Given the abhorrent and shocking complicity of the powerful international actors in not only aiding and abetting the crimes against Palestinian populations, but also offering moral justifications for it, International Law and International Relations chambers of the Gaza Tribunal would inevitably deal with conflicting interpretations of the ethical, historical and philosophical concepts of our shared humanity. Highly divergent ethical and political responses to the horrific crimes in Gaza and elsewhere in the world demonstrate that our perceptions of the moral values of humanity are still filtered through racialized lenses and subject to political instrumentalization. Some of the key terms and historical narratives are mobilized to legitimize an ongoing genocide instead of preventing it. What is often described as the “Palestine Exception” in the global justice struggle illustrates a deeper problem of foundational moral integrity and conceptual consistency as the basis of international law and global governing institutions. This interrogation will necessitate the clarification of the meanings of the politically charged concepts with international legal implications, such as racism, genocide, just war, decolonization, Anti-semitisim, islamophobia, civilization, holocaust, Nakba, violence and humanity.
Retroactively, moral narratives of the modern world marked the transformations in the 20th century as the period of fulfillment of the demands of freedom and equality for the majority of the world’s population with the long and protracted struggles to end colonialism and racism. When the UN Resolution 1514 proclaimed the necessity of bringing colonialism in all its forms and manifestations to a speedy and unconditional end, and declared that all people have a right to self-determination, global public opinion perceived this a milestone in the moral progress of humanity towards the common goals of justice and emancipation for all people of the world. This resolution was perceived as the completion of earlier proclamations on human rights and prevention of genocides.
To offer clarity to all the key concepts mobilized for different political and legal positions with regard to ongoing violence against Palestinian populations, this chamber will (1) draft a background paper on the geopolitical formations and inaccurate myths and lies over historical memory of the injustices in the history of Palestine from the perspective of the global community’s moral visions to bring justice to an unjust colonial world in the last century; (2) report to the International Relations Chamber the results of its interrogation on how and why political leaders, media and publics in powerful Western countries, and elsewhere, often make Palestine an exception, violating the universality of their own proclaimed values of freedom, self-determination and equal rights, and paralyzing the UN system from providing a framework of justice and peace for Palestinians. As competing moral narratives on modern history also lies at the heart of the current crisis of the world order, the work of this chamber would try to offer a comprehensive and global perspective of key philosophical and ethical concepts to enrich the understanding of the context of the political formations and offer clarity for the deliberations of the International Law Chamber.