The Palestinian Right of Self-Determination as Decolonisation

In: The Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence 2024

Palestinian international lawyers have worked for decades towards a declaration of the illegality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine. On 19 July 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered a historic advisory opinion, declaring that Israel’s 57-year-old control over the Palestinian territories is illegal in its totality. The ICJ noted that the Israeli occupation of Palestine must end as rapidly as possible. It conveyed the responsibility of envisioning the modalities of ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine and enacting the Palestinian right of self-determination to the UN General Assembly (UNGA). We are thereby presented with the question of what the best way to envision this right in the Palestinian context is. In this article, the author argues that envisionment of the modalities involved in ending the Israeli occupation of Palestine must be anchored in the materiality of the Israeli colonisation of Palestine and the historical lessons pertaining to the end of colonisation. Palestinian self-determination is decolonisation, and the right of return is an integral element to it.

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