This paper investigates the legal debate over the relevance and applicability of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P) principle to the Gaza Strip and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The paper argues that some issues have been dismissed from this legal debate, including whether R2P applies to an occupied territory and population upon which the occupier does not exercise control on the ground, while the occupied population has neither a state nor sovereignty.
The legal debate also neglects that R2P requires the approval of the Security Council without a veto. Consequently, the question of the appropriate authority to authorize R2P and to intervene is elided. The presumed impossibility of the United States, and its allies in the Security Council, allowing the application of R2P to Gaza and the interest-based, political, and ideological biases that lend support to this position drain the legal debate of any substance. However, in this R2P debate about Gaza, there seems to be nothing solid to rely on, despite the urgent need for the application of the principle following the events of 7 October 2023.
*** This study was published in the 15th issue of AlMuntaqa, a peer-reviewed academic journal for the social sciences and humanities. You can read the full paper here.
