The Palestinian National Movement and the Challenge of International Law

International law and international legal institutions have emerged as a key arena in the struggle for Palestinian rights since October 2023. In this period, Palestinians have secured unprecedented achievements in fora such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the International Criminal Court (ICC), and the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC). More broadly, the human rights community, including its most prominent organizations, has decisively shed its prior reluctance to assess Israeli conduct according to the same legal standards routinely applied in other contexts.

At the same time, opponents of Palestinian rights have launched a concerted campaign to render these successes meaningless and to undermine the institutions that produced them. In the process, norms and values embedded into the corpus of international law since the Second World War—already under strain prior to October 2023—hang in the balance. United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 2803 of November 17, 2025, together with the Board of Peace established by U.S. President Donald Trump in January 2026, exemplify the attempt to eliminate the applicability of international law to the resolution of the Question of Palestine, while more broadly challenging the very authority of the UN by presenting a hand-picked group of individuals as a viable alternative to the UNSC on matters of war and peace.¹

As a result, Palestinians are now confronted not only with the longstanding struggle to translate legal and expert findings into material change, but also with the additional task of safeguarding the principles and, in some cases, the institutions that have made their progress in the legal realm possible. While this dual challenge poses an existential danger to Palestinian rights, it also creates real opportunities for building coalitions to uphold them in defense of a universal agenda.

Judicial rulings and human rights reports are frequently dismissed as having limited practical effect for populations enduring prolonged dispossession, structural discrimination, and mass violence. Those responsible for such crimes often evade meaningful accountability based on existing structures of power. For Palestinians to expect that legal processes alone will overcome these realities is therefore misplaced.

Nevertheless, recognition of these limitations should not obscure the fact that the Palestinian struggle is fundamentally political, and will triumph or be vanquished in the political rather than legal or human rights arenas. Seen from this perspective, the growing international consensus that Israel is a genocidal apartheid regime led by indicted criminals creates significant political opportunities that can contribute directly to the struggle for Palestinian liberation, by transforming the terms of discussion and debate about the Question of Palestine and its resolution.

Background and Context

From the very outset of their national struggle, Palestinians have engaged with international law and its institutions—imperfect as these may be—to defend and retrieve their rights. In contrast to armed confrontation, in which Israel has always enjoyed an overwhelming advantage, the legal arena provides a much more level playing field. Palestinian rights, including the right to resist foreign occupation in accordance with the laws of war, are firmly anchored in international law. The Palestinian Right of Return is consecrated in United Nations General Assembly Resolution 194 of 1948, and UNGA 3236 of 1974 defines the Palestinian right to “self-determination” and to “national independence and sovereignty” as “inalienable.”² Palestinian diplomacy has ensured that both these landmark resolutions have been reaffirmed over subsequent decades.

Similarly, the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to the territories occupied by Israel in 1967 has also been repeatedly upheld, including by the United Nations Security Council, which in Resolution 478 of 1980 additionally denounced Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem as “null and void.” In what was considered a historic verdict before the world’s foremost court of law, the ICJ in 2004 declared those sections of the West Bank Wall that intrude beyond the Green Line to be illegal, and in the process reconfirmed virtually every Palestinian position about the status of the occupied territories and illegality of Israeli policies and practices within them.³

In parallel, UN human rights agencies, special rapporteurs, and fact-finding missions have issued an expanding body of reports directly accusing Israel of perpetrating a panoply of specific violations and crimes against the Palestinian people. Between 2021 and 2022, several leading international and Israeli human rights organizations confirmed the longstanding findings of their Palestinian counterparts that Israel functions as an apartheid state, an assessment most apply not only to the territories occupied in 1967 but also to Israel itself.⁴

Until October 2023, Israel appeared secure in the knowledge that such findings could be contained through diplomatic support from its allies and its own international influence. The 2009 Goldstone Report on Israel’s Operation Cast Lead illustrates this pattern: despite detailed findings of war crimes, sustained political pressure succeeded in producing a high-profile renunciation that blunted its impact.⁵ No less important in such cases, the Palestinian leadership did not mobilize around these rulings and reports, reflecting concerns about diplomatic repercussions and relations with Israel and Western partners.

