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-- assure Palestinians can exercise their right of self-determination or have equal rights as citizens in one Israeli/Palestinian state.
"The realisation of self-determination and the prohibition on apartheid are peremptory norms of international law from which no derogation is permitted." These principles obligate the entire world community to cooperate to end all breaches everywhere, including in Occupied Palestine. Failure to do so constitutes "an internationally wrongful act." Further, any state aiding another's lawlessness axiomatically becomes complicit in the commission of crimes, requiring other nations to hold it accountable.
International organizations like the UN bear equal responsibility. As the ICJ stated in its Separation Wall ruling, this body is obligated to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, one it helped initiate through its 1947 partition plan under UN General Assembly Resolution 181. At a time Jews comprised one-third of the population, it gave them 56% of the choicest land, the rest to Palestinians with Jerusalem designated an international city.
HSRC and John Dugard urged the ICJ to rule on this matter in accordance with the UN Charter's Article 96 authorizing "The General Assembly or the Security Council (to) request (an ICJ) advisory opinion on any legal question." Under Article 65 of the ICJ's Statute, it "may give an advisory opinion on any legal question at the request of whatever body may be authorized by or in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations to make such a request."
According to HSRC, at issue is the following:
"Do the policies and practices of Israel within the (OPT) violate the norms prohibiting apartheid and colonialism; and, if so, what are the legal consequences arising from Israel's policies and practices, considering the rules and principles of international law, including the International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, UN General Assembly (1960) Resolution 1514 (on granting independence to colonial countries and peoples), and other relevant Security Council and General Assembly resolutions?"
After 61 years of displacement and 42 years of occupation, these matter remain unresolved.
Stephen Lendman is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization. He lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
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