S in BDS feature

THE "S" IN BDS: CHANGING POLICY FOR ACCOUNTABILITY

INTRODUCTION

The “S” in BDS stands for sanctions, and it intentionally comes after B and D, as it requires building a critical mass of people power to make policymakers fulfill their obligations under international law and impose accountability measures to end Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights and international law. 

To get there, the movement works to build power from the grassroots to the grasstops to pressure States, official institutions such as local governments, and international organizations, to end their complicity in Israel’s systematic atrocity crimes and human rights violations against the Palestinian people and to take meaningful action for accountability. Ending this complicity and enforcing accountability, the cornerstones for justice, are necessary for dismantling Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism, apartheid, military occupation, and genocide. They are legal obligations.

A major reason why Israel is able to systematically violate international law and commit war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide against Palestinians is primarily because other States and international organizations fail to meet their obligations under international law. The two basic obligations include not contributing to a crime or illegal situation, and ensuring the application of international law for accountability. Failure to uphold these obligations constitutes complicity and undermines the multilateral system based on the rule of international law. 

The "S" in BDS is inspired by the enforcement measures adopted by the UN against apartheid South Africa. Such measures are considered the most ethical, legal and effective paradigm for accountability. We work to build pressure on governments to impose legal, proportional, targeted, ethically justifiable, and strategically effective sanctions to help dismantle Israel’s regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid against the Indigenous Palestinian people. 

The highest judicial and legislative bodies of global governance, including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the UN General Assembly(UNGA), have made clear that sanctions against Israel’s regime of genocide and apartheid are an obligation under international law, not a discretion. This includes imposing a comprehensive military embargo, ending economic and financial links, stopping academic and other forms of cooperation, cutting of diplomatic ties, and expelling Israel from the United Nations and other international bodies. 

Governments do respond to public pressure, and some have taken limited forms of sanctions against Israel or measures to ensure they do not contribute to its crimes. Imposing unilateral and multilateral ethical, legal and effective sanctions is the most fundamental legal and ethical obligation in the face of Israel’s apartheid and genocide. 

The BDS movement has been successful over the years in mainstreaming the legal analysis of Israel’s regime as one of settler-colonialism, apartheid and military occupation. It has built a massive intersectional network with unions as well as racial, social, economic, gender and climate justice movements representing tens of millions worldwide. Today, Palestine remains a major litmus test for human rights and the system of international law.

WHAT ARE SANCTIONS?

[B]oycotts, divestment, and sanctions against Israeli occupation, colonization, and apartheid is not only a moral imperative and constitutional and human right, but also an international legal obligation.
Craig Mokhiber, former head of the UN Human Rights office in New York.

Sanctions in international relations are the measures taken by States to uphold their obligations under international law by acting to bring to an end, through lawful means, of serious breaches of the basic principles of international law. Sanctions target the responsible State with the aim of compelling it to abide by international law by ceasing its violations and making reparations.

Gross and systematic violations the basic principles of international law (peremptory norms) by a State such as aggression, acquisition of territory through the threat or use of force, colonialism, crimes against humanity, apartheid, and genocide trigger two distinct legal obligations for all other States and international (inter-state) organizations: to cooperate to bring to an end through lawful means the serious breach; and not to recognise as lawful a situation created by such a serious breach, and not to aid or assist in maintaining it. 

Historically, UN and member states’ sanctions against apartheid South Africa are considered the most important and longest application of UN-supported international sanctions (opposed for decades by some Western states, most prominently the US and UK). On the contrary, US-led sanctions against Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and other states, where the US sought “regime change,” have mostly lacked the required UN support or international legitimacy, with some exceptions. In these exceptions, the fact that the UN supported a sanctions regime has not prevented this from leading to horrific – even genocidal – consequences, as in Iraq. This must caution us against considering UN support for any sanctions as a sufficient condition for making such sanctions ethically justifiable.

As part of their third state responsibility, all states are required to  cooperate and adopt measures in order to bring Israel’s peremptory norms violations to an end and ensure accountability for them. States can take action, including imposing sanctions, unilaterally, multilaterally, and in the framework of the United Nations.

In order for states to uphold the obligation not to recognise as lawful a situation created by such a serious breach, and not to aid or assist in maintaining it, States must take measures to ensure that they themselves uphold universally binding peremptory norms, avoid or end complicity, and do no harm. While these are not technically sanctions, they are an obligation and not a discretion. 

The BDS movement adopts a hybrid definition of sanctions that combines both obligations. Such an approach reconciles the most important elements of the generally agreed upon definitions of sanctions with the legal definitions, while maintaining the principles of ethicality, legality, and strategic effectiveness. 

