A Seismic Change: On the International Court of Justice Advisory Opinion on Israel’s Illegal Presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

Professor Ardi Imseis will discuss the implications of the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion (19 July, 2024) which found Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to be unlawful and its policies and practices to be a form of racial segregation and apartheid. He will discuss his participation in this landmark advisory opinion, and how the opinion can be used by human rights defenders and lawyers seeking to end the unlawful occupation of the Palestinian territories.

Dr. Ardi Imseis is Associate Professor of Law, Faculty of Law, Queen’s University. He is author of The United Nations and the Question of Palestine: Rule by Law and the Structure of International Legal Subalternity (Cambridge University Press 2023). In 2019 he was named by the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights to serve as a Member of the UN commission of inquiry into the civil war in Yemen. Between 2002 and 2014, he served in senior legal and policy capacities in the Middle East with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He has provided expert testimony in his personal capacity before various high-level bodies, including the UN Security Council, the UN Human Rights Council, and the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Professor Imseis’s scholarship has appeared in a wide array of international journals, and he is former Editor-in-Chief of the Palestine Yearbook of International Law (Brill; 2008-2019) and Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar and Human Rights Fellow, Columbia Law School. Most recently he served as Legal Counsel before the International Court of Justice in the case concerning the Legal Consequences arising from the policies and practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem. He'll be appearing in his personal capacity at this event.

Supplied photo by Lindsey Gibeau Photography