The law of belligerent occupation

L’obiettivo di questo lavoro consiste nel comprendere come il diritto internazionale regoli la  relazione fra i conflitti armati e le risorse naturali. Il tema è socialmente percepito come un’emergenza ed è stato affrontato dalle scienze sociali che ne hanno chiarito i meccanismi causali e lo sviluppo nel tempo. Non è stato realizzato, invece, uno studio normativo di questa materia.

This article examines the tendencies to define the scope of application of jus ad bellum negatively in relation to the scope of application of jus in bello and demonstrates their neutralising effect on the prohibition on the use of force under Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations. It argues that individual acts of use of force during an international armed conflict regulated by jus in bello, whether in combat, in restricting the freedom of enemy nationals or in maintaining an occupation, are equally regulated by jus ad bellum. It clarifies the concept of ‘separation’ between jus ad bellum and jus in bello as the insulation between the results of their respective application, not the differentiation between their respective temporal, material and normative scopes of application. It also addresses the practical concerns raised by this conception of ‘separation’ between jus ad bellum and jus in bello.

Situations of occupation are as likely to affect the life and well-being of both wild and domestic animals. Notwithstanding these instances, writing a chapter on the legal protection of animals in occupied territory may appear, prima facie, a pointless exercise since the law of occupation never mentions explicitly animals. Unsurprisingly, to the best knowledge of this author, no study on this topic has been published so far. However, as in relation to other areas of IHL, some rules embodied in the law of occupation and concerned with the protection of private and public property apply to animals. The law of occupation also allows, under certain conditions, the application of other branches of international law that may be relevant for the protection of animals. This chapter explores this intricate legal regime, offering an overview of the ways in which international law can offer protection to animals in occupied territory. The indirect nature of this protection, coupled with the scant state practice, will be crucial in order to assess the effectiveness of animal protection in these circumstances.

This article explores the rules governing the prevention and control of contagious diseases in occupied territory under international law. Although the article refers to the ongoing Covid19 pandemic, its scope is broader and encompasses instances of state practice that have occurred over the last two centuries. After a careful analysis of the relevant treaties and episodes of state practice, the article concludes that occupying powers have duties under international humanitarian law and international human rights law to prevent and control contagious diseases, through cooperation with the local authorities and bringing the necessary medical supplies in the occupied territory. The article stresses that taking these measures, including facilitating the supply of vaccines, is a duty under international law rather than an arbitrary act of international solidarity.

Are human rights norms applicable to occupied territories in general, and to the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) in particular, or are they not? This is the question explored in this paper. The Israeli government and international human rights bodies have taken antithetical positions on this matter: Israel maintains that they do not and international human rights bodies find that they do. The examination of the validity of these respective positions pertaining to the applicability of human rights instruments to areas beyond the recognized national borders of a State party lies at the core of this paper.

The issue of the applicability of human rights standards in occupied territories is one of fundamental theoretical and practical importance. From a jurisprudential perspective, it goes to the very essence of the principle of the universality of human rights and involves the delicate, yet fascinating problem of coordinating between overlapping international regimes – in this case, international human rights (IHR) law and international humanitarian law (IHL). From a practical perspective, it may well generate a redefinition of the precise scope of an occupying power's human rights obligations under international law, serving as a yardstick for measuring the lawfulness of a variety of concrete measures which affect human well being. While the effect of introducing IHR law in situations of occupation is mitigated by the more specific provisions of IHL, it still serves several important functions: it affects the interpretation of IHL norms, it fills normative gaps in the scope of protection afforded by IHL and it validates the legitimacy of the involvement of international supervisory mechanism in situations of occupation. 

The main proposition of this paper is that the doctrinal position that IHR law is not applicable to occupied territories is untenable. Rather, both IHR law and IHL regimes apply, in a manner which, while taking legitimate military considerations into account, is informed by the principle of the universality of human rights and provides a safety net designed to ensure that no person shall find her-self in a legal vacuum bereft of protection. We further submit that it is the very interaction between IHL and IHR law which determines the precise scope of the legal obligations the Belligerent Occupant has to shoulder vis-à-vis the population and the corresponding scope of the protection the latter enjoy, in any concrete situation. 

