The United Nations and the Question of Palestine: Rule by Law and the Structure of International Legal Subalternity

Contrary to conventional wisdom, there has been a continuing though vacillating gulf between the requirements of international law and the UN on the question of Palestine. This book explores the UN's management of the longest-running problem on its agenda, critically assessing tensions between the organization's position and international law. What forms has the UN's failure to respect international law taken, and with what implications? The author critically interrogates the received wisdom regarding the UN's fealty to the international rule of law, in favour of what is described as an international rule by law. This book demonstrates that through the actions of the UN, Palestine and its people have been committed to a state of what the author calls 'international legal subalternity', according to which the promise of justice through international law is repeatedly proffered under a cloak of political legitimacy furnished by the international community, but its realization is interminably withheld.

• Critically examines and relies upon primary UN sources on the key aspects of the Palestine question, including summary and verbatim records, resolutions, judicial opinions and reports
• Combines detailed legal analyses of key moments, while critically drawing out the broader thematic patterns that emerge, not only for Palestine but also for the international legal order writ large
• Introduces the novel concept of 'international legal subalternity' as the product of the clash between hegemonic and subaltern actors at the UN, and the manner in which international law is used or abused by the former in its subjugation of the latter within and through the organization