To be lawful, sanctions or a sanctions regime must comply with the UN Charter, respect fundamental human rights, humanitarian obligations and peremptory norms, must be proportional, and must not be adopted as a means to advance geo-strategic interests. The sanctions or sanctions regime must be targeted at the structures of oppression and do not lead to undue harm to civilians, whether intentionally or not. 

There are at least five areas to which sanctions, in the form of negative obligation, can be applied: 

  1. Military-security links, including two-way trade, transfer, and transit of military and dual-use material, partnerships, joint training, academic research, and other forms of military cooperation;
  2. Energy links including the supply of oil, gas, and coal; 
  3. Economic and financial links, including trade, co-operation agreements and forums, and banking relations; 
  4. Cultural links, including academic cooperation and sports (including exclusion from the Olympics, FIFA, etc.);
  5. Diplomatic links, including relations on an official level, participation in international institutions, networks and meetings.

Sanctions were the final blow to the apartheid regime in South Africa. Given the dependency of Israel upon global markets, targeted and lawful sanctions at a state, regional or international level will be a highly effective measure to bring about real pressure on Israel’s apartheid regime.

The highest judicial and legislative bodies of global governance including the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the UN General Assembly (UNGA) have determined that Israel systematically violates peremptory norms in international law including carrying out a “plausible” genocide and imposing apartheid against Palestinians. Such determinations trigger both negative and positive obligations of Third States.  

In 2004 the ICJ determined, in an Advisory Opinion requested by the UNGA, that Israel’s wall and settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian territory are illegal, and for the first time laid out the binding obligations of Third States and the UN to end Israel’s violations of international law. Since then, authoritative bodies and organizations around the world including UN human rights mechanisms, major international human rights organizations, as well as legal experts, scholars, and academics have found Israel guilty of apartheid and other gross and systematic human rights against Palestinians. 

In January 2024, in the case brought by South Africa against Israel, the ICJ determined that Israel is plausibly violating the Genocide Convention against 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. The court’s determination triggered obligations under the Convention which requires States to undertake “to prevent and to punish genocide.” States therefore have both a negative obligation, not to commit or be complicit in genocide, and a positive obligation, to prevent and to punish genocide. In September  the UN Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the Human Rights of the Palestinian People and other Arabs of the Occupied Territories published a report finding Israel guilty of genocide. 

In December 2024, Amnesty International, the largest international human rights organization, found that, based on policies, actions, and omissions since 7 October 2023, Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. With this, Amnesty added its authoritative voice to states, UN experts, and thousands of legal scholars and genocide historians who had earlier reached the same conclusion. 

In April 2024, Nicaragua brought a case against Germany to the ICJ for complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza, including by supplying weapons and providing other military support. While the court did not grant Nicaragua the requested provisional measures, it struck down Germany’s request to dismiss the case, initiating proceedings instead. The same month, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution calling “to cease the sale, transfer and diversion of arms, munitions and other military equipment to Israel.” 

In July 2024, the ICJ determined, building on the 2004 ruling, that Israel is guilty of apartheid and its military occupation illegal. The ICJ concluded that Israel must completely end its military occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and affirmed beyond doubt the legal obligation for all States to end complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation and gross violations of human rights, and to act to ensure respect for international law. Later in September 2024, The UNGA passed a resolution, with an overwhelming majority, adopting the July 2024 ICJ’s Advisory Opinion and called, for the first time in 42 years, to impose sanctions on Israel and for ending Israel’s occupation in 12 months. 

In November 2024, The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then “Defense” Minister Yoav Gallant, which have further amplified the requirements for states to act on their obligations. 

Such indubitable determinations by the highest authoritative bodies of human rights and international law make clear the criminality of Israel’s settler-colonial regime and the obligation of states to help dismantle it and ensure accountability. This begins with upholding the obligation not to recognize, aid or assist, Israel’s criminal regime and to work both individually and collectively to prevent, suppress, and punish the crimes and the criminals. 

The BDS movement works on building pressure on states to take steps to meet their legal obligations not to be complicit in the commission of Israeli crimes and not to provide recognition, aid or assistance that help Israel maintain its regime of settler colonialism, apartheid, and genocide. This includes, for example, the obligation for states to immediately end all trade that sustains Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid or which may contribute directly or indirectly to Israel’s commission of the crime of genocide. This should include the suspension of free trade agreements and other bilateral agreements with Israel as well as imposing a comprehensive military-security and energy embargo against it.

Because of Israel’s serious and systematic violations of peremptory norms, other states are required, as part of their third state obligations, to avoid/terminate recognition, aid or assistance that enables the crime of genocide and/or helps maintain Israel’s illegal system of apartheid and military occupation. This includes, for example, non-recognition of Israel’s presence (military occupation and settlements) as legitimate anywhere in the OPT and the duty to end relations, including trade and diplomatic relations for example, that contribute to recognition and enabling such an illegal situation. This obligation has been made clear by the ICJ Advisory Opinions of 2004 and 2024 which concluded that all states were under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from Israel’s unlawful presence in the OPT and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation. 

