Kairos Palestine and Global Kairos for Justice issue “A Global Call to affirm and uphold Palestinian Rights and the Rule of International Law”
The Kairos Palestine Global Kairos for Justice Advocacy Group has issued “A Global Call to affirm and uphold Palestinian Rights and the Rule of International Law,” and encourages its wide circulation and sign-on. The text of the “Global Call” follows, with a link for signatures.
The Issue
We are neighbors now—all of us around the world—living in a time of global chaos marked by environmental destruction, worsening ecological disasters, growing inequality between rich and poor, excessive corporate influence, rising authoritarianism, and never-ending wars.
We are a movement of faith communities, students, academics, nonprofit organizations, civil society organizations, trade union members, business people, other people of conscience and good will. We cry out at the growing indifference and silence in the face of systemic violations of International Law by Member States of the United Nations.
We call attention to the retreat from the framework of international order thoroughly built following the Second World War: conventions on human rights and institutions such as the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, and commit ourselves to advocate for their efficacy, integrity, independence and authority.
We are appalled by the laws, policies and practices of the State of Israel that further the suffering of the Palestinian people through continued occupation and apartheid and leading now to ethnic cleansing and genocide.
We therefore call on leaders across the globe to recognize and insist on:
1. The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, recognized in countless resolutions of the UN General Assembly and Security Council and reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024 on “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Including East Jerusalem (paras 230-243)”.
2. The right of return of the Palestinian refugees, recognized in General Assembly Resolution 194.
3. The right of the Palestinian people not to be subjected to genocide and ethnic cleansing, recognized in the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
4. The right of the Palestinian people not to be subjected to war crimes and crimes against humanity, affirmed in the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
5 The right of the Palestinian people to life, freedom and dignity and to enjoy the rights declared in the International Covenant of Civil and Political Rights and Economic, Social and Cultural Rights of 1966.
6. The right of the Palestinian people not to be subjected to racial discrimination and apartheid, as prohibited by Article 3 of the International Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination of 1966, and as recently reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice in its “Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024 on Legal Consequence Arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
7. The right of the Palestinian people not to be subjected to land confiscation, forced displacement, increasing colonization and Israeli settlements reaffirmed by the International Court of Justice in its Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024 on “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (paras 156-157, 285)”.
8. The right of the Palestinian people not to be subjected to an unlawful occupation by Israel recently declared by the International Court of Justice in its “Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024 on Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem”.
Towards this end, we are committed to nonviolent actions as a means of achieving a just and lasting peace for all the people throughout the Middle East.