Colombia says ‘we will no longer allow international law to be treated as optional’ as nations pledge to prevent arms transfers to Israel for Gaza atrocities
[Thanks to Middle East Eye for this report, which is followed
below by further information and analysis – R.F.]
A coalition of states from around the world gathering in Bogotá on July 16 agreed to implement six measures to stop Israel’s onslaught on Gaza and prevent violations of international law.
The announcement came as part of an “emergency summit” in the Colombian capital, co-hosted by the governments of Colombia and South Africa as co-chairs of The Hague Group, to coordinate diplomatic and legal action to counter what they describe as “a climate of impunity” enabled by Israel and its powerful allies.
The Hague Group is currently a bloc of eight states, launched on 31 January in the eponymous Dutch city, with the stated goal of holding Israel accountable under international law.
The conference brought together more than 30 states, including Algeria; Bolivia; Botswana; Brazil; Chile; China; Cuba; Djibouti; Honduras; Indonesia; Iraq; Ireland; Lebanon; Libya; Malaysia; Mexico; Namibia; Nicaragua; Norway; Oman; Pakistan; Palestine; Portugal; Spain; Qatar; Turkey; Slovenia; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines; Uruguay; and Venezuela.
“We came to Bogotá to make history - and we did,” said Colombian President Gustavo Petro.
“Together, we have begun the work of ending the era of impunity. These measures show that we will no longer allow international law to be treated as optional, or Palestinian life as disposable.”
“In the deliberations at the Bogota conference, all 30 participating states unanimously agreed that the era of impunity must end - and that international law must be enforced without fear or favour through immediate domestic policies and legislation - along with a unified call for an immediate ceasefire,” the Hague Group said in a statement.
The measures seek to “break the ties of complicity with Israel’s campaign of devastation in Palestine,” the group added.
A date has been set for 20 September 2025, coinciding with the 80th UN General Assembly, for additional states to join them in adopting the measures, the statement added.
“Consultations with capitals across the world are now ongoing.”
What are the six measures?
The six measures are as follows:
1. Prevent the provision or transfer of arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel.
2. Prevent the transit, docking, and servicing of vessels at any port…. in all cases where there is a clear risk of the vessel being used to carry arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel.
3. Prevent the carriage of arms, munitions, military fuel, related military equipment, and dual-use items to Israel on vessels bearing our flag… and ensure full accountability, including de-flagging, for non-compliance with this prohibition.
4. Commence an urgent review of all public contracts, to prevent public institutions and funds from supporting Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian Territory and entrenching its unlawful presence.
5. Comply with obligations to ensure accountability for the most serious crimes under international law, through robust, impartial and independent investigations and prosecutions at national or international levels, to ensure justice for all victims and the prevention of future crimes.
6. Support universal jurisdiction mandates, as and where applicable in national legal frameworks and judiciaries, to ensure justice for victims of international crimes committed in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
In her closing speech, Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory, said: “These aren’t just measures but are lifelines for a people who are under relentless assault and a world that has been paralyzed for too long.”
“These 12 states have taken a momentous step forward,” Albanese added. “The clock is now ticking for states, from Europe to the Arab world and beyond, to join them.”
The conference agreed to set a deadline for states’ final decisions by September 2025, in line with the 12-month timeframe mandated by UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/ES-10/24, adopted on 18 September 2024.
That resolution called on all states to take effective action on Israel’s violations of international law, including accountability, sanctions, and cessation of support, within one year of adoption.
“What we have achieved here is a collective affirmation that no state is above the law,” said South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ronald Lamola.
“The Hague Group was born to advance international law in an era of impunity. The measures adopted in Bogotá show that we are serious, and that coordinated state action is possible.”
Varsha Gandikota-Nellutla, the executive secretary of The Hague Group, said: “This conference marks a turning point, not just for Palestine, but for the future of the international system.
“For decades, states, particularly in the Global South, have borne the cost of a broken international system. In Bogotá, they came together to reclaim it, not with words, but with actions.”
Israel’s war on Gaza, increasingly condemned by experts and governments as a genocide, has killed more than 58,000 Palestinians and displaced almost the entire population since October 2023.
The onslaught has left the Palestinian enclave barely habitable and around two million on the brink of starvation.
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The full text of the “Joint Statement on the Conclusion of the Emergency Conference on Palestine” can be accessed here.
