Contrary to conventional wisdom, there has been a continuing though vacillating gulf between the requirements of international law and the UN on the question of Palestine. This book explores the UN's management of the longest-running problem on its agenda, critically assessing tensions between the organization's position and international law. What forms has the UN's failure to respect international law taken, and with what implications? The author critically interrogates the received wisdom regarding the UN's fealty to the international rule of law, in favour of what is described as an international rule by law. This book demonstrates that through the actions of the UN, Palestine and its people have been committed to a state of what the author calls 'international legal subalternity', according to which the promise of justice through international law is repeatedly proffered under a cloak of political legitimacy furnished by the international community, but its realization is interminably withheld.

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The Disastrous Relationship Between Israel, Palestinians and the U.N.

The international legal system was created to prevent the atrocities of World War II from happening again. The United Nations partitioned historic Palestine to create the states of Israel and Palestine, but also left Palestinians with decades of false promises. The war in Gaza — and countless other conflicts, including those in Syria, Yemen and Ethiopia — shows how little power the U.N. and international law have to protect civilians in wartime. So what is international law actually for? Aslı Ü. Bâli is a professor at Yale Law School who specializes in international and comparative law. “The fact that people break the law and sometimes get away with it doesn’t mean the law doesn’t exist and doesn’t have force,” she argues. In this conversation, Bâli traces the gap between how international law is written on paper and the realpolitik of how countries decide to follow it, the U.N.’s unique role in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from its very beginning, how the laws of war have failed Gazans but may be starting to change the conflict’s course, and more.

Books recommended:

• 📕  Imperialism, Sovereignty and the Making of International Law (Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law, Series Number 37) by Antony Anghie
• 📘  Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine by Noura Erakat
• 📗  Worldmaking after Empire: The Rise and Fall of Self-Determination by Adom Getachew
• 📙  The Constitutional Bind: How Americans Came to Idolize a Document That Fails Them by Aziz Rana
• 📕  The United Nations and the Question of Palestine: Rule by Law and the Structure of International Legal Subalternity by Ardi Imseis

Aslı Ü. Bâli May 17, 2024 5 books recommended

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