New Article: Cuéllar & Silverburg, South America and the Recognition of Palestine

Cuéllar, Angélica Alba, and Sanford R. Silverburg. “Diplomatic Dominos: South America and the Recognition of (the State of) Palestine.” Review of Social Sciences 1.3 (2016): 11-24.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.18533/rss.v1i3.18
Abstract

All but one of the states in South American have extended some type of diplomatic recognition to Palestine. There is a discussion of the meaning of diplomatic recognition in the current state system with its importance. The central theme of this paper is an examination of the process and an explanation for South American states’ provision of diplomatic recognition to Palestine while one other in the same cultural-geographical region has not.

 

 

 

New Article: Graubart & Jimenez-Bacardi, Mobilizing the Security Council’s Normative Power for Palestine

Graubart, Jonathan, and Arturo Jimenez-Bacardi. “David in Goliath’s Citadel: Mobilizing the Security Council’s Normative Power for Palestine.” European Journal of International Relations 22.1 (2016): 24-48.

ְְ 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1354066115571762

 

Abstract

This article reviews the remarkable success of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in alliance with the Non-Aligned Movement in appropriating the Security Council’s normative power to transform the global understanding of the Israel–Arab conflict. We feature the alliance’s submission of multiple declaratory resolutions from late 1967 through 1980, which condemned Israel’s occupation policies, declared all of the territories conquered in the 1967 war as occupied, and endorsed a Palestinian state. Collectively, these resolutions, including the vetoed ones, legitimized a new consensus whereby Palestinian statehood became regarded as indispensable for a just resolution, while Israel’s continued control over the occupied territories became viewed as the primary obstacle, with full withdrawal expected. This consensus endures despite concerted Israeli–US efforts to undermine it. Besides its appeal to scholars of Israel–Palestine, the study contributes fresh insights into the Security Council’s normative authority and the influence of non-powerful, non-Western actors. We explain the dynamics by which these actors appropriate the Security Council’s normative influence, through its declaratory resolutions, to boost broader advocacy campaigns. Specifically, we highlight anti-colonial normative framing — featuring self-determination and territorial integrity — coalition building, and trapping. The first two dynamics generate powerful political and normative pressure, which, in turn, traps uncommitted states into supporting the cause so as to avoid isolation and the appearance of normative hypocrisy. By featuring the Non-Aligned Movement and the Palestinian Liberation Organization as the primary agents and anti-colonial values as the defining norms, we present a rarely examined counter-trajectory of norm dissemination in what is thought to be the least receptive international forum.

 

 

 

New Article: Martins, The EU and the Recognition of the Palestinian State

Martins, Bruno Oliveira. “‘A Sense of Urgency’: The EU, EU Member States and the Recognition of the Palestinian State.” Mediterranean Politics 20.2 (2015): 281-287.

 

URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13629395.2015.1046268

 

Abstract

In the aftermath of the July–August 2014 war in Gaza, the Swedish government officially recognized the state of Palestine. This decision triggered a cascade of resolutions adopted in national parliaments of European Union member states and, eventually, led to the adoption of a European Parliament resolution supporting in principle the recognition of Palestinian statehood. Understood collectively, these efforts constitute a multifaceted European attempt to break with the status quo of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. This Profile critically analyses these developments and sets the context in which they unfolded, arguing that they are indicative of a complex yet growing European impatience with Israel’s policies towards the conflict and with the stalemate of the peace process.

New Article: Azarov, Perils and Prospects of the Palestinian UN Bid

Azarov, Valentina. “An International Legal Demarche for Human Rights? Perils and Prospects of the Palestinian UN Bid.” International Journal of Human Rights 18.4-5 (2014): 527-44.

 

URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/13642987.2014.914028

 

Abstract

The Palestinian UN bid has the potential to enhance Palestinian claims for respect of human rights and international law and mobilise international opposition to Israel’s unlawful conduct. Participation in international organisations and ratification of treaties fortify Palestine’s legal and political status within the international legal order, enabling it to call for the non-recognition by third states of unlawful Israeli conduct in the context of their inter-state relations with Israel. The UN bid also facilitates access to international courts, including the International Court of Justice and International Criminal Court, which may deter Israel’s unlawful conduct and contribute to the production of normative assessments of situations under Palestinian jurisdiction.