Ms Blinne Ní Ghrálaigh:

A Leas-Chathaoirligh agus an coiste ar fad, thank you for the invitation to address you today on international law issues relevant to the proposed Bill. It is a real privilege to appear before the committee, and on a matter of such continuing, pressing importance, on which Ireland is leading the way. I will address members on the international legal framework to the proposed legislation; the exclusion of services from its current draft; and the interplay between international and EU legal obligations, relevant to the potential reinclusion of a prohibition on services in the final legislation.

With regard to the international legal framework, the International Court of Justice’s seminal 2024 advisory opinion is one of the main pillars of the current Bill. The ICJ advised unequivocally that Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful and must be ended as rapidly as possible.

It violates the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force and it denies the Palestinian people their right to self-determination. Israel’s policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territories also violate Article 3 of the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which prohibits racial segregation and apartheid, and constitute serious violations of international humanitarian law, IHL. All of those violations are violations of jus cogens, or peremptory norms of international law, norms that must be complied with, allowing for no derogation. Their violation creates obligations on the part of all states and international organisations to ensure compliance, such is their foundational importance both to the international legal order and to the international community as a whole. Ireland is thus duly obligated not to recognise as legal the situation arising from Israel’s unlawful presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, nor to “render aid or assistance in maintaining” that situation. Ireland must therefore distinguish in its dealings, including in its trade dealings, between the territory of the State of Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories.

The relevant international legal context to the Bill is not limited to the 2024 advisory opinion. It also includes Israel’s ongoing military assault on Gaza and its people, which the ICJ has repeatedly found to give rise to a real and imminent risk to the right of Palestinians not to be subjected to genocide. Trade with Israel is trade with a state that the Dáil, including the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste, considers to be committing genocide. Trade with Israel is also trade with a state whose serving Prime Minister has International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued against him for atrocity crimes, including persecution and starvation; whose policies of famine and hunger, and the obligations to which they give rise for third states, are the subject of yet another advisory opinion to be delivered by the ICJ later this year. Trade with Israel is trade with a state that has turned Gaza into what the UN Secretary General describes as a “killing field”.

Just as Ireland is bound not to aid or assist in the maintenance of Israel’s illegal presence in the occupied Palestinian territories, it is also bound not to aid or assist in the maintenance of the unlawful situations created by Israel’s violations of the jus cogensprohibition of genocide and foundational norms of international humanitarian law. This is over and above Ireland’s distinct obligations pursuant to the Genocide Convention to prevent genocide by all means reasonably available, and to the four Geneva Conventions to ensure respect by Israel for their basic IHL rules.

As against that background, the Bill’s current narrow focus on goods fails to ensure compliance even with the duty set out in the advisory opinion requiring Ireland to distinguish between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories in its dealings. That requires Ireland to “abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel ... which may entrench its unlawful presence” in the occupied Palestinian territories; and to “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel”. The Long Title of the proposed Bill transposes that clause from the advisory opinion but critically omits the words “investment relations”. As a consequence, and as acknowledged on 1 July 2025 by the Department of foreign affairs, it serves at best to bring Ireland “towards compliance” with its obligations under international law. However, it does not fully comply with them. There is no basis in international law for differentiating between trade in goods and trade in services in the manner proposed, and no international law justification for legislating for less than full compliance by Ireland with an international obligation articulated by the ICJ. On the contrary, provision in a revised Bill for the prohibition of trade in services with Israeli settlements and with Israeli firms profiting from them, and provision for the prevention of investment relations that assist in maintaining the illegal situations created by Israel, is the minimum required for compliance by Ireland with its international obligations. It would transform the draft Bill from what risks being little more than window dressing into a truly impactful, precedent-setting piece of legislation.

However, full compliance by Ireland with its international obligations in relation to the situation in the occupied Palestinian territories would also require a detailed, comprehensive, urgent due diligence audit of all Ireland’s dealings with Israel, not just trade-related, but all cultural, diplomatic, economic, financial, political and military relations, to ensure that they do not contribute to or otherwise assist in Israel’s serious violations of peremptory norms of international law. Such a review is long overdue.

From an international law perspective, Ireland cannot avoid its international law obligations nor avoid responsibility for any breach of such obligations by claiming to act through an international institution or to be bound by its rules. This is recognised by the Court of Justice of the European Union, which considers that “the rules of customary international law”, which would include the jus cogensnorms to which I have referred, “are binding upon the Community institutions and form part of the Community legal order”, requiring that EU law be interpreted and applied in a way that does not cause member states to beach those obligations. That is consistent with the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties, which provides that compliance with peremptory norms trumps all treaty provisions, including trade agreements. It is also consistent with the fact that violations of peremptory norms give rise to binding obligations on the part of international organisations as well as states, as advised by the ICJ in its 2024 advisory opinion. That includes the EU itself. Any failure by Ireland to comply with its international legal obligations, whether in purported compliance with EU law or otherwise, would engage the international responsibility of Ireland for breach of those obligations. Consequently, the spectre of legal proceedings against Ireland, which is advanced as a rationale for excluding services from the Bill, would not in fact be avoided. Ireland could face international and domestic proceedings for any failure to comply with its international obligations, including for any assistance provided in maintaining the unlawful situations created by Israel’s serious violations of peremptory norms of international law. Ireland must therefore ask itself which risk is it willing to take. What side of history will it now choose to be on?

Go raibh maith agaibh, members of the committee. I look forward to answering any questions they may have.