Book Discussion "The United Nations and the Question of Palestine"

On February 11, IFI hosted a discussion on Ardi Imseis’s book "The United Nations and the Question of Palestine", in collaboration with the American University of Beirut’s Palestine Land Studies Center (PLSC), the Forced Displacement Program (FDP), and the Department of Political Studies and Public Administration. In the presence of the author, PLSC Director Zeina Jallad acted as discussant, while the session was moderated by IFI Director Joseph Bahout.

Imseis started by explaining how the United Nations has been the site of a paradox when it comes to Palestine, at once holding itself out as the standard-bearer of the international rule of law while at the same time being central in law’s selective application by hegemonic actors within the UN system, what he calls ‘rule by law’. In Imseis’s view, this dynamic has resulted in the emergence of a condition in the international legal order that the Palestinian people embody. He calls this condition “international legal subalternity”, the essence of which characterized by the reliance by weaker groups on the promise of international justice through the UN only to find that it is often the UN itself who undermines this promise.

Imseis’s book offers a legal history covering the key legal moments in the modern history of Palestine: the League of Nations mandate period; the UN’s 1947 partition plan; the unique institutional and normative framework governing Palestinian refugees; the UN’s treatment of the occupied Palestinian territory since 1967; and the State of Palestine’s unsuccessful 2011 application for UN membership. For lack of time, however, he was only able to cover the first two of these.

According to Imseis, the origins of Palestinian legal subalternity are to be found in the interwar period, and the internationalization of late colonial and imperial forms of government through the League of Nations mandate system. It was at this time that the international community acting through the great imperial powers carved out, through exercise of law, Palestine’s exception as a place earmarked for European settlement with its resulting dispossession of the Palestinian people set in motion.

Imseis then critically analyzed the 1947 UN Partition Plan, highlighting its fundamental flaw: the failure by the UN to take Palestinian claims seriously as a matter of international law. At bottom, the terms of the plan were violative of core principles of international law then prevailing in respect of class “A” mandated territories, key among which was the right of self-determination of the Palestinian Arab people in the whole of Palestine. By setting imposing the so-called two state solution against the will of the indigenous Palestinian Arab majority population, the UN General Assembly set in motion a series of events that eventually paved the way for the ethnic cleansing of the country in the 1948 Nakba, the negative consequences of which have been compounded ever since.

In a vibrant question and answer session, Jallad questioned whether or not legal frameworks are capable of resolving the Palestinian issue. She stated that while the UN claims to promote peace and justice, its actions have always facilitated Palestinian displacement and prioritized Jewish settlement instead. “Law is merely a tool,” Imseis replied, explaining that governments use it to shape societies but not necessarily to achieve justice. If used tactically, with strategic ends in view, he argued that law can be a useful counter-hegemonic tool in the hands of the subaltern. In this regard, Imseis discussed Chapter 5 of his book, and the successful use of the international court of justice by the State of Palestine in the Jully 2024 advisory opinion declaring Israel’s presence in the OPT to be unlawful as an example. In addition, both Jallad and Imseis discussed the use of the International Criminal Court to seek justice and accountability for Palestinian victims, noting that although the process has been inordinately slow and western states not very supportive, the work on this front is vital going forward, as evidenced by the outstanding arrest warrants against Israeli leadership.
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To conclude, and in answer to Jallad’s question on whether it is possible to still believe in international law, Imseis suggested that was the wrong question in so far as legal frameworks are only as good as their ability to be deployed as a tool to shape and bring about a more legitimate, right and just world order