Activities

• Global Legal Action Network (GLAN) has taken part in several anti-Israel “lawfare” and BDS (boycotts, divestments and sanctions) campaigns.

Lawfare

• In October 2023, GLAN and Al-Haq sent a letter to UK Secretary of State for International Trade, Kemi Badenoch, demanding that the UK “suspend all weapons export licences to Israel.” After the government refused to enact an arms embargo, GLAN and Al-Haq filed a legal action with the UK High Court, on December 6, 2023 attempting to force a “halt [in] UK weapons sales to Israel over illegal attacks on civilians who are trapped and under siege in Gaza.”
  • In February 2024, the UK High Court dismissed the case as there was a “high hurdle” to establish that the UK had been irrational in its decision-making, and there was “no realistic prospect of that hurdle being surmounted.” The NGOs appealed the decision, and in April, a High Court judge granted a judicial review hearing for November 2024. Following the hearing, the Court announced it would make its ruling in early January. As of February, 2025, this has not yet happened. 
• In September 2024, GLAN and Al-Haq sent a letter to UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Secretary of State for Business and Trade Jonathan Reynolds, and Defence Secretary John Healey, “putting them on notice of their potential criminal liability for atrocity crimes currently being carried out in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (“oPt”) by Israel.”
• On April 22, 2021, GLAN was a signatory on a letter to the  International Criminal Court’s Prosecutor calling to investigate “forced displacement of Palestinians from Sheikh Jarrah…and the related war crimes and crimes against humanity on the territory of Palestine.”
• On April 29, 2020, GLAN was a signatory on a letter to the International Criminal Court’s Prosecutor calling to open “a full and thorough investigation into international crimes committed in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip.”

BDS Activities 

• GLAN “led” the “drafting process” of the Irish “Control of Economic Activity (Occupied territories)” bill, acknowledging that “the Bill will apply automatically on enactment only to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.” The bill would make it illegal for Irish citizens and residents to import or sell “settlement goods” or to provide or attempt to provide “settlement services.” The Old City and Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall, are considered “settlements” under the bill.
  • In 2018, GLAN lobbied the Irish Seanad to push the bill. 
  • As of March 2025, the bill has still not passed. On 17 February 2025, Taoiseach Micheál Martin confirmed that the bill will not be ready before the summer Dáil recess.
• On February 17, 2025, GLAN was a signatory on a letter demanding governments producing F-35 fighter jets immediately halt all arms transfers to Israel, including the “F-35 fighter jets, components, and spare parts.”
• In February 2025, GLAN signed a letter addressed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, calling for a “ban all trade and business between the EU and Israel’s illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), including East Jerusalem.”
• On January 16, 2025, GLAN tweeted, “Israel’s attempts to eliminate Palestinians from their land are likely to continue after Israel-Hamas call a truce – now is the time to keep up the pressure. Efforts to hold companies and government officials accountable for complicity must be supported.”
• On May 15, 2024, GLAN, Al-Haq, and Sadaka Ireland submitted a complaint to Ireland’s Criminal Assets Bureau against the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, alleging “investments in 11 companies linked to Israeli war crimes.” The NGOs called to “apply proceeds of crime and anti-money laundering legislation to investments linked to war crimes committed by Israel through its occupation of Palestinian territory.”
• In March 2021, GLAN and SOMO (Centre for Research on Multinational Corporations) published a report titled “Tainted tourism” that “profile[d] nine industry leaders in the package tourism sector who contribute to and benefit from the maintenance of Israel’s illicit settlements economy in the occupied Palestinian territory.” The report called “on these tour operators to remove settlement sites from their itineraries…. on the home States of tour operators to bring an end to business transactions with these settlement sites” (emphasis added).
• On April 27, 2020, GLAN and Al-Haq published a report, “Business and Human Rights in Occupied Territory: A Guidance for Upholding Human Rights.” The report, submitted to the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights, examined “what steps businesses should take in their due diligence processes to mitigate and prevent abuses” in occupied territories, using case studies on the Palestinian, Crimean, and Western Saharan situations.
• In 2019, GLAN lobbied in support of the discriminatory UN database of businesses operating across the 1949 Armistice line, aimed at bolstering BDS campaigns against Israel. GLAN has signed multiple letters to the UN calling for the database to be implemented without further delay.
• In 2018, GLAN made a submission to the UN, with SOMO and the FIDH, in the context of its establishment of a database of “businesses operating in Israel’s settlements in the occupied Palestinian territory.” The database “sets out the criteria for inclusion of a business… so as to provide sufficient guidance to businesses and home-states about how certain business transactions related to the settlements adversely impact human rights.“