In her closing remarks at the Bogotá conference, Francesca Albanese was critical of the Joint Statement’s favourable reference to the conference on “Implementation of the Two-State Solution” to be held at the UN General Assembly from 28-30 July. The “32 years of two-state discourse,” she said, has led to the current genocide. “Palestinian self-determination, reparations and return, are not subjects for negotiation, as the International Court of Justice has declared.”
However, as the above report indicates, Albanese described the conference decisions as “a momentous step forward” and urged other states to follow suit.
Most of the governments that signed the Bogotá statement have already cut diplomatic ties with Israel. Some of the states attending the conference are unlikely to sign the statement; among them is China, Israel’s 2nd largest trading partner (including Hong Kong).
The Progressive International, initiator of the Hague Group, is a coalition of international left-wing activists and groups mobilized to fight what it calls “the resurgence of authoritarian nationalism worldwide as well as the rise of disaster capitalism.”
In an article announcing the Bogotá conference, Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro warned that failure to implement United Nations resolutions on Israel’s Gaza war risks “stripping the global legal order of its remaining protections for less-privileged nations.”
“In September 2024, when we voted for the United Nations general assembly resolution on Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, we assumed concrete obligations – investigations, prosecutions, sanctions, asset freezes, and cessation of imports and arms. That resolution set a deadline of 12 months for Israel to ‘bring to an end without delay its unlawful presence’.” One hundred and twenty-four states voted in favour, including Colombia. The clock is now ticking.
“In the meantime, however, far too many states have allowed strategic calculations to override our duty. While we may face threats of retribution when we stand up for international law – as South Africa discovered when the United States retaliated against its case at the international court of justice – the consequences of abdicating our responsibilities will be dire. If we fail to act now, we not only betray the Palestinian people, we become complicit in the atrocities committed by Netanyahu’s government.”
Although the Bogotá conference went largely unreported in mainstream media, the U.S. government was quick to respond, in a statement that reeked of cynical irony:
“The United States strongly opposes efforts by so-called ‘multilateral blocs’ to weaponize international law as a tool to advance radical anti-Western agendas,” a State Department official said. “The so-called Hague Group—whose leading voices are South Africa and Cuba, authoritarian and communist regimes, respectively, with deeply troubling human rights records—seeks to undermine the sovereignty of democratic nations by isolating and attempting to delegitimate Israel, transparently laying the groundwork for targeting the United States, our military, and our allies.”
Those “allies” include Canada, which repeatedly votes “no” at the United Nations on resolutions regarding Palestinian rights. Its complicity with Israel’s aggression was further detailed in a report by Francesca Albanese on “the corporate machinery sustaining Israel’s settler-colonial project of displacement and replacement of the Palestinians in the occupied territory.” Here is a summary of some key findings.
Last November, Albanese was invited to meet with Canadian government officials and parliamentarians, but both events were cancelled a week before her arrival. She nevertheless managed to meet with a wide range of pro-Palestinian activists in Ontario and Quebec. In a hard-hitting interview with The Breach, she explained how Canada is “part of a small group of countries who have ‘continued to allow and nurture the arrogance that is at the origins of Israeli behaviour today’.”
On July 11, NDP Foreign Affairs critic Heather McPherson and NDP House Leader Alexandre Boulerice announced their intention to nominate Francesca Albanese for the next Nobel Peace Prize:
“She has travelled the world to share what she has witnessed on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territories and has urged us to take action in the name of justice and the rule of law. She has shown true courage and conviction in the face of a genocide that world leaders have failed to take concrete action to stop.”
Here is Albanese's speech at the opening session of the conference. Note that she calls for state actions that are far more definitive than those demanded by the Bogotá conference:
"Each state [must] immediately review and suspend all ties with Israel: their military, strategic, political, diplomatic, economic relations — both imports and exports — and make sure that their private sector, insurers, banks, pension funds, universities, and other goods and service providers in the supply chains do the same. Treating the occupation as business as usual translates into supporting or providing aid or assistance to the unlawful presence of Israel in the OPT. These ties must be terminated as a matter of urgency.
"Let’s be clear: I mean cutting ties with Israel as a whole. Cutting ties only with the “components” of it in the OPT is not an option."
Thank you for this report. It strikes me as significant.
ReplyDeleteFYI https://fourth.international/en/566/asia/721