In a previous article for Al-Ahram Weekly, I discussed the long history of international sanctions as an instrument of political pressure.
Perhaps the most salient example of this is the worldwide governmental and grassroots campaign to boycott Apartheid South Africa, a sustained effort that spanned decades until that regime of systemic racial discrimination eventually collapsed.
A brutal Apartheid regime still exists, necessitating another sustained, multipronged sanctions campaign. This article will discuss the decentralised and grassroots dimensions of a sanctions campaign against Israel.
Boycotts and sanctions need not only be applied by the international community in order to be effective. They can be complemented and strengthened by local initiatives at the country level. History has shown how local initiatives, such as those undertaken by various municipalities and civil society organisations in the US and Europe against the South African Apartheid regime, helped drive the international pressures and lend them legitimacy.
In the Palestinian context, several countries have seen powerful locally driven initiatives undertaken by unions, legal associations, human rights groups, local municipalities, groups of artists and intellectuals, and other civil society organisations.
They have included initiatives falling under three main types.
First, there has been national legislation, with some countries having laws that local citizens and civil society groups can use to press for justice and build up pressure against the Israeli Apartheid regime. Canada’s Justice for the Victims of Terrorism Act can be used to sue or penalise companies that support Israeli settlements and settlement activities in the West Bank and other Occupied Palestinian Territories, for example.
As has recently been confirmed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), all those settlements and activities are illegal under international law.
Second, national governments have implemented measures such as asset freezes and travel bans on individuals and entities involved in settlement construction or settler violence against Palestinian civilians. The United States (under its Executive Order on Settlements), the United Kingdom, and the European Union (under their respective human rights sanctions frameworks) have all implemented such targeted sanctions.
Though limited in scope, the measures impose financial and legal costs and serve as a partial deterrent. National and regional institutions, banks, sovereign funds, and companies can all play a similar role.
Third, national courts are increasingly important in applying the principle of universal jurisdiction to prosecute the perpetrators of serious international crimes in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Domestic courts can issue arrest warrants against Israeli officials, soldiers, and settlers, who would risk being taken into custody should they enter the national territories of the courts.
Equally if not more powerful are grassroots actions such as the anti-genocide demonstrations on university campuses worldwide, the various Freedom Flotillas, such as the Madleen, which Israel illegally intercepted in international waters, abucting its crew and passengers, the Gaza relief caravan, which has set off from Tunisia bound for the Rafah Crossing to protest against Israel’s forced starvation of the Palestinians, and the recent Marseille dockworkers’ refusal to load containers filled with French weapons onto a ship bound for Israel.
IMPLEMENTATION: To ensure the sustainability and efficacy of any sanctions drive against the Israeli Apartheid regime, an International Sanctions Monitoring and Implementation Body (ISMIB) could be established through a resolution by the UN General Assembly, the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, or other independent bodies.
The proposed ISMIB would be responsible for four broad areas, including monitoring and assessment, compliance oversight, coordination of actions, and supporting victims.
On monitoring and assessment, it would gather and analyse evidence of violations of international law (settlement construction, discrimination, state-sponsored and settler violence) in order to objectively identify the targets of sanctions.
On compliance, it would monitor the compliance of states and private entities (banks and corporations) with UN General Assembly Resolutions or regional/local sanctions measures and publish regular reports on compliance violations.
On the coordination of actions, it would serve as a platform for coordinating efforts among states willing to apply sanctions (outside the UN Security Council framework). This would entail harmonising target lists and information sharing and drawing on UN databases to close any gaps.
On the support for victims, it would document the impact of Israeli discriminatory practices, settlement activity, and state- and settler-led violence against Palestinians. It would study the effects of sanctions on Palestinian civilians so as to avert any harm to them.
Revitalising and strengthening the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) would be important alongside the ISMIB. This committee, established under the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), is endowed with a long-established legal mandate to assess states’ compliance with their anti-discrimination obligations under the ICERD.
In the framework of the boycott and sanctions drive against Israeli Apartheid, the CERD could perform four tasks.
First, it could investigate systematic violations and stringently apply the Early Warning and Urgent Action Procedure (Article 9 of the committee’s internal rules) to investigate Israel’s policies and practices, which legal experts and rights organisations increasingly describe as a form of Apartheid, mentioned in ICERD Article 3 and more explicitly defined in Article 2 of the 1973 International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid (ICSPCA).
Second, it could issue morally binding recommendations. After reviewing country reports and reports from NGOs, the committee could issue definitive recommendations urging Israel to halt discriminatory policies, dismantle settlements, and ensure equality. While not legally binding like UN Security Council Resolutions, these recommendations carry significant legal and moral weight and form a basis for diplomatic pressure and domestic litigation.
Third, it could furnish the legal grounds for sanctions. CERD reports and recommendations can serve as a strong legal and moral basis to justify and expand local and international sanctions. In identifying and confirming grave and relentless violations of the ICERD, CERD findings would provide the necessary objective grounds for punitive measures under international law.
Fourth, it can cooperate with the international courts. The CERD can offer legal expertise and evidence to the ICJ, especially as relates to the ongoing case against Israel on the charge of genocide and the ICJ advisory hearings on Israeli practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in its investigations of Israeli officials facing charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, especially those involving systemic discrimination.
A concerted, systematic, and institutionalised sanctions regime promises to be an effective means to fight the illegal Israeli occupation and settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, particularly when operating alongside decentralised grassroots and civil society initiatives.
The writer is former assistant foreign minister.
* A version of this article appears in print in the 19 June, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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