UK appoints new attorney general critical of Israeli crimes

London (QNN)- Richard Hermer, an experienced lawyer who has often spoken out against Israeli human rights violations, has been appointed by the new British government as the country’s attorney general.

As the Labour Party won a landslide majority in this week’s election, Prime Minister Keir Starmer selected Hermer as the chief legal adviser to the government on Friday.

Who is Hermer?

Hermer, 55, is not a member of parliament and will instead be given a life peerage to sit in the House of Lords.

With 31 years of experience at the bar, Hermer specializes in human rights, as well as public and environmental law.

He was previously at Doughty Street Chambers, where Starmer also worked, before moving to Matrix Chambers.

Critical of Israeli Human Rights Violations

Hermer has been vocal on issues relating to ‘Israel’ and the occupied Palestinian territories in recent months and years.

In October, he was among eight prominent Jewish lawyers who wrote a letter urging ‘Israel’ to remember its “international obligations” during its military offensive in Gaza.

“To be clear, collective punishment is prohibited by the laws of war,” the letter stated.

“Equally, international law requires combatants to ensure minimum destruction to civilian life and infrastructure. An intent to cause indiscriminate damage, rather than behaving in a precise manner to minimise damage would, if established, constitute a grave violation of international law.”

Hermer told the LBC radio station at the time that Israel’s siege on electricity, water and food in Gaza was likely in breach of international law.

“Sieges, per se, of military personnel might not be contrary to international law, but it is almost impossible to conceive of how a siege that deprives a civilian population of the basic necessities of life… is in compliance with international law,” he said.

The new attorney general’s interventions on ‘Israel’ and Palestine pre-date the ongoing Israeli genocide war on Gaza.

In May 2023, he was among dozens of lawyers who co-signed a Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights letter, calling on the UK government to constructively participate in an International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza.

“The Israeli government is led by a coalition of far-right parties whose common goal is the formal annexation of the West Bank and the extension of a one-state reality of unequal rights over more than five million Palestinians under occupation,” stated the letter, signed by Hermer.

The letter added: “It is perfectly possible that the court will consider aspects of that situation to amount to apartheid. An ICJ opinion on this point would also assist the UK, given that the current position of the UK government is that the question of apartheid is one to be decided by a court and not one that politicians can resolve without that.”

More than a decade earlier, in 2011, Hermer co-wrote a chapter in a book titled Corporate Complicity in Israel’s Occupation: Evidence from the London Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine.

The chapter explored the legal framework around the complicity of transnational companies in international humanitarian law violations.