Select committee: International Development Committee

Conclusion 15

5th Report - Protection not permission: The UK’s role in upholding international humanitarian law and supporting the safe delivery of humanitarian aid Published 12 Jun 2025 Addressed to Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office

International Development Committee Humanitarian access and adherence to international humanitarian law All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗

Conclusion (the committee's words)

We welcome the times that the Government has made a stand on the likely breaches of IHL that have reduced access of populations to aid and/or have failed to protect those delivering aid. We also welcome the more general calls for the protection of aid workers. However, the lack of consistency across conflict types and geographies, arguably depending on the participants is startling, greater care needs to be taken to ensure that the UK’s actions and rhetoric around suspected breaches of IHL cannot be construed as being anything other than even handed—protecting allies 50 at the expense of unconditional support for IHL is unacceptable. Such actions would set a poor example to other states and risk undermining the universality of law designed to protect us all. (Conclusion, Paragraph 38)

From: International Development Committee, 5th Report - Protection not permission: The UK’s role in upholding international humanitarian law and supporting the safe delivery of humanitarian aid (HC 526), 12 June 2025

Government response

The government responded to the whole report on 5 September 2025 (deadline 12 August 2025).

Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.

The government states that it "remains steadfast in its commitment to upholding international humanitarian law", agrees with many recommendations, partially agrees with others, and disagrees with the proposals on universal jurisdiction and binding due diligence for arms exporters.

On military training, the government agrees that mil-mil training on IHL "is an effective approach to promoting compliance", and describes existing training for foreign forces.
On sanctions, it is "committed to introducing a tailored humanitarian exemption" across UK autonomous sanctions "when parliamentary time allows".
It disagrees with amending the International Criminal Court Act 2001 to provide for universal jurisdiction, stating: "We do not believe that legislative change is required at this time."
It disagrees with new legislation placing additional requirements on arms exporters, citing a "robust assessment process" under the Strategic Export Licensing Criteria.

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