Summary
The General Assembly’s resolution ES-10/24, adopted on 18 September 2024, which welcomes the International Court of Justice advisory opinion of 19 July 2024, demands that Israel end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory no later than 12 months from adoption, withdraw its forces, cease settlement activity and evacuate settlers, return seized land, property and cultural assets, allow displaced Palestinians to return and make reparation, calls on all States to comply with non-recognition, non-assistance, distinction, settlement-product, arms, sanctions and accountability obligations as reflected in the opinion, and calls for an international register of damage, a Conference of High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention within six months, and an international conference on the Palestine resolutions and the two-State solution during the seventy-ninth session (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), PDF p.1-8).
What the file is
United Nations document A/RES/ES-10/24, General Assembly, Distr.: General, 19 September 2024, Tenth emergency special session, Agenda item 5, 8 PDF pages, about 4,341 words in the text copy. Adopted at the 55th plenary meeting on 18 September 2024 without reference to a Main Committee (A/ES-10/L.31/Rev.1). The text copy is clean and matches the original. Footnote 1 defines all references to the Occupied Palestinian Territory as including East Jerusalem; footnotes identify the opinion as A/78/968 and the conventions and covenants cited. No vote count is given in the file. The resolution summarizes and affirms the Court’s determinations; the opinion itself is a separate document, A/78/968, not reproduced here.
Section by section
- Preamble, request and Court determinations (PDF p.1-2). Charter, self-determination and inadmissibility of acquisition of territory by force; resolution 77/247 of 30 December 2022 requesting the opinion, its two questions reproduced; the opinion of 19 July 2024 received, its determinations (a)-(g) summarized: unlawful presence, end as rapidly as possible, cease settlements and evacuate settlers, reparation, State non-recognition and non-assistance, organization non-recognition, and United Nations consideration of modalities.
- Preamble, affirmations (a)-(k) (PDF p.2-4). Settlements and their associated regime in violation of international law; entrenchment amounting to annexation of large parts; acquisition of sovereignty over occupied territory contrary to the prohibition of force; systemic discrimination under the Fourth Geneva Convention, the two Covenants, the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and customary law; breach of article 3 of that Convention on racial segregation and apartheid, quoted; self-determination as a peremptory norm, not subject to occupying-Power conditions; prolonged breach through settlements, annexation, discrimination, forced displacement and movement restrictions; no Israeli sovereignty or sovereign powers in any part of the Territory, security concerns not overriding non-acquisition; illegality relating to the entirety of the territory occupied in 1967; the presence a wrongful act of continuing character.
- Preamble, close (PDF p.4). Rule of law and respect for the Court; permanent United Nations responsibility; two-State commitment; urgency of ending the occupation begun in 1967; territorial integrity and unity; rejection of demographic or territorial change in Gaza including reduction of its territory; obligations of an erga omnes character as the concern of all States; accountability imperative.
- Operative paragraphs 1-3 (PDF p.5). Paragraph 1 welcomes the opinion; paragraph 2 demands Israel end its unlawful presence no later than 12 months from adoption; paragraph 3 lists compliance acts (a)-(g): withdrawal including airspace and maritime space, ending unlawful policies including evacuating settlers, dismantling wall parts in the Territory and repealing discriminatory and status-altering measures including at Jerusalem holy sites, return of land, property, assets and cultural property, return of displaced Palestinians, reparation, compliance with the provisional measures in South Africa v. Israel, and non-impediment of self-determination.
- Operative paragraphs 4-7 (PDF p.6-7). Paragraph 4 calls on all States on self-determination, non-recognition, non-assistance, non-recognition of changes to the 5 June 1967 territory except by negotiation, distinction in dealings including treaty, trade, diplomatic-mission and investment limbs, Fourth Geneva Convention compliance including articles 146-148, and ending systemic discrimination; paragraph 5 adds nationals and companies, settlement-product imports, arms transfers on reasonable suspicion of use in the Territory, sanctions including travel bans and asset freezes, and accountability support; paragraph 6 addresses international and regional organizations; paragraph 7 addresses the United Nations and its bodies, including maps, statements and reports.
- Operative paragraphs 8-19 (PDF p.7-8). Accountability and reparation, including an international register of damage (paragraph 10); investigations and prosecutions for the most serious crimes (paragraph 11); a High Contracting Parties conference invited through Switzerland within six months (paragraph 12); an international conference during the seventy-ninth session (paragraph 13); proposals for a follow-up mechanism on article 3 violations (paragraph 14); further measures on non-compliance (paragraph 15); support for self-determination (paragraph 16); a Secretary-General report within three months (paragraph 17); permanent responsibility (paragraph 18); temporary adjournment (paragraph 19).
Key passages
- “Demands that Israel brings to an end without delay its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which constitutes a wrongful act of a continuing character entailing its international responsibility, and do so no later than 12 months from the adoption of the present resolution” (operative paragraph 2, PDF p.5)
- “States Parties particularly condemn racial segregation and apartheid and undertake to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature in territories under their jurisdiction” (article 3 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, as quoted in affirmation (e), PDF p.3)
Evidence the work relies on
The resolution’s evidence is the advisory opinion it welcomes: the request in resolution 77/247, the opinion document A/78/968 of 19 July 2024, and the instruments its affirmations cite — the Fourth Geneva Convention, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination and customary international law — each identified by footnote. The opinion’s reasoning is summarized and affirmed, not reproduced; no figures are given.
Analysis
The Assembly converts the Court’s as rapidly as possible into a dated demand, 12 months from 18 September 2024, and converts the opinion’s State obligations into a detailed programme in paragraphs 4-5 that goes beyond restating non-recognition: distinction is spelled out into treaty, trade, mission and investment limbs, and sanctions, settlement-product imports and arms transfers are addressed as steps States are called on to take. Its own institutional creations are prospective — a register of damage to be created by Member States with the United Nations, two conferences to be convened, a follow-up mechanism to be proposed, and a three-month report — so the file records decisions to build machinery, not the machinery in operation.
People, organizations, places and events
UN General Assembly Resolution ES-10/24, International Court of Justice, Israel, Gaza, West Bank, East Jerusalem, UN Security Council Resolution 2334, UN Security Council Resolution 478
Concepts
Self-determination, Apartheid, Two-state solution
How it relates to other sources
- Resolution ES-10/26: Demand for ceasefire in Gaza (11 December 2024) recalls this opinion alongside the South Africa v. Israel provisional measures, and Resolution ES-10/23: Admission of new Members to the United Nations (10 May 2024) had already invoked a Court opinion, that of 28 May 1948, on the different question of admission.
- Its distinction and non-recognition limbs restate, in advisory-opinion terms, the call in Resolution 2334 (2016) on Israeli settlements (23 December 2016) for States to distinguish between Israel’s territory and the territories occupied since 1967, which paragraph 4(d) cites expressly.
Open questions
- No vote count is given in the file.
- The advisory opinion A/78/968 itself is summarized, not reproduced, so the Court’s reasoning, separate opinions and exact holdings beyond the resolution’s summary cannot be stated from this file.
- Whether the 12-month demand, the six-month conference invitation, the register of damage or the three-month report were complied with or completed is not recorded in this file.
Coverage
PDF p.1-8 of 8, read in full.