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The UN Human Rights Council has concluded its special session on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and East Jerusalem and voted to endorse the UN commissioned report by Richard Goldstone.

The UK did not participate in the vote. We were involved in intensive discussions with Israel and the Palestinians about potential substantive improvements in the situation on the ground. The UK had asked for a delay to the vote.

Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, explained the UK position in a number of interviews on 16 October:

"We certainly did participate in the debate, we made absolutely clear that the Goldstone report raised very serious issues that we wanted to see addressed.

We also made clear that the resolution that was put today was unbalanced, but the reason that we didn’t finally vote was very simple; Prime Minister Brown and President Sarkozy were in the middle of detailed discussions with Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel about three key issues; about the establishment of an independent inquiry, about humanitarian aid to Gaza and about the restart of the peace process.

And I’m afraid that the vote was called in the middle of those discussions and we thought it was right therefore to continue with our work on the three fundamental issues so that that could really contribute to a reversal of what at the moment is a dangerous spiral and distrust and mistrust in the Middle East."

The session was attended by Peter Gooderham, the UK's Permanent Representative for the UK Mission to the UN in Geneva. Peter Gooderham delivered a statement during the meeting in which he said:

"The report of the United Nations fact-finding Mission did have flaws. Neither the report nor the resolution reflected the right of Israel to protect its citizens or paid sufficient attention to Hamas's actions. It also made broad interpretation of international law, with which United Kingdom did not agree. Because Israel did not cooperate with the Mission, the report lacked an authoritative Israeli perspective.

For these reasons, the United Kingdom could not fully endorse the report and its recommendations and could not vote for the resolution as tabled."

Read the full statement

On Wednesday 14 October, Sir John Sawers, UK Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN, delivered a statement during an open debate on the Middle East.

"The United Kingdom is committed to ensuring accountability for violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law wherever they occur. We look forward to further discussion in the Human Rights Council."

Read his full statement

More about our work on the Middle East Peace Process

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