Declassified UK has exposed that David Cameron, then the Foreign Secretary, ignored legally relevant and significant advice offered by his expert council in the Foreign Office. This advice was following a request received for a meeting with Cameron from Chief Prosecutor of the ICC, Karim Khan.
Despite being encouraged to accept the official meeting, Cameron instead reportedly threatened Khan a few days later with defunding the ICC and withdrawing from the Rome Statute.
Al Jazeera have also reported how other Western states have made threats, stalling the ICC case against Israel for its genocide on Gaza.
Declassified issued FOI requests relating to all emails and calls between the two officials between November 2023 and July 2024 and has since received a tranche of emails revealing the internal machinations surrounding the genocide on Gaza.
Foreign Office staff tried to convince David Cameron to support the International Criminal Court and meet Karim Khan just days before he reportedly threatened – in a phone call – to defund the ICC if Khan pursued arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.https://t.co/Ax2Z8O05QI
— Declassified UK (@declassifiedUK) December 29, 2025
‘Strong advice’ ignored by David Cameron
The timeline that has been laid out by Declassified pieces together the emails from multiple officials involved, depicting numerous attempts to reason with David Cameron and convince him to meet directly with Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan.
The response from Cameron’s office arguably reads ‘tell me why I have to, if I don’t want to‘:
It was suggested at one point that, if Cameron was not available, Khan could meet with Attorney General Victoria Prentis, Lord Ahmad, then the Middle East Minister, or Sally Langrish, the Foreign Office’s top legal adviser.
However, on 2 April, an official in the Human Rights Department wrote: “Given what we believe the Prosecutor wishes to discuss, and that this is not a routine request for a meeting, we do not think delegation would be appropriate in this case.”
Two hours later, another official from the same department wrote that Cameron’s private office had “requested a paragraph to share with the [Foreign Secretary] about why a meeting is required on this date”.
In the paragraph the official had apparently drafted for Cameron’s office, they wrote: “Our strong advice is to accept the meeting”.
It is widely accepted that many war crimes were inflicted upon Iraqi civilians by Western Forces, with many disgusted at the lack of legal accountability applied to date. We published an article into the alleged crimes committed in Afghanistan and Iraq, detailing a clear policy to shoot unarmed civilians.
In another article released today, Declassified goes on to reveal the real reason why Tony Blair, and countless others, have not yet found themselves in the Hague.
The two ‘safeguards’ used to prevent us from being accountable under International law:
The first safeguard was the “complementarity principle which gives national jurisdictions first claim on any investigations involving their territory or their nationals”.
He added that “British courts will retain the primary right and responsibility to investigate allegations against UK nationals in respect of ICC offences irrespective of where they might have been committed”.
Blair concluded: “We envisage the ICC acting only in the case of failed states or where judicial processes have broken down”.
This would have screwed us in WWII
Another exchange released by Declassified details how international law can only be applied when “British courts were not able or willing to undertake prosecutions”. What good is an International Court if it’s optional and its very application is dependent on the morality of the officials holding power at the time?
It begs the question: if Hitler had been asked to give permission for his crimes against humanity to be heard in court, would he have recognised the authority of the ICC? We have no doubt that he’d have loved to have such a safeguard available to him and his officers.
As we saw in World War II, and markedly since, it isn’t failed states that go on to murder millions of people. It’s powerful, established states with democracies and legal systems that they can attempt to hide behind.
Possibly indicating Blair’s potential fear of being held legally accountable:
Blair responded to the memo in handwritten notes. In a section where Phillipson wrote that the ICC’s prosecutor was expecting not to pursue an investigation into allegations he had received about British troops in Iraq, Blair penned: “This is vital”.
At the end of the memo, Blair wrote: “We have, in effect, to be in a position where the ICC is not involved and neither is [the] CPS”, referring to Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service.
International law should protect people, not power, and its purpose has been subverted against our own interests by David Cameron and countless others.
We also now know that we are not safe under international law from powerful, developed states as the precedent will be firmly set that the aggressors are the judge and jury in the crimes they commit abroad.
That’s a norm that cannot be accepted.
Featured image Foreign Office (Flickr)
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