Background The General Assembly decided to convene the conference in its resolution ES-10/24 of 19 September 2024. Further details as to the conference, which is planned around eight thematic areas, were outlined in General Assembly resolution 79/81 of 3 December 2024. Resolution ES-10/24 saw the General Assembly endorse the July 2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, which affirmed the illegality of Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. That Resolution set forth the modalities by which third states and international organisations are to implement their obligations, as identified by the ICJ, in order to bring to a close Israel’s widespread, systematic, and ongoing violations of the fundamental norms of international law. Collapse of Geneva Conventions High-Contracting Parties Conference Al-Haq notes that resolution ES-10/24 had also called for the convening of a Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the protection of civilian persons in time of war on measures to enforce the Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and to ensure respect thereof in accordance with common article 1 of the four Geneva Conventions. Swiss led efforts at convening such a Conference failed, and on 6 March 2025, the day prior to the planned Conference, Switzerland confirmed that the conference would not take place, reporting that: ‘Profound On the Proposal for a July 2025 UN conference on a two-State solution for Israel and Palestine differences between the high contracting parties to the Geneva Conventions emerged during an extensive consultation process. Switzerland, as the depositary state, therefore concluded that a significant number of the high contracting parties did not support such a conference, and has decided against holding one.’ The continued failure to convene that Conference, as mandated by the General Assembly, in the face of intensified Israeli violations of international humanitarian law, evidences the ongoing and alarming undermining of the Geneva Conventions as a basis for ensuring the protection of Palestinians struggling to survive under the unlawful, racist, and genocidal Israeli occupation. It accentuates the warning of UN experts, who, when calling for compliance with the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion, stressed that ‘irresponsible inaction’ threatens to jeopardise ‘the entire edifice of international law and rule of law in world affairs.’ Mechanisms to Confront Apartheid Resolution ES-10/24 had also requested the UN Secretary-General, in consultation with the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and Member States with relevant expertise, to present proposals for the establishment of a mechanism to follow-up on Israel’s violations of Article 3 of Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD), as concluded by the ICJ’s Advisory Opinion. While the question posed to the ICJ was limited temporally to the occupation since 1967, to be truly effective, this mechanism must move beyond these constraints and be established as promptly as possible. We stress that any established mechanism must address Israel’s institutionalised regime of racial discrimination, fragmentation, oppression and domination over the Palestinian people 3