June 2022 Newsletter Newsletter

The UK-Israel Free Trade Agreement

The UK and Israel are negotiating a new free trade agreement which both parties hope will be agreed by the end of the year. Amnesty has serious concerns that it could allow the Israeli authorities to consolidate unfounded claims to occupied Palestinian land. This is because a lack of clarity in the terms of a new trade deal could see the UK treating goods sourced from illegal Israeli settlements built on stolen Palestinian land as legitimate items of trade, thus tacitly supporting Israel’s wider occupation, settlement, and annexation project.  

As part of the trade agreement consultation process, Amnesty has called on the government to focus on three critical areas to protect human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and uphold its international law obligations:

  • the exclusion of goods originating from the illegal Israeli settlements;
  • the introduction of arrangements preventing products originating from the OPT from being designated as originating in Israel; and
  • the implementation of a human rights impact assessment and monitoring process.

To read more, see: rb.gy/zhobbx