Israel/OPT: UN adopts resolution declaring Israel's occupation 'unlawful', echoing CSO & activist calls for sanctions over the occupation of Palestine & war on Gaza
On 18 September, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly adopted a resolution that calls upon all States to comply with their obligations under international law as reflected in the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July, in which the Court declared that Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) “is unlawful”, and that “all States are under an obligation not to recognise” the decades-long occupation. The General Assembly urged States to comply with their obligation to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal occupation created by Israel in the OPT and to implement sanctions against individuals and entities involved in maintaining Israel’s unlawful presence.
On the same day, UN experts published a statement also calling for sanctions on Israeli entities including businesses, corporations and financial institutions, involved in the unlawful occupation and apartheid regime. Furthermore, they urged states to impose a full arms embargo on Israel and
"to ban goods and services emerging from both the colonisation of occupied Palestinian territory and other unlawful activities that may be detrimental to Palestinians' rights, from entering their territory and markets, and take measures to label and permit goods and services emerging from Palestinian individuals and entities in occupied territory."
Trade sanctions – similar to the ones that were imposed against apartheid South Africa – have been a key demand of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement which has for nearly two decades emphasised the role businesses play in upholding Israel's oppression of Palestinians, and which welcomed the resolution as “historic”.
Other groups and civil society organisations also urge States to end their complicity and to comply with their obligations under international law as reflected in the advisory opinion on the Israeli occupation, and the ICJ’s determination that there is a plausible risk of genocide in Gaza. On 3 September 2024, Palestinian grassroots and civil society movements and organisations published a statement demanding states, the UN and corporate entities, work to end Israel’s military occupation, settlement enterprise and apartheid regime by, among other things, imposing banking, financial, economic and trade sanctions. When referring to the ICJ’s determination that all States must “abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory”, the statement pointed out that States must take into consideration Israel’s erasure of any political, financial, economic, academic, and cultural differentiation between it and its colonial settlement enterprise in the OPT.
BREAKING: With an overwhelming majority, and for the first time in 42 years, the UNGA today voted for imposing sanctions on Israel!
— BDS movement (@BDSmovement) September 18, 2024
The world’s global majority affirmed that the historic ruling by the ICJ triggers the legal obligation of all states to end complicity in Israel’s… pic.twitter.com/OYLwHOzzQl
In August 2024, Amnesty International stated that “there can be no business as usual with a state maintaining a brutal, unlawful occupation and perpetrating serious violations of international law, including war crimes and crimes against humanity, on a mass scale" and called for an end of arms transfers to Israel and all trade with illegal settlements.