As part of their obligation not to provide recognition, aid or assistance to Israeli violations, states must halt military, economic, financial, academic and cultural cooperation with all official Israeli institutions because such cooperation provides recognition and material support to the maintenance of oppression of the Palestinian people by Israeli apartheid and settler colonialism.

Israel is especially reliant on international trade and has free trade agreements and other bilateral agreements with countries and regional blocs across the world. Such trade enables, if not directly contributes to, the commission of Israel’s crimes of genocide, apartheid, and other crimes against humanity. 

The BDS movement is calling for an end to all economic ties with Israel’s regime of genocide, apartheid, and settler colonialism. This includes agreements that give Israel preferential access to markets and to economic cooperation.

As part of their duty not to recognise or assist in maintaining Israel’s illegal and criminal apartheid regime,  governments are legally obliged to ban all trade that enables Israel’s genocide and/or helps Israel maintain its illegal presence including military occupation and settlement activity in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,  including East Jerusalem.  

Israel’s genocide is powered by oil and coal, which fuel its electricity grid, its arms industry, its AI infrastructure and its military vehicles. The sale of gas funnels billions into the Israeli economy, allowing it to continue its genocidal campaigns. At the end of February 2024, Palestinian organisations issued a call demanding the cessation of all energy transfers to Israel, the purchase of Israeli gas and corporate complicity in the extraction and sale of energy sources, particularly those found in Palestinian land, waters or exclusive economic zone (EEZ). 

Israel is only able to carry out genocide and maintain aparheid because of the complicity of states and companies around the world to supply it with weapons and/or cooperate with its military and its weapons companies and research institutions.

Military assaults on Palestinians are used by Israeli military companies to test and market new weapons as “field-tested.” There is a growing international campaign to get more governments to impose a military embargo on Israel. 

IMPACT

  • IMPOSING

    SANCTIONS

    See More

    In November 2024, the UN General Assembly overwhelmingly voted for imposing sanctions on Israel for the first time in 42 years.

  • MILITARY

    EMBARGO

    In November 2024, 52 states called for a military embargo on Israel, an initiative later adopted by the joint summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and the League of Arab States.

  • BOLIVIA

    SUSPENDED

    Diplomatic relations with Israel, while Chile, Colombia, Chad, Honduras, Turkey, and Jordan, among others, have downgraded relations with it.

CAMPAIGNS

The BDS movement leads the broad consensus among Palestinians on the demand to establish the UNSCAA which was reflected in the Unified Palestinian Call to Dismantle Settler Colonialism and Apartheid. The Unified Palestinian civil society call with regards to sanctions on Israel following the 2024 ICJ Advisory Opinion reiterated the demand:

  • On the UN General Assembly to instruct the UN organs, including the UN Secretary General, to enact effective accountability mechanisms within the UN system to address not only Israel’s unlawful presence in the OPT, but also its policies of segregation and apartheid; its violation of UNGA 194 regarding the right of Palestinian refugees to return and receive reparations; its annexation of Palestinian territory; and its denial of the right of self-determination. These denied rights affect the entire Palestinian people.
  • On the General Assembly to reconstitute the UNSCAA and UN Centre Against Apartheid; to bring Israel’s segregation and apartheid against the entire Palestinian people (including refugees) to an end; to ensure that Israel “repeal[s] all legislation and measures creating or maintaining the unlawful situation, including those which discriminate against the Palestinian people in the OPT”.

In the Global South, in particular, former Presidents, MPs, jurists and diplomats from Asia, Africa and Latin America have endorsed the demand for activating the UNSCAA to address Israel’s apartheid over the entire Palestinian people.

Many local government bodies have investment and procurement relationships with companies that are complicit in Israel’s grave violations of Palestinian rights. Others have twinning relationships (sometimes called sister city agreements) with Israeli local government bodies that participate in Israel’s commission of international crimes. Local governments have an ethical responsibility and a legal obligation to divest from and exclude from contracts companies and institutions that are implicated in recognising, aiding or assisting Israel’s illegal military occupation, system of apartheid, or violations of the Genocide Convention, as determined by the International Court of Justice. 

Governments are failing to hold Israel accountable, and in some cases, such as the US, are actively funding, arming and otherwise enabling Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and its underlying system of apartheid and illegal military occupation. This means that local governments have a vital role to play in upholding human rights and extending solidarity, as was the case against apartheid South Africa. Under a second Trump presidency in the US and a rightward shift globally, it is even more urgent that cities act to uphold the values of democracy and human rights and remain in harmony with international law.