Political Advocacy 

• On February 5, 2025, GLAN and other anti-Israel NGOs jointly sent a letter to the UK government alleging “support for Israel’s unlawful attacks on Palestinians, Lebanon and Syria.” According to the NGOs, “given the overwhelming body of evidence that Israeli forces have been committing genocide and other serious violations of international humanitarian law… notably persecution, starvation, extermination, murder… the government knows that it has been breaching domestic and international law by transferring arms to Israel…”
• On January 16, 2025, GLAN tweeted, “While the news of a Hamas-Israel #ceasefire is welcome it is vital to recognise this isn’t the cessation of the ongoing #genocide. Violence against ordinary Palestinians across the occupied territories has dramatically escalated in the last 15 months…”
• In December 2024, GLAN, in collaboration with Al-Haq and Forensic Architecture, published a report titled “Touring Stolen Land: How Airbnb Fuels Illegal Settlements in the Occupied West Bank.” The NGOs alleged that “Israeli settlers exploit resources and infrastructure systematically denied to Palestinians, including by using accommodation platforms like Airbnb and Booking.com, to sustain their illegal presence on stolen Palestinian land.”
• On December 17, 2024, GLAN and other NGOs jointly sent a letter to the UK Foreign Secretary calling on the government to “end its support for Israel’s unlawful use of force against Syria.”
• On July 11, 2024, GLAN and other NGOs jointly sent a letter to demand the new Labour government “end UK complicity in Israel’s atrocity crimes.”
• On November 6, 2023, GLAN tweeted, “Gaza is being turned from an open air prison to an open air graveyard by an occupying power which has obligations under international law to protect civilians there.”

Staff

Gearóid Ó Cuinn

• Ó Cuinn, GLAN founding director, is “responsible for GLAN’s legal actions and strategic growth.” He also serves as an adjunct lecturer at the Irish Centre for Human Rights.
• On January 16, 2025, Ó Cuinn tweeted, “Your media will call it a war between Israel and Hamas. A ceasefire may halt this. This framing hides Israel’s explicit intent to destroy civilian life & erase Palestinians from their land. This is genocide & it will continue by other means.”
• On January 16, 2025, Ó Cuinn tweeted, “Like @David_Cameron this man [Prime Minister Keir Starmer] oversaw UK participation in the genocide of the Palestinian people. A lawyer who can’t bring himself to say ‘illegal occupation’ or ‘apartheid’. He cares for hostages only if they are not the 1000s of Palestinians languishing without trial.”
• On January 17, 2025, Ó Cuinn tweeted regarding the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, “These infamous guidelines equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semetism. Ireland cannot claim to uphold & respect international law while simultaneously tarring those who criticise a rogue state that habitually commits international law violations.”
  • The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, adopted by over 30 countries and counting, represents the international consensus definition of antisemitism, as well as how to distinguish between legitimate criticism of Israel and antisemitism. An example of the latter includes denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor.
• On December 25, 2024, Ó Cuinn tweeted, “The journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem now involves the 7 military Christmas checkpoints of an apartheid and genocidal regime.”
• In August 2024, Ó Cuinn stated, “Israeli torture is now so routine it contaminates all intelligence and undermines assurances given to the US and the UK and other governments when considering arms exports.”
• On February 15, 2024, Ó Cuinn tweeted, “War crime after war crime in #Gaza. Yet the weapons still flow to this criminal enterprise. Trade & commerce continue as normal. We need to make sure this changes & that once the bombings and executions stop we do not return to business as usual with this apartheid state.”
• In December 19, 2023, Ó Cuinn tweeted, “There is little evidence that int’l law will be respected. This is year 55 of illegal occupation, yr 16 of illegal blockade on Gaza, day 72 of a seige [sic] preventing water/medicines entering. 10k kids killed. US & UK sell arms to Israel throughout. Its time for sanctions not weapons”
• In December 2023, Ó Cuinn stated, “The humanitarian situation in Gaza is the result of numerous war crimes and crimes against humanity committed over time.” He added, “Recent statements by Israeli military leaders now obligate states to review their transfer of arms. There should be no doubt that these weapons are at acute risk of being used to commit further criminal acts and, possibly genocide.”
• In November 2023, Ó Cuinn was a signatory on a letter calling for Irish universities to suspend ties with Israeli institutions. According to the letter, Israel’s “war on the Gaza Strip” is “a campaign of ethnic cleansing and, according to many experts, genocidal violence.”
• In December 2015, Ó Cuinn was a signatory on a letter calling on the EU and its Member States to “recognize and comply with their fundamental legal obligations resulting from the duty of non-recognition and non-assistance related to Israeli settlements and their economic activity.”

