EJIL: The Podcast! Episode 40: Palestinian Legal Frontiers: SC Res 2803 and beyond

Palestine and the Palestinians are often the subjects of conversations in the news, on blogs and in judicial opinions, but not present in conversations themselves. The issues are treated episodically in connection with dramatic events or judicial processes or UN resolutions, and these can entrench an atomization of attention into the atrocities committed in the Israeli-occupied territories of East Jerusalem, Gaza and the West Bank, restrict visibility of historical continuities and miss more gradual and pervasive developments. One difficulty with international courts, which have been particularly prominent recently, is that the proceedings are long and often so far removed from the people they affect that they can miss complex human dimensions. Discussions about sovereignty, statehood, security, borders, violations of conventions and the interpretation of UN resolutions might not capture what is happening on the ground.

Each of these areas could fill a podcast in its own right, but this episode tries to bring out a sense of the range of legal questions concerning the past, present and future of Palestine. The episode begins with international developments, particularly the significance of United Nations Security Council Resolution 2803 authorizing, among other things, an International Stabilization Force in Gaza. Second, developments at the national and EU level, including recognition of the State of Palestine and the failure of states to hold individuals to account for committing international crimes, as well as the responsibility of third states for ending human rights violations. Finally, the panel brings to the fore some issues which are critical to the position of Palestinians but receive relatively less attention: initiatives on private land registration in the West Bank, the recent first reading of a bill to dramatically expand the imposition of the death penalty against Palestinian defendants, and allegations of torture in Israeli detention facilities, considered recently by the Committee against Torture. 

Victor Kattan (Nottingham; also adviser to Britain Owes Palestine campaign) is joined by Mona Rishmawi (inter alia, visiting professor at the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights) and Sonia Boulos (Antonio de Nebrija University, Spain; co-editor of Palestine/Israel Review).

For reference, the following is a cross-section of the issues, materials and scholarship referred to directly or indirectly by the panel.

On the significance and implications of UNSC Resolution 2803 (17 Nov 2025): the joint statement referred to in UNSC Resolution 2803 as the ‘Saudi-French Proposal’ and elsewhere as the New York Declaration (and the addendum thereto); the provisional procès-verbaux of the UNSC meeting on 17 Nov 2025 in which UNSC members expressed their understandings of Resolution 2803; the ICJ’s 2024 advisory opinion on Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory [previously discussed on the podcast in episodes 27 and 28] and particularly the Declaration of Judge Tladi; the ICJ’s 2025 ‘UNRWA’ advisory opinion (i.e. advisory opinion on Presence and Activities of the United Nations, Other International Organizations and Third States in and in relation to the Occupied Palestinian Territory  [previously discussed on the podcast in episode 39]; the ICJ’s 2024 provisional measures order in the ongoing South Africa v Israel proceedings concerning Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip; Ardi Imseis, The United Nations and the Question of Palestine (2023); Michelle Burgis-Kasthala’s post on UNSC Resolution 2803 here; Sonia Boulos, ‘Smokescreen Recognition: How “Statehood: Can Mask Complicity and Contain Decolonization’ (Security in Context, 26 Sep 2025) and ‘The “G Word,” Liberal Israeli Elites, and the Prospect of Decolonization’ (2025) Journal of Genocide Research.

On national and regional accountability efforts: the panel mentioned litigation in inter alia the UK and Netherlands about the lawfulness of arms exports to Israel [previously discussed on the blog e.g. here]; a range of cases and complaints brought by the Hind Rajab Foundation; and litigation in Israeli courts, inter alia on food supplied to detainees (Supreme Court judgment reported here); the issue of head of state immunity with respect to ICC warrants [previously discussed on the podcast in episode 30]; EU Council Decision 2025/779 of 14 April 2025 on control of exports of military technology and equipment and Germany’s approach to exports [discussed here and here]; the EU–Israel Association Agreement of 2000 and September 2025 proposal of the European Commission to suspend aspects of the Agreement.

The panel also touched on Israel’s resumption of land registration in Area C of the West Bank [reported here]; the first reading in the Knesset of a bill mandating the death penalty for murder in circumstances far more likely to apply to Palestinian defendants [reported here]; and allegations of torture in Israeli detention facilities recently discussed in the Committee against Torture’s Concluding Observations on the Sixth Periodic Report of Israel (advance unedited version).