5 November
On 25th of October 2024, Law for Palestine Organisation, in collaboration with the Gallatin Human Rights Initiative organised a hybrid event under the title “Palestine, Israel, and International Law: The Long View and Since October 2023”. This event was hosted at New York University (NYU) and was also accessible online via Zoom, drawing a large and engaged audience, especially through the virtual platform.
The event brought together esteemed scholars, practitioners, and experts to discuss the evolving legal implications of the war on Palestine following the atrocities throughout the past year. The conversation centred on key international legal frameworks, human rights, and the future of justice and accountability.
Chaired by Omar Shehabi from Yale Law School, the hybrid event featured in-depth presentations from several prominent figures in international law, including: Rabea Eghbariah from Harvard Law School, Diala Shamas from Center for Constitutional Rights, Karin Loevy from NYU Law School, Ralph Wilde from University College London, Adil Haque from Rutgers University, Ata Hindi from Tulane University, and Tamara Tamimi from Queen’s University Belfast
The discussions underscored the critical need for Palestinian-driven justice and accountability with regard to the ongoing atrocities, with participants actively engaging in Q&A sessions, furthering critical thinking and understanding on these key topics. Palestine Izsrael International Law Octobe
Rabea Eghbariah on Historical Legal Failures in Palestine
The road to justice in Palestine is long and tumultuous. But foregrounding, theorising and analysing the Nakba in international law is a place to start.
Rabea Eghbariah highlighted the historical and legal failures in addressing Palestinian legal grievances, particularly drawing on the Sabra and Shatila massacre as an example of ongoing impunity for acts that were already understood by the international community as acts of genocide. He emphasised that Israel’s actions in the 1980s were part of a continuum of violations against the Palestinian people, explaining that “the Nakba has undergone a metamorphosis; it has evolved from a historical calamity into a brutally sophisticated structure of oppression.” He noted the importance of understanding the Palestinian reality through a “Nakba framework,” suggesting that this concept more accurately reflects the continuity and totality of Palestinian experience across time and space.
Diala Shamas on Institutional Failures in Protecting Palestinian Rights
We are witnessing institutions contort or self-immolate rather than protect Palestinian life.
Diala Shamas addressed the failure of international mechanisms, including the U.S. legal system, to prevent atrocities in Gaza. She criticised how these ongoing legal efforts seem to contort or even destroy themselves rather than protect Palestinian lives.
She Highlights the complicity of international actors, and points to systemic failings in global accountability frameworks, remarking on how “the Biden administration is willing to sacrifice their own proclaimed values and checks and balances…in service of a genocidal project.” She called for a rethinking of international law to prioritise Palestinian rights, underlining the urgency of addressing institutional biases that hinder justice for Palestinians.
Karine Loevy on Gaza’s Status in International Law
[Gaza’s experiences] not only express the crisis of legality that the global order is experiencing, but also present a new, maybe universal meaning for the discipline and an opportunity for solidarity for international lawyers and activists all over the world.
Karin Loevy presented her paper, “Where is Gaza in International Law?” In it, Loevy explored two central questions: the doctrinal status of Gaza (whether it is occupied territory or a sui generis entity) and Gaza’s evolving place in international legal history. She emphasized the stark “gap between the way Palestinian lawyers, scholars, and activists…say what Gaza is” and how Western perspectives define its legal status. Loevy highlighted three major shifts that have influenced Gaza’s place in international law: the incorporation of empire and colonialism, genocide studies, and the shift from viewing international law as a crisis-driven field to one embedded in daily life.
The ongoing conflict, she concluded, offers a pivotal moment for rethinking how Gaza’s local knowledge and lived realities are integrated into global legal frameworks.
Ralph Wilde on the Illegal Occupation as Aggression
The occupation is illegal as a violation of the law on use of force–an aggression.
Ralph Wilde provided a legal analysis of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territory captured in 1967 – the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem – describing it as an “illegal use of force” under international law, thereby constituting aggression.
