also notable Dion and Freeland made their arguments before Canada formally became a State Party to the Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on September 17, 2019.

Now, Kelsey Gallagher of Project Ploughshares comments: “Under Article 7(7) of the ATT, States Parties are encouraged to reassess previously approved arms exports when new information emerges after the initial authorization of an export permit.”

That new information could include the January 26^th ruling by the International Court of Justice that found it plausible that Israel’s actions amount to genocide.

It could also include the statement on March 26 by UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese who found: “There are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating the commission of the crime of genocide…has been met.”

Albanese further specified: “Israel has committed three acts of genocide with the requisite intent: causing seriously serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group.”

As such, according to Albanese, Israel meets three of the five criteria for committing a genocide defined by the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (that Canada ratified in 1952).

A question

As such, the question appears to be: Is Canada, in choosing to export already approved military goods to Israel, valuing “the nature of the supply chain”, and validating past justifications about “the signature of a contract” and its role as a “trusted partner” in international negotiations, above its human rights obligations?

World Beyond War Canada tweet.

Photo: An Israeli F-35I with four GBU-31 bombs in the foreground. The Boeing-developed Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) guidance tail kit converts an unguided MK-84 bomb into a “smart” guided bomb unit (GBU).

Today, on the 176^th day of the Israeli assault on Gaza in which 82 people were killed over the last 24 hours, and in which an attack on Rafah continues to appear imminent, news is breaking of new weapons transfers to Israel.

The Washington Post reports: “The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington’s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.”

It then explains: “The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter. [And] last week, the State Department authorized the transfer of 25 F-35A fighter jets and engines worth roughly $2.5 billion, U.S. officials said. The case was approved by Congress in 2008, so the department was not required to provide a new notification to lawmakers.”

The MK84 and MK82 bombs are manufactured by General Dynamics Ordinance and Tactical Systems (GDOTS), while the F-35 fighter jets are built by Lockheed Martin. General Dynamics also produces the F-16 fighter jet for the Israeli air force. Both the F-35 and F-16 are capable of carrying the MK84 and MK82 bombs.

Photo: An Israeli F-16 armed with GBU-31 bombs (2,000 pound MK84 equipped with a JDAM guidance system).

Shareholders

Among the top Canadian shareholders in General Dynamics (as of December 31, 2023) are the Royal Bank of Canada ($808,850,000.), Bank of Montreal ($370,538,000.), and the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board ($38,747,000.)

Defense World has also noted: “Royal Bank of Canada reissued an ‘outperform’ rating and set a $300.00 price target on shares of General Dynamics in a research report on Thursday, January 25th.” General Dynamics has posted that RBC Capital Markets analyst following them is Ken Herbert at (415) 633-8583.

Defense World has also reported: “[General Dynamics] recently declared a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Friday, May 10th. Shareholders of record on Friday, April 12th will be paid a dividend of $1.42 per share.”

Fintel notes that RBC owns 3,114,908 shares in General Dynamics.

Along with the $809M that the Royal Bank of Canada holds in General Dynamics, it also holds $934M ($933,605,000) in Lockheed Martin.

Components

Project Ploughshares has highlighted: “The United States is not only the largest provider of military aid to Israel but is also typically the largest consumer of Canadian-made military goods in any given year. Project Ploughshares conservatively estimates that the value of annual Canadian military exports to the United States is well over C$1-billion. Some Canadian-made components transferred to the United States, including components integrated in the F-35 aircraft, are eventually supplied to the IDF.”

“Canadian suppliers have manufactured segments of the F-35’s airframe and a host of internal components, including engine monitoring sensors, printed circuit boards, segments of the landing gear, inserts of the weapons bay door, and the horizontal tail of the aircraft.”

They add: “Critical aspects of the aircraft apparently unaltered on the [Israeli Air Force] F-35I variant include the F135 engine, elements of the landing gear, and parts of the fuselage, all of which contain Canadian components.”

Oil exports from Canada

The Guardian has also reported: “Israeli jets and tanks bombarding Palestinians are being fueled by some of the world’s most profitable fossil fuel companies [according to research by Data Desk commissioned by Oil Change International]. Israel relies on crude oil and refined products from overseas to run its large fleet of fighter jets, tanks and other military vehicles.”

The article notes that one ship with JP8 jet fuel left the US for Israel on December 6, 2023, and another departed on February 9, 2024.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) adds: “Canada is now the largest single source of U.S. total petroleum and crude oil imports. …Some of the crude oil that the U.S. imports is refined by U.S. refineries into petroleum products—such as gasoline, heating oil, diesel fuel, and jet fuel—that the U.S. later exports.”

It is not known how much of the 4.36 million barrels of crude oil per day that Canada exports to the U.S. could be then shipped by the U.S. to Israel to fuel its fighter jets, tanks and other military equipment.

In April 2023, CBC reported: “A report from a coalition of environmental groups shows that Royal Bank of Canada was the biggest fossil fuel financier in the world last year after providing over $42 billion US in funding.”

ICJ ruling

The International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague ruled this past January 26th that “there is a real and imminent risk that irreparable prejudice” will be caused to the rights of Palestinians in Gaza under the Genocide Convention (paragraph 74) and that “at least some” of South Africa’s claims that Palestinian rights needing protection under the Genocide Convention were “plausible” (paragraph 54).

Toronto-based law professors Heidi Matthews (Osgoode Hall Law School), Faisal A. Bhabha (York University) and Mohammad Fadel (University of Toronto) have commented: “The Export and Import Permits Act forbids arms permits to be issued if there’s a ‘substantial risk’ that the goods could be used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international humanitarian or human rights law. Because the ICJ found a serious risk of genocide in Gaza, continuing to export arms to Israel would be illegal. It would also be flagrantly inconsistent with Canada’s obligation to prevent genocide, and could expose Canada and Canadian officials to liability for participation in genocide.”

UN Guiding Principles

The Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 2011, cautions: “The responsibility to respect human rights is a global standard of expected conduct for all business enterprises wherever they operate. It exists independently of States’ abilities and/or willingness to fulfil their own human rights obligations, and does not diminish those obligations. And it exists over and above compliance with national laws and regulations protecting human rights.”

This responsibility extends to companies that build fighter jets and bombs, those that provide the components, those that fuel these machines, and to those that finance them.

Actions challenging RBC, April 6

RBC will hold its annual meeting in Toronto on April 11. Just prior to that there will be 25+ actions in multiple cities on April 6. The action taking place in Ottawa is noted here.

Shut down CANSEC, May 29-30

A mobilization is also being planned during the CANSEC arms show in Ottawa where General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin and multiple other transnational weapons companies, including Elbit Systems, will be present.

We continue to follow this.

Peace Brigades International calls on the international community to “show its strong support for such important institutions for global justice as the International Court of Justice and to “suspend the supply of arms to Israel”.