Negotiating the Illegal: On the United Nations and the Illegal Occupation of Palestine, 1967–2020

This article takes a critical look at the United Nations’ commitment to the international rule of law through an examination of its position on occupied Palestine post 1967. Occupation of enemy territory is meant to be temporary, and the occupying power may not rightfully claim sovereignty over such territory. Since 1967, Israel has systematically and forcibly altered the status of occupied Palestine, with the aim of annexing, de jure or de facto, most or all of it. While the UN has focused on the legality of Israel’s discrete violations of humanitarian and human rights law, it has paid scant attention to the legality of Israel’s occupation regime as a whole. By what rationale can it be said that Israel’s prolonged occupation of Palestine remains legal? This article argues that the occupation has become illegal for its systematic violation of at least three jus cogens norms. Although an increasing number of commentators have subscribed to this view, little attention has been paid to its relevant international legal consequences which dictate a paradigm shift away from negotiations as the condition precedent for ending the occupation, as unanimously affirmed by the international community through the UN.