The Court docket was responding to a request for an advisory opinion by the Normal Meeting on the authorized penalties arising from the insurance policies and practices of Israel within the Occupied Palestinian Territory, together with East Jerusalem.
The advisory from the ICJ is a authorized opinion supplied by the Court docket on questions of worldwide regulation.
Not like judgments in contentious circumstances between States, advisory opinions are non-binding and are sought by United Nations our bodies such because the Normal Meeting or the Security Council.
Whereas not legally binding, advisory opinions can form worldwide insurance policies, improve ethical stress, and unilateral measures adopted by particular person States comparable to sanctions.
Israel’s obligations
In its advisory opinion, the ICJ concluded that Israel’s continued presence within the Occupied Palestinian Territory is illegal and that it’s underneath an obligation to convey to an finish its illegal presence “as quickly as doable”.
Israel can be “underneath an obligation to stop instantly all new settlement actions and to evacuate all settlers from the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” the opinion continued, in addition to “reparation for the injury induced to all pure or authorized individuals involved”.
States’ obligations
It additional acknowledged that “all States are underneath an obligation to not acknowledge as authorized the scenario arising from the illegal presence” of Israel.
States are additionally underneath the duty to “to not render support or help in sustaining the scenario created by the continued presence of the State of Israel within the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.
Worldwide organizations’ obligations
For worldwide organizations, together with the UN, the Court docket famous the “obligation to not acknowledge as authorized the scenario arising from the illegal presence” of Israel.
The ICJ additional famous that UN, and particularly the Normal Meeting and the Safety Council, “ought to contemplate the exact modalities and additional motion required to convey to an finish as quickly as doable the illegal presence of the State of Israel within the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
Name for engagement
Following the issuance of the opinion, UN Secretary-General António Guterres reiterated his name for the events to re-engage on the “long-delayed political path” in direction of ending the occupation and resolving the battle consistent with worldwide regulation, related UN resolutions and bilateral agreements.
“The one viable path is the imaginative and prescient of two States – Israel and a completely impartial, democratic, contiguous, viable and sovereign Palestinian State – dwelling aspect by aspect in peace and safety inside safe and acknowledged borders, on the idea of the pre-1967 traces, with Jerusalem because the capital of each States,” his spokesperson stated in a statement.
The assertion additionally famous that the UN chief will promptly transmit the advisory opinion to the Normal Meeting, which had requested the Court docket’s recommendation.
“It’s for the Normal Meeting to resolve easy methods to proceed on this matter,” the assertion added.
Israel’s response
In keeping with media experiences, Israel’s International Ministry rejected the ICJ’s opinion as “basically fallacious” and “blatantly one-sided”.
It additionally repeated its stance {that a} political settlement within the area can solely be reached via “direct negotiations”.
Normal Meeting request
The Normal Meeting adopted a decision in December 2022, which amongst different factors requested the ICJ to supply its opinion underneath Article 96 of the UN Charter and Article 65 of the Court’s Statute.
The opinion lays out the authorized penalties of Israel’s “ongoing violation” of the fitting of the Palestinian individuals to self-determination, from its extended occupation, settlement and annexation of territories occupied since 1967, and discriminatory measures, together with these affecting Jerusalem’s demographic composition and standing.
It additionally sought to grasp how these insurance policies and practices of Israel have an effect on the authorized standing of the occupation and its authorized penalties.
