International Law
Updated 2024-08-26
2024-07-24 Netanyahu’s Visit to Congress Underscores US Contempt for International Law The U.S. has long ignored many commands of international law, but its casual disregard of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has come into sharp focus this week as the U.S. Congress extends a warm welcome to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, just five days after the ICJ notified all UN member states that they have a legal “obligation not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
The World Court’s historic 83-page advisory opinion, which was issued on July 19 and held that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal, was quickly hailed by Middle East political expert Nomi Bar-Yaacov as a “legal earthquake” and the strongest decision that the court had ever issued.
Unsurprisingly, however, both the Israeli and U.S. governments denounced the ICJ’s ruling and proceeded with their plans — including Netanyahu’s visit to Washington, D.C. — as if it had never occurred. https://truthout.org/articles/netanyahus-visit-to-congress-underscores-us-contempt-for-international-law/
2024-05-06 ‘Unlawful and Catastrophic’: IDF Begins Forced Evacuation of Rafah Israel’s army on Monday ordered roughly 100,000 people living in eastern Rafah to evacuate ahead of an imminent military assault on the area, terrifying families who have been forcibly displaced to the southern Gaza city in recent months and intensifying warnings of a bloodbath.
“Israel’s military offensive in Rafah could lead to the deadliest phase of this conflict, inflicting horrific suffering on approximately 1.4 million displaced civilians in the area,” said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “The relocation orders issued by Israel today to thousands of Gazans, directing them to move to Al-Mawasi, are beyond alarming. The area is already overstretched and devoid of vital services. It lacks the capacity to house the number of people currently seeking refuge in Rafah, with no assurances of safety, proper accommodation, or return once hostilities end for those forced to relocate.”
“The absence of these fundamental guarantees of safety and return, as required by international humanitarian law, qualifies Israel’s relocation directives as forcible transfer, amounting to a serious violation of international law,” Egeland said. “Any Israeli military operation in Rafah—which has become the largest cluster of displacement camps in the world—will cause potential mass atrocities.”https://www.commondreams.org/news/evacuation-order-rafah
2024-03-15 Israeli Assurances on US Weapons and International Law Called ‘Sick Joke’ “We know Israel won’t comply so long as there are no consequences,” said one advocacy group. “The U.S. must cut off weapons now!”
Israeli officials gave a written assurance to the Biden administration on Friday that it would use U.S. weapons in accordance with international law. The assurance comes more than five months into Israel’s bombardment of Gaza, in which the country’s U.S.-backed military has killed at least 31,490 Palestinians, including more than 12,300 children, while claiming to be targeting Hamas members.
Assal Rad, research director at the National Iranian American Council, noted that Israel has also killed at least 95 journalists in Gaza, attacked healthcare facilities, and starved civilians by blocking humanitarian aid deliveries while explicitly calling on the Israel Defense Forces to commit genocidal acts. https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-assurances-weapons
2024-03-05 To Save Israel, the US is Destroying the International System It Once Constructed The coming years shall prove that the crisis in international legitimacy, resulting from the abuse of power, will hardly be rectified with superficial changes and reforms. In a conversation in 2020 with Princeton Professor Emeritus Richard Falk, he told me that historically, colonized nations that have won the legitimacy war have always won their freedom.
Palestine is unlikely to be the exception. The Gaza war, however, is confronting the world with an unprecedented challenge, specifically to governments’ relationship with international law and their obligations to international institutions, such as the United Nations, the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Criminal Court (ICC), and others. https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/israel-us-international-system
2023-11-10 UN Human Rights Chief Demands Investigation Into Israel’s Use of ‘High-Impact’ Explosives in Gaza The United Nations’ top human rights official on Friday demanded an investigation into the Israeli military’s bombardment of densely populated areas of the Gaza Strip with “high-impact explosive weapons,” a call that came as Israel’s forces surrounded Gaza’s largest city and reportedly attacked several hospitals packed with wounded and displaced civilians.
“After four weeks of bombardment and shelling by Israeli Forces in Gaza, the indiscriminate effects of such weapons in a densely populated area is clear,” Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement. “Israel must immediately end the use of such methods and means of warfare, and the attacks must be investigated.”
“Considering the predictable high level of civilian casualty and the wide scale of destruction of civilian objects,” Türk added, “we have very serious concerns that these amount to disproportionate attacks in breach of international humanitarian law.” https://www.commondreams.org/news/un-rights-chief-investigation-israel
2023-11-06 Israel and the Laws of War—A Conversation with Neve Gordon Writing in these pages in 2016, Lisa Hajjar noted Israel’s role as innovator when it comes to pushing the limits of international humanitarian law and challenging the law’s protections of civilians (the article, from MER issue 279, is worth reading in full). At the time, Hajjar speculated that Israel’s new interpretations might alter legal norms, mainstreaming extreme state violence. The piece is important for moving beyond the question of whether violence is legal to underscore the unevenness of humanitarian law as powerful states maneuver within it. To discuss these and other facets of the law as it is being mobilized in Israel’s ongoing campaign on Gaza, MERIP’s managing editor, Marya Hannun, spoke to Neve Gordon, professor of international law and human rights at Queen Mary University in London and co-author (with Nicola Perugini) of Human Shields: A History of People in the Line of Fire (University of California Press, 2020). Their conversation has been edited for length and clarity. https://merip.org/2023/11/israel-and-the-laws-of-war-a-conversation-with-neve-gordon/
2023-11-24 Israel’s War and Hamas’ Attack Through the Lens of International Law FEATURING STEPHEN ZUNES – The Israeli Army has issued evacuation orders to people living in Northern Gaza, demanding that they immediately relocate to Southern Gaza in anticipation of a deadly ground escalation of war. Israel’s latest war is in retaliation for a series of attacks by Hamas aimed at Israeli civilians that killed well over a thousand people and trapped about 100 hostages. So far, Israel’s air attacks on Gaza have been indiscriminate, also apparently targeting civilians. Over the weekend there were mass protests in cities around the world supporting Palestinian rights. Today we’ll examine what’s unfolding in Israel and Gaza through the lens of international law. https://risingupwithsonali.com/israels-war-and-hamas-attack-through-the-lens-of-international-law/
2023-10-13 It’s time to renew our commitment to international law As the war between Hamas and Israel escalates and threatens to spread north to Lebanon, you may be wondering where international law stands amid the death and destruction. The short answer is it has been missing in action. As the latest round of bloodshed illustrates, in times of war, law is subordinate to brute force and vengeance. https://www.alternet.org/unequal-justice-its-time-to-renew-our-commitment-to-international-law/
2023-10-12 Human Rights Lawyer Michael Sfard: “Israelis Must Maintain Their Humanity Even When Their Blood Boils” Michael Sfard, an Israeli human rights lawyer and expert on international human rights, calls for Israel to act within international law in response to Hamas’s attack on civilians Saturday. “My government is waging an attack that seems to be using war crimes to retaliate on war crimes,” says Sfard. “Modern international law prohibits, with no exception, collective punishment.” https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/12/israel_international_law
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Categorized Directory: News and Articles about Israel- Palestine Conflict
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