Head Against the Wall? Israel's Rejection of the Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Abstract

This note seeks to critically analyse Israel's reaction to the ICJ advisory opinion in the context of the Alian litigation, which reviewed a small section of the West Bank separation barrier. While I accept the basic thrust of the Israeli position - that the deficient fact-finding and fact-analysis process undertaken by the ICJ renders the advisory opinion inapplicable to the specific facts of the Alian case - I argue that the HCJ decision in Beit Sourik, upon which the state relies in Alian, shares some of the deficiencies of the ICJ advisory opinion. In particular, I criticise the state's unwillingness to present a coherent legal theory on certain important aspects affecting the legality of the barrier and argue that this omission leaves in place regrettable legal ambiguities, which unduly complicate the legal situation in the Occupied Territories.

Keywords: separation wall, west bank, occupied territories, icj, israel, settlements, humanitarian law

JEL Classification: K33