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.