Ending the accountability gap in Palestine and Israel
As scholars working in the field of human rights, we call for an end to the genocide in Gaza and to the persistent accountability gap in Palestine and Israel. We deplore all violations of international law, and affirm our solidarity with victims and survivors, as well as with human rights defenders and academics and students who are persecuted for defending the rights of Palestinians. Moreover, we stress that, in addition to the devastating consequences for Palestinians, the accountability crisis has far-reaching implications beyond the Palestinian context: it fuels violations of international law and contributes to the shrinking space for civil society and academic freedom worldwide.
We insist that the prevailing approaches to accountability for Palestinians in the Global North have been profoundly inadequate. Political, but also academic and cultural institutions, have systematically glossed over or denied Israel’s breaches of international law, thereby effectively granting it impunity. Respect for, and compliance with international law, should be at the heart of political initiatives on Palestine and Israel. As UN experts emphasised in response to the U.S. peace plan, respect for international law, beginning with self-determination and accountability, must lie at the basis of any peace plan. Therefore, it is alarming that certain elements of the current plan contravene peremptory norms of international law and pressure the Palestinian Authority to relinquish its recourse to international legal mechanisms, thereby undermining the cautious international shift toward accountability for Israel’s violations of international law.
Secondly, we insist that universities also have a responsibility to promote justice and accountability. Universities in the Global North need to discontinue all ongoing institutional collaborations with Israeli universities and research institutions that have played a role in Israel’s violations of international law, epistemic violence and scholasticide through, for example, support to military research, intelligence, and weapons development. Academic institutions in the Global North have not only insufficiently addressed Israel’s systematic annihilation of Palestinian universities and knowledge institutions, but have also largely failed to express support and to respond through concrete measures. We urge actions to support Palestinian scholars and students through fee waivers, emergency grants, and psychosocial assistance.
In light of Israel’s ongoing impunity and the exclusion of Palestinians from the international legal architecture, we call for thick accountability, capturing the experiences and lived realities of rights-holders. This approach seeks to foster accountability beyond formal mechanisms and is grounded in acts of solidarity and popular mobilization to pursue justice where formal mechanisms have failed.
Welcome activity on Wednesday afternoon
We are pleased to invite all delegates for a Decolonial City Walk of Brussels on Wednesday afternoon, prior to the opening lecture of the conference. This guided walk will take participants through the city, exploring the ways colonial legacies continue to shape public space and how it is used. The walk offers an opportunity to reflect critically on questions of historical justice and accountability in the run up to the conference, and to explore these topics around and beyond the conference venue.
Participation is free of charge, but advance registration via the link that was sent to conference participants (on 8 October) is required as places are limited.
Venue: Meet the guide and organizers at the Place Royale, near the stairs of the Église Saint Jacques.
Time: the walk will start at 13h30 and last until 16h00.
Further details, including the meeting point and precise schedule, will be shared with registered participants closer to the date.
Film screening Coquitos and The Pixel and the Plot. Followed by a conversation with the director, Thursday evening
Following the first full conference day, all delegates are invited to a special film screening and conversation with Hannah Meszaros Martin (Forensic Architecture / Studio Plano Negativo).
Coquitos, is a film co-created with Colombia’s Truth Commission, weaving forensic visuals, testimonies, and spatial analysis to trace patterns of violence, land dispossession, and memory. The Pixel and the Plot is Plano Negativo’s most recent film, launching at the Arte Paiz Bienal in Guatemala this November. The film focuses on the politics of data collection in the long history of enforced eradication of so-called illicit crops in Colombia. The method of the films brings evidence-driven storytelling to surface structural harm and speaks directly to the concerns of our human rights academic community: accountability, archives, and the politics of seeing.
After the screening, Hannah will join us for a Q&A, moderated by Elke Evrard, on the investigative process and the role of visual evidence in truth-telling and advocacy
Participation is free, but registration is required.
Venue: Cinema Aventure, Galerie du Centre, Rue des Fripiers 15, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium.
