Al-Haq notes the expected convening by the UN of an international conference in New York, 28-30 July 2025, ‘aimed at advancing global efforts towards achieving a two-State solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict.’
The legal basis for the Conference, initially scheduled for June 2025, lies in UNGA resolution ES-10/24 of September 2024.
Al-Haq stresses that the purpose of such a conference must be to advance and complement, not to replace or substitute, the implementation of international law, and specifically to act to ensure the attainment of the Palestinian right to self-determination.
At the core of the International Court of Justice’s 2024 Advisory Opinion is the clear affirmation that Israel’s presence in the OPT is unlawful, and that all states are under the legal obligation not to aid or assist in the maintenance of Israel’s illegal presence in the OPT, and to work together to bring the unlawful presence to an end.
Al-Haq warns that the Conference must not be permitted to repeat the calamitous and foreseen errors of prior international initiatives, which sidelined Palestinian human rights and the prerogative of enforcing international law against Israel. Rather than focusing on the implementation of a Two-State solution, the international community, as represented through the United Nations at the present Conference, should be focusing on the implementation of international law, emphasising the primary obligation to ensure the realisation by the Palestinian people of their collective inalienable human right to self-determination, including the right of return.
The imperative of enforcing international law is central to the achievement of Palestinian self-determination, without which, progress on all other mat- ters, economic or humanitarian, will remain illusory. For the Conference to contribute to Palestinian self-determination and an end to occupation, the enforcement of international law must be the driving force which animates each and every thematic study or course of action.
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