The UK faces “disintegration” and will become “less prosperous and secure” if it takes a pick-and-mix approach to international law, the attorney general has said.
In a speech on Thursday, Richard Hermer launched a defence of international law and multilateral frameworks that he said “have kept us safe since 1945”.
He rebuked the leader of the Conservatives, Kemi Badenoch, and the shadow attorney general, David Wolfson, who have accused ministers of rigidly following international law, and said: “Their arguments if ever adopted would provide succour to [Vladimir] Putin.”
He said: “Their temptingly simple narratives not only misunderstand our history and the nature of international law, it is also reckless and dangerous, and will make us less prosperous and secure in a troubled world.”
Hermer, who is a human rights lawyer and former colleague of Keir Starmer, was appointed the government’s chief law officer when Labour entered office last summer.
Earlier this year he was attacked in sections of the press over his past clients, and also faced claims from internal critics that he was slowing down the work of government.
He has also faced criticism over the government’s decision to agree to hand sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius after an advisory ruling by the international court of justice.
Giving the annual security lecture at the Royal United Services Institute, Hermer defended the government’s approach as “a rejection of the siren song that can sadly now be heard in the Palace of Westminster, not to mention some sections of the media, that Britain abandon the constraints of international law in favour of raw power”.
Hermer told the audience: “The claim that international law is fine as far as it goes, but can be put aside when the conditions change, is a claim that was made in the early 1930s by ‘realist’ jurists in Germany, most notably Carl Schmitt, whose central thesis was in essence the claim that state power is all that counts, not law.
“Because of the experience of what followed 1933, far-sighted individuals rebuilt and transformed the institutions of international law, as well as internal constitutional law.”
He accused Tory critics of making arguments more suited to “a university debating chamber” than the real world. “Their analysis is the precise opposite of realistic – it is deeply unworldly, fit for a university debating chamber perhaps, but not the world in which our enemies recognise the strategic benefits of the disintegration of the international rules-based framework,” he said.
“Let me be crystal clear: I do not question for a moment the good faith, let alone patriotism, of the pseudo-realists, but their arguments if ever adopted would provide succour to Putin.
“In this dangerous world it is instructive to ask yourself: if the international law framework fails, if our multilateral institutions fall, then cui bono? Who benefits? The answer is obvious – it is our enemies who succeed. It is obvious that Russia and other malign state actors see the undermining of the legal-based framework as a core objective.”
Hermer accused the previous Conservative government, and particularly Boris Johnson, who served as foreign secretary and then prime minister, of undermining the UK’s reputation on the world stage.
“No one can sensibly argue that the bombast of Johnson increased the standing of the United Kingdom in the globe – that people took us more seriously as a result of his shtick, that either allies or adversaries were impressed by the doctrine of ‘cakeism’ or thought our reputation or reliability enhanced by legislating to deliberately breach international law,” he said.
He also criticised the Rwanda deportation scheme and Liz Truss’s refusal in 2022 to say whether France was a “friend or foe”.
Hermer argued: “It is a great British value to say that we want to make the world a better, safer and more prosperous place. There is no contradiction in our view between approaching the world with both a hard head but also a warm heart.”
Nonetheless, he said, international law was “incomplete” and “must be critiqued and reformed and improved”.
In what will be regarded as a criticism of the way the European convention of human rights (ECHR) is being interpreted by some judges, Hermer said: “States agreeing to treaties some time ago did not give an open-ended licence for international rules to be ever more expansively interpreted or for institutions to adopt a position of blindness or indifference to public sentiment in their member states.”
Ministers are reviewing how article 8 of the Human Rights Act, which enshrines the ECHR in domestic law, is being applied to allow people arriving by unauthorised routes to stay in the UK.
