The longstanding disconnect between international law and approaches to the Palestine question has created an absence of accountability and laid the groundwork for the violations of law and mass suffering in Gaza, the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Lebanon, and elsewhere. But there has been a potentially consequential shift in the international legal reality that has not yet taken center stage in diplomatic discourse. With overwhelming support, the International Court of Justice’s July 19th advisory opinion was codified in a new UN General Assembly resolution ES-10/24, demanding that Israel brings to an end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. This constitutes perhaps the most significant new tool available for addressing a shift in incentive structure and a way forward on the Palestine question. This session will ask: Can international legal redress impact the trajectory going forward? How can the ICJ opinion and resolution ES/10/24 be operationalized? If these are not the right tools to deploy in generating change, then what else can be done?