Charlotte Andrews-Briscoe

• Andrews-Briscoe, a lawyer for GLAN, is representing GLAN and Al-Haq in the arms embargo case against the UK government (see above for more information on the case). She compiled and submitted evidence to the High Court, and claimed her “only limiting factor in compiling the witness statements was the sheer number of cases of mistreatment and abuse.” She also stated, “In our view it is possible, if not probable, that information and assurances Israel gives to the UK are founded on information derived from torture.”
• In November 2024, Andrews-Briscoe stated, “It is unconscionable that the UK continues to allow British-made components for F-35s to be used in Israel’s extermination campaign against Palestinians.”
• In July 2024, Andrews-Briscoe stated, “the new Labour government’s calls for a ceasefire are meaningless while it continues to arm Israel. British weapons have killed too many Palestinians.”
• On April 4, 2024, Andrews-Briscoe participated in a webinar on “States’ complicity in exporting arms to #Israel.”
• In March 2024, Andrews-Briscoe said, “When assessing whether Israel intended to starve Gazan civilians the UK ought to look at the statements of Israeli officials who stated they would do just that. But the intent of individual Israeli commanders is not the legal test, and the government knows this.”
• On May 24, 2023, Andrews-Briscoe was a signatory to a letter urging the UK government not to oppose an Advisory Opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding the “legal consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”

John Reynolds 

• Reynolds, a member of GLAN’s Legal Action Committee, is a professor at National University of Ireland Maynooth and a former legal researcher for the NGO Al-Haq. 
• In February 2024, Reynolds claimed, “Now that it is on record from the highest court in the UN system that Israel is plausibly committing genocide, it will be much harder in general for Western states to stick to the line that this war is not genocidal and has no implications for them. If you’re selling weapons to Israel, if you’re offering diplomatic protection to Israel, if you’re engaging in trade deals with Israel or investing in Israel, all of that is now on the table in relation to the duty to prevent genocide.”
• In April 2021, Reynolds and Noura Erekat published “We Charge Apartheid? Palestine and the International Criminal Court” in Third World Approaches to International Law Review.
• In October 2020, Reynolds, alongside three other academics, was instructed by the European Legal Support Center (ELSC) to write a legal opinion on how the Bundestag’s motion to define BDS campaigns against Israel as antisemitic is “incompatib[le] with European and International human rights standards.”
• Reynolds authored a 2013 paper “Apartheid, International Law, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
• In 2009, John Reynolds, as Al-Haq’s Legal Researcher, was a “Principal Contributor” on a report calling for another ICJ advisory opinion to investigate Israel’s alleged engagement in the crimes of apartheid and colonialism.