Ms Amelia Evans:

It is an important question. The risk of not acting is that this becomes a precedent and a playbook. We have seen other versions of this occurring in different threats to journalists around, say, the Orbán playbook where we have Orbán sort of gaining political control of the public broadcaster and the national media, and then getting allies to buy up all the private media. Then, it is a monopoly. I can see a possibility of this becoming a similar playbook around conflict, which is to attempt to seal the borders to keep outside journalists out and conduct warfare that results in the targeting and decimation of journalists, which we discussed. Basically, people can control or at least very much limit the reporting of the conflict that is occurring. These stakes could not be higher in terms of precedent.

I want to double down on something Ms Joris mentioned, which is the use of the ICJ. There is an opportunity for Ireland to intervene as a third party. Something in particular that both Article 19 and the ICJ have commented on is that there is a potential hook around the interim measure that La Cour internationale de Justice issued on 26 January in which it stated that Israel must "take effective measures to prevent the destruction and ensure the preservation of evidence related to allegations ... of Genocide.”

As we all understand, it is journalists who play a critical function and have done historically - Mr. Dawson mentioned Yugoslavia as an example - around the documentation of war crimes. There is a very strong legal argument that both could and should be made, even if we do not get a decision on it, for five years from now about why it is critical that journalists should be both protected but able to access conflict zones. That would be a very powerful potential third-party argument at the ICJ for Ireland to consider and explore how it could galvanise both itself and others that are supporters of media freedom with outlets through the Media Freedom Coalition or elsewhere. Those would be my specific suggestions, but I am happy to explore others too if time allows.