Dermot O'Brien 🚢

I write as former Head of Maritime Section of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Alternate Head of UK Delegation to the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea Prepcom. 1) The flotilla is on the High Seas and not in Israel's 12 mile territorial sea. Israel has no jurisdiction. 2) The Israeli maritime blockade has been in place for 17 years and is an intrinsic part of the long term occupation found illegal in the ICJ advisory opinion 3) It is therefore not a short term measure in time of armed conflict as specified in the San Remo manual 4) In any event the San Remo rules explicitly state that humanitarian supplies may not be blockaded 5) The UN Commission of Inquiry has already determined that Israel is committing genocide. The blockade is plainly a part of the machinery of such genocide. For reasons 1 to 5 the Israeli attack on the flotilla is plainly illegal. 6) On the High Seas, the law applying on each ship is the law of its flag state. An attack by a state military warship on a vessel on the High Seas is an attack on the flag state of the vessel attacked. 7) Acts of illegal possession of vessels or abduction of crew on the High Seas should be pursued by each flag state as crimes within their domestic jurisdiction, not only in international law. 8) So the Metropolitan Police and DPP have an obligation to investigate and act over the abduction of persons from UK flagged vessels on the High Seas. This applies to each flag state mutatis mutandi. I hope you find this helpful.