Key Developments After October 2023

Since October 2023, Israel’s vulnerability has increased markedly. A series of legal initiatives and rulings has significantly altered perceptions of Israel and its senior leadership in ways previously difficult to imagine. In particular, legal proceedings have contributed to the broader normalization of public discourse on illicit Israeli policies and practices.

As Israel commenced its military campaign in the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023, its official narrative resorted to tropes of an exceptional adherence to humanitarian norms and attributed civilian casualties to the conduct of its Palestinian adversaries. These arguments, reinforced by Israel’s well-organized public relations campaign, contributed to a sense of confusion over responsibility for civilian harm among segments of the international audience, even as the scale of destruction and bloodletting prompted widespread outrage.

In December 2023, when South Africa submitted its application to the ICJ accusing Israel of violating the Genocide Convention in Gaza, it was dismissed by some observers as politically motivated. That all changed on January 26, 2024, when the ICJ issued its initial ruling.

By an overwhelming majority, the Court determined that South Africa had presented a plausible case, that the situation on the ground was sufficiently urgent, and that provisional measures were therefore necessary to prevent irreparable harm pending a final judgment.⁶

Israel, whose creation in the public imagination is often perceived as the international community’s atonement for the Holocaust, now stood credibly accused of “the crime of crimes.” Thus, the Court’s ruling transformed the prevailing discursive frames by placing Israel under formal legal scrutiny for genocide-related obligations and by repositioning the Palestinians within the international legal narrative as a protected group under the Convention and as victims. The political significance of the ICJ’s initial ruling is difficult to overstate, as it legitimized discussion about Israel and its conduct in terms that had generally been avoided and considered taboo in many official and public forums.

In February, March, and May 2024, the Court issued additional provisional measures addressing Israel’s responsibility for the growing humanitarian emergency in the Gaza Strip. In its May order, the Court directed Israel to refrain from military operations in Rafah, directly linking Israel’s military operations to obligations under the Genocide Convention. Arguably empowered by the legal proceedings in The Hague, the world’s leading human rights organizations began issuing reports unambiguously concluding that Israel was committing genocide—assessments echoed by Israeli human rights organizations in 2025.

Another major development—one with more immediate political consequences—occurred at the ICC, which focuses on individual criminal responsibility rather than state conduct. In November 2024, the court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity. Two of Israel’s most senior leaders thereby became fugitives from international justice. Notably, under the principle of complementarity, the warrants could only be issued after the Court determined that Israel’s judiciary had failed to investigate and prosecute these crimes itself.

That same year, in July 2024, the ICJ issued a landmark advisory opinion at the request of the UN General Assembly (UNGA), determining that Israeli rule in the occupied Palestinian territories is illegal and that elements of the regime amounted to apartheid.⁷ As in 2004, the ICJ confirmed an array of Palestinian positions regarding their rights and Israeli conduct as the correct interpretation of international law.⁸ Shortly thereafter, several Western governments formally recognized the State of Palestine, suggesting a possible linkage between the legal findings and diplomatic positioning.

An additional advisory opinion in October 2025 addressed Israel’s obligations toward UN agencies, international organizations, and foreign states operating in the occupied territories. The court affirmed the central, indispensable role of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), dismissed Israeli allegations that UNRWA had violated its neutrality obligations as unsubstantiated, and required Israel to remove restrictions on the agency’s operations.⁹ In January 2026, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres threatened to refer Israel to the Court once again if it did not repeal laws targeting UNRWA and return the property and assets it seized from the agency in violation of the October ruling.¹⁰

Also within the UN system, the Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese, issued multiple reports on Israeli policy and conduct, including one alleging international corporate complicity in the Gaza Genocide. Separately, the Independent International Commission of Inquiry established by the UN Human Rights Council concluded that Israel was guilty of genocide, and published multiple reports documenting related practices.

