Summary
The General Assembly’s resolution 77/247, adopted on 30 December 2022 on the Fourth Committee’s report, which catalogues Israeli practices violating Palestinian human rights after 55 years of occupation — excessive force, arbitrary detention of thousands including children, collective punishment, settlements, the wall, demolitions, Gaza’s blockade and settler violence — demands cessation of all measures contrary to international law and of settlement and wall construction, demands compliance with the 2004 advisory opinion including reparations, calls for prisoner attention under the Mandela and Bangkok Rules and for implementation of the 2017 Cairo unity agreement, and in paragraph 18 requests the International Court of Justice to render an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s ongoing violation of Palestinian self-determination and prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation, and on how those practices affect the legal status of the occupation and the consequences for all States and the United Nations (Resolution 77/247: Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (30 December 2022), PDF p.1-9).
What the file is
United Nations document A/RES/77/247, General Assembly, Distr.: General, 9 January 2023, Seventy-seventh session, Agenda item 47, 9 PDF pages, about 4,189 words in the text copy. Adopted at the 56th (resumed) plenary meeting on 30 December 2022, on the report of the Special Political and Decolonization Committee (Fourth Committee) (A/77/400, para. 14). The text copy is clean and matches the original. No vote count is given in the file.
Section by section
- Preamble (PDF p.1-2). The human rights instruments and the Fourth Geneva Convention’s applicability; the Special Committee, Secretary-General, Special Rapporteur and commission of inquiry reports considered; accountability stressed; 55 years since the onset of the occupation regretted; the 2004 advisory opinion recalled, in particular the wall reply; Palestine’s treaty accessions noted.
- Preamble continued (PDF p.3-4). Articles 146, 147 and 148 obligations and the High Contracting Parties conferences of 1999, 2001 and 2014; the peace agreements, road map and the 15 November 2005 movement and Rafah agreements; Jerusalem’s status quo and the Haram al-Sharif; the systematic-violation catalogue in full, demolitions at unprecedented rates, Gaza’s blockade conditions and the 2012 Gaza in 2020 report, and grave breaches in successive Gaza operations.
- Preamble continued (PDF p.5-6). Hundreds of movement obstacles and the permit regime; thousands of prisoners under the harsh conditions listed, hunger strikes, the Mandela and Bangkok Rules, withheld bodies; settler violence; the Hebron presence whose mandate Israel did not renew; the Secretary-General’s protection report.
- Operative paragraphs 1-9 (PDF p.6-7). Paragraph 1 declares violating measures illegal and without validity and demands compliance; paragraph 2 demands cessation of the listed measures; paragraphs 3-5 address civilian protection, the protection report and cooperation with Human Rights Council mechanisms; paragraph 6 demands cessation of settlements, the wall and status-altering measures and implementation of resolution 2334 (2016); paragraph 7 addresses prisoners; paragraphs 8-9 condemn Israeli forces’ violence and, also, militant and rocket violence against Israeli civilians.
- Operative paragraphs 10-19 (PDF p.7-9). Paragraph 10 reiterates resolution 1860 (2009); paragraph 11 demands 2004-opinion compliance; paragraph 12 addresses territorial unity and movement; paragraph 13 demands an end to closures amounting to a blockade and implementation of the 2005 agreements; paragraph 14 addresses Gaza’s health crisis; paragraphs 15-17 urge assistance, self-determination support, Palestinian institutions and the Cairo agreement of 12 October 2017 under President Mahmoud Abbas; paragraph 18 makes the advisory opinion request in two questions; paragraph 19 requests the Secretary-General’s report to the seventy-eighth session.
Key passages
- “What are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures?” (operative paragraph 18 (a), PDF p.8)
- “How do the policies and practices of Israel referred to in paragraph 18 (a) above affect the legal status of the occupation, and what are the legal consequences that arise for all States and the United Nations from this status?” (operative paragraph 18 (b), PDF p.8)
Evidence the work relies on
A General Assembly resolution, not an evidentiary work. Its stated bases are the reports its preamble names — the Special Committee report (A/77/501), the Secretary-General’s report (A/76/333), the Special Rapporteur’s report (A/HRC/49/87), the commission of inquiry report (A/77/328), the ESCWA repercussions report and the Secretary-General’s protection report (A/ES-10/794) — and the treaties, agreements and resolutions it recalls. Its figures are 55 years of occupation, thousands of prisoners and hundreds of movement obstacles, none given a precise count in the file.
Analysis
The resolution is two instruments joined: a periodic practices resolution, whose catalogue and demands largely repeat the annual form, and, at paragraph 18, the request that produced the Court’s 19 July 2024 opinion. The second question is the novel element — it asks not only for consequences of violations but for the legal status of the occupation itself and the consequences of that status for third parties, which is the form the 2024 opinion and ES-10/24 then took up.
People, organizations, places and events
UN General Assembly Resolution 77/247, International Court of Justice, Gaza, Separation wall, Mahmoud Abbas
Concepts
Self-determination, Two-state solution
How it relates to other sources
- Resolution ES-10/24: Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legal consequences arising from Israel’s policies and practices in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (18 September 2024) opens by reproducing this resolution’s two questions as the origin of the opinion it implements.
- Resolution ES-10/15: Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (20 July 2004) is named in paragraph 11 as a demand still unimplemented, and the 2004 opinion is one of the instruments paragraph 18 tells the Court to consider.
- Resolution 79/232: Request for an advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the obligations of Israel in relation to the presence and activities of the United Nations, other international organizations and third States (19 December 2024) recalls this resolution as the precedent request before making its own.
Open questions
- No vote count is given in the file.
- The reports cited in the preamble are not reproduced, so their findings cannot be quantified from this file beyond the resolution’s own catalogue.
Coverage
PDF p.1-9 of 9, read in full.