asked Her Majesty's Government:

What specific measures they are taking to ensure that the European Union is implementing its guidelines (Heading III) on (a) compliance with international humanitarian law, and (b) the protection of human rights defenders, in respect of the occupied Palestinian territories. [HL277]

The EU has agreed guidelines in five areas: children and armed conflict, action against torture, death penalty, human rights dialogues and human rights defenders. There are no separate EU guidelines on compliance with international humanitarian law. However, we continue to stress to the Government of Israel and the Palestinian Authority the need to ensure that their actions comply with international law.

We are a strong supporter of the EU human rights defender guidelines, which were last reviewed earlier this year. At the time of the review, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office sent out instructions to all posts, including our Consulate-General in Jerusalem, inviting contributions to this evaluation. Following the conclusion of the review on 7 July 2006, we circulated the evaluation to all posts with instructions to support local EU presidency action as appropriate. Under the Austrian and Finnish presidencies in 2006, the EU has run a campaign on women human rights defenders. This builds on a freedom of expression campaign launched under the UK presidency in 2005.

We continue to take action to tackle human rights issues in Israel and the Occupied Territories. This action includes working with non-governmental organisations and raising our concerns bilaterally. We remain concerned at the restrictions of movement of Palestinians in and between Gaza and the West Bank. We continue to call on both sides to implement the 2005 Agreement on Movement and Access in full. We also call on Israel to route the barrier on or behind the Green Line and freeze all settlement activity and dismantle all outposts built since 2001. The routing of the barrier and the construction of settlements on occupied land is illegal. We continue to raise these issues with the Israeli Government.