These institutional findings were reinforced by the assessments of numerous genocide and Holocaust scholars. Most notably, the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) adopted a resolution in August 2025 declaring “that Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide” pursuant to the Genocide Convention.¹¹

Across these rulings and reports, attention was repeatedly drawn to the obligations of states not only to punish genocide offenders but to prevent the crime. It was this principle, of collective global responsibility to uphold international law and ensure its universal application, that led to the formation of the Hague Group in early 2025. This coalition of states posed a direct challenge to those Western governments upholding Israeli impunity, despite their claims to champion a paradigm they termed the “rules-based international order,” but from which Israel was clearly exempt.

Indeed, from the very outset of the war, enormous efforts were undertaken to prevent international institutions from fulfilling their mandates. In a notable example, the United Kingdom threatened to withdraw from the Rome Statute and terminate funding for the ICC if arrest warrants against Israeli leaders should proceed, confirming a widespread impression that Israel’s Western allies were more devoted to its impunity than to defending the international system, which was being severely undermined as a result.¹²

Following Trump’s return to office in January 2025, the United States imposed punitive measures on UN officials and ICC personnel associated with those investigations, while threatening others. These measures, normally reserved for designated terrorists and organized crime figures, suddenly made the lives of professional law enforcers extremely arduous. The subsequent resignation of all three members of the International Commission of Inquiry in July 2025 raised concerns about the cumulative impact of such pressures, although direct causation was not formally established. Notably, there was virtually no pushback from the ICC’s Assembly of State Parties, while European states continued to permit Netanyahu to traverse their airspace during his visits to the United States.

Prospects and Pitfalls

The reality for Palestinians today is that unprecedented progress has been achieved within the international legal framework. Yet, ironically, the more success Palestinians have within this arena, the more the legal system is undermined and stripped of its implementing authority. Nevertheless, when viewed as instruments in a prolonged political struggle rather than as mechanisms for rapid implementation and change, the significance of these legal achievements can and should be calculated differently.

Considered collectively, the reports and rulings issued during the Gaza Genocide have had a genuine, transformative, and likely irreversible impact on international perceptions of Israel and the Palestinians. Whereas Israel and its apologists have tried assiduously to sow confusion over who bears responsibility for the horrors visible to all in Gaza, the assessments of legal bodies and human rights specialists—generally regarded as impartial and dispassionate arbiters—have played a critical role in dispelling uncertainty.

Compared to previous episodes, this professional work has helped normalize open discussion and debate about Israel and its actions. Although the extent of this shift is difficult to measure empirically, it is reasonable to view developments such as the ICJ genocide proceedings and ICC arrest warrants as important milestones in this evolution.

The longer-term political impact of these changes will take time to mature, and more importantly, is not inevitable. For Palestinians, the challenge is therefore to ensure they remain on the agenda. In this respect, they enjoy several advantages.

First, the current Palestinian leadership, which has acquiesced to Israel, the U.S., and the European Union on virtually every issue, has—somewhat surprisingly—remained engaged in the international legal arena, even if in attenuated form, despite enormous pressure to cease and desist. This appears to reflect a combination of pressure from domestic public opinion and the assessment that legal actions are one of its few remaining sources of leverage in the absence of meaningful political negotiations. The Ramallah-based leadership has not only assembled competent legal teams but also authorized its diplomats—particularly those at the United Nations in New York, who are among its most professional—to promote rather than obstruct these initiatives.

Second, international legal advocacy has been almost uniquely insulated from factional rivalry. Hamas, and other opponents of the Palestinian leadership, have not only refrained from criticism of its resort to legal activism but supported it. For instance, PA President Mahmoud Abbas refused to submit the Palestinian application to ratify the Rome Statute and join the ICC in 2015 unless he was first given a formal, public endorsement from Hamas, which he duly received.

Third, most ongoing legal proceedings are not contingent on Palestinian participation. The ICJ genocide case, for example, was brought by South Africa and would therefore not be affected by a Palestinian petition asking the Court to halt proceedings. Similarly, the ICC investigation of what it terms the Situation in Palestine is not subject to the discretion of the Palestinians.