Time: Thursday 20 November, 19h30.
Film still from the video ‘Coquitos’. Ángel Montalbo describes the effects of saltwater flooding in plantain crops. (Forensic Architecture and The Commission for Truth and Reconciliation, 2021)
Limited spaces for non-presenting attendees will become available in late October.
For sustainability purposes, we ask that, if for any reason you registered but are no longer able to participate, please email us at thickernotions@ugent.be
No.
No. Only those participants selected in May 2025 following a Call for Abstracts may present.
The keynote lecture on the opening night (Wednesday, 16h30) will be held at the Royal Flemish Academy of Arts and Science, Rue Ducale 1, Brussels, Belgium
The conference (Thursday-Friday) will be held at Hoek38, Leuvenseweg 38, 1000 Brussels, Belgium.
The movie screening on Thursday evening will be held at Cinema Aventure, Gallerie du Centre, Rue des Fripiers 15, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium.
The meeting point for the walk on Wednesday afternoon will be shared directly with registered participants.
We do not have preferential arrangements with hotels, and cannot offer support with hotel reservations.
Nearby hotels include:
– Motel One Brussels (Rue Royale 120, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium)
– Ibis Brussels City Centre (Rue Joseph Plateau N°2, 1000 Bruxelles, Belgium)
– Argus Hotel Brussels (Rue Capitaine Crespel 6, 1050 Bruxelles, Belgium)
The conference commences Wednesday, November 19, at 16:30, with a keynote conversation between Professors Sumi Madhok (London School of Economics) and Başak Çalı (University of Oxford), followed by a reception.
It then comprises two full days of presentations, starting on Thursday morning, 20 November, and concluding late afternoon of Friday, November 21.
Additionally, we are organising social events on Wednesday afternoon (just prior to the opening keynote) and Thursday evening.
Yes, full catering will be provided during the day (vegetarian and vegan).
If you have allergies, please let us know well in advance, and we will do our best to accommodate them.
If you have questions about accessibility, please do not hesitate to get in touch, and we will work with our partners to identify a suitable solution.
Unfortunately, we cannot offer visa application assistance. For those invited to present abstracts, we can provide visa invitation letters.
If for any reason you have registered but are no longer able to participate, please email us at thickernotions@ugent.be.
Please direct any inquiries to: thickernotions@ugent.be.
A Conversation between Sumi Madhok and Başak Çalı
Wednesday, 19 November | 16h30
KVAB, Brussels
As part of the closing conference of the research project ‘Futureproofing Human Rights’, the Universities of Ghent, Antwerp, Brussels and Hasselt are jointly organizing a public lecture on new ways of thinking about human rights accountability, moderated by Prof. Wouter Vandenhole. During the event, Sumi Madhok (LSE) and Başak Çalı (University of Oxford) explore what it means to develop richer, more substantive frameworks for human rights accountability that transcend the boundaries between law, politics, and moral claims.
Professor Madhok’s work on rights vernacular rights cultures reveals how rights-based mobilisations are not simply engaged in translating or localising ‘global human rights,’ but rather have their own languages of rights and entitlements grounded in specific political imaginaries, justificatory premises and subjectivities. Her research shows how vernacular rights politics operates as a politics of structural justice Meanwhile, Professor Çalı challenges the human rights accountability as a simplistic division of human rights as normative foundation and legal accountability as practical enforcement, which obscures the ways law itself shapes and frames what we think human rights accountability is.
Together they discuss what thicker notions of human rights accountability might look like, sensitive to the complex terrain where legal obligations, political struggles, and moral imperatives intersect. Moving beyond technocratic framings, blueprints, and descriptive typologies, Madhok and Çalı promise a conversation that challenges us to rethink who holds authority, whose voices count, and what thicker notions of accountability demand when law, politics, and moral claims refuse to stay in their separate boxes.
The event is open to everyone. The in person event in Brussels is followed by a reception. Registration is required for attendance.