Wilde outlined how the International Court of Justice held, in the Palestine Advisory Opinion, that Israel’s occupation violates both the right of self-determination of the Palestinian people, and the prohibition on purporting to annex territory through the use of force. He explained how this finding, in the context of the Court having characterized the occupation as a use force, the legality of which falling to be determined by the jus ad bellum, and having held that the occupation must end as rapidly as possible, implied a broader finding that Israel has no lawful basis in the law on the use of force to maintain the occupation. In doing so, Wilde explained, the Court implied that the occupation was a use of force without a valid legal justification, and was, therefore, an illegal use of force as a general matter, beyond illegality specific to annexation. This implicit finding, and the explicit finding that the occupation was an illegal use of force because of its use to annex Palestinian territory, involved an approach to the illegality of the occupation that falls within the definition of ‘aggression’ in international law, even though the Court did not use this term expressly.
Adil Haque on the“Genocide Within a Genocide” in Gaza and ICJ’s Role
In international law, you throw a stone into a pond, you don’t know where the ripples are going to end.
Adil Haque discussed South Africa’s case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under the Genocide Convention, discussing both the initial case and the call for additional provisional measures. He urged South Africa to seek additional provisional measures from the ICJ, arguing that the situation in Gaza risks becoming “a genocide within a genocide.”Haque highlighted the importance and unpredictability of leveraging international legal tools to halt Israel’s offensive, allow humanitarian aid, and protect civilians.
Haque further discussed how South Africa could modify its legal strategy to strengthen its case, including arguments related to displacement, starvation, and the destruction of essential infrastructure. He also explored the idea of “genocide as a means,” explaining that the intent to destroy a substantial part of the Palestinian population may be part of a broader strategy to force the capitulation of Hamas. Haque concluded by emphasising that South Africa’s legal action could reshape Israel’s risk assessment and potentially lead to life-saving changes on the ground.
Ata Hindi on State Accountability and the ICC’s Role in Justice for Palestine
Long delays in prosecutorial actions, institutional failures, and biases within the ICC often stem from power dynamics, race, and colonialism.
Ata Hindi emphasised the need to rethink international law’s approach to state responsibility, in the situation in Gaza, arguing that advocacy efforts should shift from asking states like the U.S. and U.K. to pressure Israel to instead holding them accountable for their direct roles. Hindi traced the history of Palestine’s interactions with the International Criminal Court (ICC), dating back to 2008-2009 during the Gaza war, discussing the challenges Palestine has faced in seeking justice through the ICC. He pointed to institutional biases and delays that have hindered justice.
Hindi noted recent progress under ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan, who has requested arrest warrants against high-level Israeli officials, but criticised the continued delays and challenges posed by Israeli and allied obstruction. Concluding, he urged the global community and academia to “stop silencing these voices advocating for Palestinian justice,” stressing the need for open, unimpeded discourse.
Tamara Tamimi on Bottom-Up Transformative Justice as an Alternative to the Liberal Peace Paradigm
The liberal peace paradigm has fallen short by imposing top-down solutions and sidelining Palestinian voices. This failure underscores the need to shift towards approaches that prioritise Palestinian perspectives on justice.
Tamara Tamimi presented her research on bottom-up transformative justice as a decolonial alternative to the liberal peace paradigm in Palestine. Critiquing the international community’s approach since the Oslo peace process, she highlighted imposing solutions ‘from the outside’ and the “conceptual gaps and lack of inclusivity” in current approaches.
Her research, based on surveys and interviews, captures Palestinian views on both political solutions and accountability, prosecution, and reparations. According to Tamimi, 60% of respondents view both as equally important, with top priorities including “ending the occupation (77%) and recognising Palestinians’ right to exist (76.4%).” Tamimi’s findings also reflect the primacy of the right of return, as a package alongside property restitution and compensation for refugees, and the high priority given to concrete accountability and reparations for Palestinians, such as prosecuting Israeli officials who perpetrated war crimes, crimes against humanity, and genocide, compared to symbolic measures such as provision of a public apology by Israel. She concluded that the liberal peace paradigm is out of touch with Palestinian aspirations, stressing that “any sustainable peace process must include and reflect Palestinian voices.”