Fourth, the Palestinians are neither working in isolation nor swimming against the tide. Repeated UNGA votes requesting ICJ advisory opinions and initiatives such as the Hague Group indicate that international support for an activist Palestinian legal strategy is growing rather than diminishing.

The above notwithstanding, Palestinian passivity is not an option. Particularly in the current environment of a frontal U.S. assault, allies and partners may be less motivated to engage in such initiatives if they conclude Palestinian institutions are less committed than themselves. The endorsement of the draft text that became UNSC 2803 by the PLO, as well as by key Arab and Muslim-majority states, is a case in point, as this helped ensure its passage through the Security Council. Moving forward, generating greater Arab involvement, particularly of key states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, would be a valuable approach.

For reasons that go far beyond Palestine but are not unrelated to it, the world is already immersed in a struggle about the nature of the global order, which presents both risks and opportunities for Palestinians. While current trends pose clear threats to the survival of international law and institutions, they may also compel states traditionally reluctant to confront violations to assume more active roles in its defense.

The priority for the Palestinian national movement is to ensure that, as posited by the Hague Group, Palestine remains at the very center of this contest, serving as both a catalyst and a beneficiary of these changes. On this basis, it will be possible to leverage legal achievements that may change nothing on the ground into significant political accomplishments, not only compensating for tremendous asymmetries in power but properly utilized, contributing meaningfully to Palestinian liberation.

Endnotes

¹ Bel Trew, “Is Trump Trying to Replace the United Nations with His Own ‘Board of Peace’?” The Independent, January 19, 2026, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/trump-board-of-peace-un-blair-gaza-peace-plan-b2903210.html.

² United Nations, The Right of Self-Determination of the Palestinian People, Report No. ST/SG/SER.F/3 (New York: United Nations, 1979), https://unispal.un.org/pdfs/stsgserf3.pdf.

³ “The International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on the Barrier,” OCHA, accessed April 19, 2026, https://www.ochaopt.org/content/barrier-portal.

⁴ See, for example, “A Regime of Jewish Supremacy From the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea: This is Apartheid,” B’Tselem, January 12, 2021, https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid; “A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution,” Human Rights Watch, April 27, 2021; “Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity,” Amnesty International, February 1, 2022, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/02/israels-apartheid-against-palestinians-a-cruel-system-of-domination-and-a-crime-against-humanity/.

⁵ See further Norman G. Finkelstein, Goldstone Recants: Richard Goldstone Renews Israel’s License to Kill (New York: OR Books, 2011). It was only commission chair Richard Goldstone who recanted, unilaterally and without consulting his colleagues, and although the report was never withdrawn the political damage of his actions was enormous.

⁶ See further the rulings and documents under “Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel)”, reproduced on the website of the Court, https://www.icj-cij.org/case/192.

⁷ International Court of Justice, Legal Consequences from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, (The Hague, International Court of Justice, July 19, 2024), https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/186/186-20240719-sum-01-00-en.pdf.

⁸ See further the rulings and documents under “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” reproduced on the website of the Court.

⁹ See further, International Court of Justice, Advisory Opinion: Obligations of Israel in Relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organizations and Third Parties in Relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory, available at https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/196/196-20251022-adv-01-00-en.pdf.

¹⁰ Michelle Nichols, “UN Chief Warns He Could Refer Israel to World Court Over Action Against Palestinian Refugee Agency,” Reuters, January 13, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/un-chief-warns-he-could-refer-israel-world-court-over-action-against-un-2026-01-13/.

¹¹ International Association of Genocide Scholars, “IAGS Resolution on the Situation in Gaza,” August 31, 2025, https://genocidescholars.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/IAGS-Resolution-on-Gaza-FINAL.pdf.

¹² Sondos Ashem and Namir Shabibi, “Exclusive: UK Confirms Phone Call Between Cameron and ICC’s Karim Khan,” Middle East Eye, January 22, 2026, https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/exclusive-uk-confirms-threatening-call-between-cameron-and-iccs-karim-khan.