Since the start of Israel’s Gaza genocide in 2023, cities around the world have divested from Israel, ended contracts with complicit companies, ended twinning agreements, and even blocked ships carrying military supplies to Israel from their ports. Cities, reflecting the overwhelming grassroots sentiment, have built the pressure that in some cases led to states enacting an arms embargo on Israel. 

Local governments including cities, local and regional councils, must adopt human rights investment and procurement policy, stipulating that the local government will not invest in or contract with companies complicit in grave human rights violations. Local governments must institute policies that would prevent investments and procurement contracts with companies that are complicit in human rights violations anywhere. 

Every single Israeli city is deeply implicated in the state’s crimes and grave human rights violations against Indigenous Palestinians including apartheid.

Sister-city projects ideally aim to promote ties between community members in both cities or to learn about each other's lives and work together on projects to support one another. When a city has sister city ties with an Israeli city, it serves to provide formal recognition, contrary to international law, to an illegal situation. Such recognition works to whitewash Israel as a “normal” state with which we should build cooperation. 

There have been many precedents for ending sister-city relationships with complicit Israeli cities: Barcelona, Spain; Ixelles, Belgium; and Antalya, Turkey, among others, have all ended their relationships with their respective Israeli sister cities. Some cities like Belem, Brazil have declared themselves Apartheid-Free Zones, while some like Liege, Belgium have cut all ties with apartheid Israel.

Campus demo

LOCAL GOVERNMENTS

Local government bodies such as municipal and regional councils play an important role in our political system. Dozens of local authorities across Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, France, the UK, Italy, Belgium and Australia have passed resolutions that support BDS or that pledge not to deal with specific companies targeted by the BDS movement.

AFZ

APARTHEID FREE ZONES

The Apartheid Free Zone (AFZ) campaign, as part of the BDS movement, seeks to foster the creation of progressive, intersectional spaces across the world that are free of Israel’s genocide, apartheid, and settler colonialism, and which bring together multiple struggles for justice and equality.

MILITARY THUMB 260

MILITARY EMBARGO

Israel, including its military forces, arms industry and research institutions, wouldn’t be able to commit these crimes and atrocities, maintain its illegal occupation and apartheid regime against the entire Palestinian people without weapons, ammunition, technology, joint academic research and other military and dual-use material produced globally. The urgency of a military embargo has never been greater.

Local governments can pass resolutions calling on their States to take action for accountability For example, a city resolution may call for an arms embargo (ending military funding to and military-security trade with Israel, as well as transit of military supplies to it) and to follow and enforce existing law. Example passed by Northampton, MA (US) city council November 2024. 

 

International and regional bodies have complicit links with Israel’s regime of apartheid and genocide. Such links enable and may also have direct contribution to Israel’s commission of atrocity crimes against Palestinians. 

Israel’s membership in or association with various international or regional diplomatic and economic forums, such as the United Nations, the EU, the Olympics, FIFA, and OECD, provide an unwarranted veneer of respectability and material support for its colonial regime and crimes carried out against Palestinians.

In recent years there has been growing opposition to Israel’s membership in the UNGA as well as sporting and cultural bodies such as the Eurovision song contest, the international football federation FIFA and the Olympics.

Israel is an apartheid state that should be treated as such. In 1973, apartheid South Africa was suspended from the UNGA and Israel should receive the same treatment. Israel is in breach of conditions of its membership in the UN by not implementing resolution 194. It also systematically infringes upon its duties towards the UN, violating the protections afforded to UN bodies such as the UNRWA and UNIFIL. These blatant breaches have escalated over the past year and are reflected in the very high number of UN staff casualties and the repeated assaults on UN facilities. The latest Israeli legislation banning UNRWA is in direct violation of Article 105 of the UN Charter. Furthermore, Israel resolutely refuses to engage with UN Mechanisms by not allowing visits from UN Special Rapporteurs and the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry, among others. Israel has also declared the UN Secretary General persona non grata, a reflection of its absolute disregard of the institution. Over the decades, Israel has also shown contempt for the International Court of Justice’s 2004 Advisory Opinion and has repeatedly flouted multiple UNGA resolutions. There is a long litany of UN Security Council Resolutions that Israel has violated, which in itself is a violation of Article 25 of the UN Charter. In accordance with Article 6 of the UN Charter, member states must call for the unseating of Israel due to its persistent violation of the Principles of the UN Charter, which undermine the international legal order.

The UN system shields Israel from from accountability including for example by not addressing Israel’s apartheid and genocide. The office of UNSG office is compilicit in not taking the appropriate action with regards to its mandate of prevention of genocide and addressing apartheid following the ICJ rulings and opinions. Further, the UN must examine whether its procurement policies are in line with international law and human rights and do not contract companies that are complicit in Israeli crimes and human rights violations against Palestinians. 

 

Take Action

We need to take action together to press governments and international bodies to end their support for Israeli settler colonialism and apartheid and to hold Israel accountable for its violations of international law.

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