that act had not been committed.”74 In other words, it is obliged to restore
the status quo ante the commission of the international wrong.75
Based on this legal framework, Israel is obliged to (1) end all of its
colonial-apartheid laws, policies and practices, (2) provide reparations for
all injuries caused in the form of return, restitution, compensation, and
satisfaction,76 and (3) provide assurances of non-repetition.
However, since Israel continues to refuse to meet its obligations under
international law (which is primarily based on the regime’s inherent nature of
racial elimination and domination), third-party states have a responsibility
to intervene. Pursuant to the Draft Articles on State Responsibility for
Internationally Wrongful Acts, serious breaches of peremptory norms,
which include both colonization and apartheid, prompt the liability of
third states in two ways: a positive duty to “cooperate to bring to an end
through lawful means any breach,” and a negative duty not to “recognize
as lawful a situation created by a serious breach [...] nor render aid or
assistance in maintaining that situation.”77
3.2. A Contextualized Application of Legal Principles of State
Responsibility in Decolonizing Palestine
To elaborate on how the legal principles of ceasing the act, reparations, and
non-repetition have engendered the following framework for decolonization
74 ILC, Draft Articles on State Responsibility (n 71), 91-94.
75 This is a principle that recognizes the obligation of reparation vis-à-vis states and, as IHRL
and IHL have developed, particularly with regards to peremptory norms, so too has the
understanding and acceptance through customary international law that obligations with
respect to reparations apply also to the benefit of individuals wronged by breaches of
international legal principles. This evolution in state practice is reflected in the Draft Articles
on State Responsibility and in the findings of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in its
Advisory Opinion on the Apartheid Wall: Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory (ICJ Advisory Opinion) 2004 <https://www.icj-cij.org/public/
files/case-related/131/131-20040709-ADV-01-00-EN.pdf> accessed 5 April 2023.
76 ILC, Draft Articles on State Responsibility (n 71), art 34-38.
77 Ibid, art 41(2).
22
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