Mr. Gerry Liston:

I thought the Department was clear yesterday that it believes the obligation set out by the International Court of Justice is to ban both goods and services. There is a reason for that language and I will just give a bit of the background. The ICJ set out what is called a negative obligation and a positive obligation. The former is for states to abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the occupied Palestinian territory or parts thereof that may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory. "Abstain" is the standard language for a negative obligation. The positive obligation is to take steps to prevent the trade or investment relations that I mentioned previously. The phrase "take steps to prevent" is to adopt legislation and take other administrative measures. That is very standard language. We see similar language in judgments of the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, in relation to adopting a legislative and administrative framework that creates an effective deterrent. Different words get used but they translate, in colloquial terms, into "ban".