In order to substantiate this position, section II details the position of the Israeli government with regards to the inapplicability of human rights law in the Occupied Territories, expounding on both its legal and policy underpinnings. This position rests on three main grounds: the mutual exclusivity of both regimes; the narrow construction of the jurisdictional clauses of the major human right treaties; and, the lack of effective Israeli control over the territories pursuant to the Oslo Accords. Section III advances a critique of the Israeli official position, addressing each of its arguments in a manner substantiated by theory, policy, legal analysis and international jurisprudence. Section IV offers concluding observations regarding the interplay between IHR law and IHL and presents a broad yet flexible approach to the question of the applicability of human rights law in occupied territories in a manner that takes into consideration the legitimate concerns of an Occupying Power without sacrificing the principle of legality at the altar of political expediency.

Despite the burgeoning literature on the consequences in international law of Israeli practices and policies in the territories it occupies, there has been only limited legal consideration of the intentions that drive Israel’s practices and the structures and processes that underpin them. This essay assesses Israel’s administration of justice in the occupied Palestinian territory in light of Hart’s category of the pathology of legal systems, which offers a normative perspective on the ends and means of a state’s relationship to international law. The essay examines the posture of Israel’s legal system towards international law to provide a distinct normative perspective on the thick background rules of Israel’s internationally unlawful acts. It analyses the presumptions underlying the operation of its administration of justice in the occupied territory, and explores how the systemic denial of Palestinians rights is based on the rejection of Palestinian sovereignty over the territory Israel occupies. The essay’s review of Israeli practices as manifestations of a legal pathology concludes with reflections on the utility of this analytical category, particularly for the determination of the nature of state responsibility in international law.

My doctoral dissertation examines the experiences of the Italian volunteers in the Waffen-SS troops using in-depth interviews with former volunteers as the main primary source. This phenomenon, even if significant in size (depending on the source, some 15 000-20 000 Italian men volunteered in the Waffen-SS), has been hitherto largely unknown to historical research. The available literature on the Italian volunteers, mainly written by military history enthusiast journalists and methodologically weak, concentrates mainly on the combat operations and military organization, and offers a rather stereotypical profile of the volunteers.

My dissertation does not aim to reconstruct the military history of the different divisions of the Waffen-SS in which Italian volunteers operated but instead to examine the subjective, private and intimate experience of the volunteers in order to understand the motivations, attitudes, beliefs and cultural and family background, as well as their political ideas. The main objective of my doctoral dissertation is to discover the ideological precepts of the volunteers’ political credo. As the last phase of fascism and its ideology, often defined as the “Germanisation” or “Nazification” of fascism, is still the object of wide academic debate, a better understanding of the volunteers’ ideology also contributes to deepening overall knowledge of the nature of this last phase.

The theoretical frame of my dissertation lies in oral history, in particular in the postmodernist approach to oral history, through which I reconstruct the volunteers’ ideology. In-depth interviews with former volunteers are the main primary source, but multiple data collection methods have been adopted. Phone interviews and correspondence with the volunteers have also been considered as primary sources. In addition to interviews and correspondence, family archives consisting of diaries, correspondence with the volunteers’ relatives and photographic material have also been collected and examined. An ethnographic observation of the volunteers’ domestic spaces has been conducted during the in-depth interviews, and photo self-elicitation techniques have been used in cases where the volunteers were willing to share their photographs.

An exhaustive portrait of the ideological structure of the volunteers has been obtained, as well as of the cultural and social origins of the values that contributed to the rise and adoption of this ideology. Further, the volunteers’ motivations to enlist have been clearly reconstructed, together with their cultural, political, social and military backgrounds. The results of the research are particularly relevant both for comprehension of the Italian phenomenon of volunteering in the Waffen-SS and for the reconstruction of the ideological dynamics of the last phase of fascism. The volunteers’ political and ideological system, which can be defined as the Italian SS-fascist ideology, disagrees strongly with the vaguely described ideological profile offered by previous studies that describe volunteers as generically “super-fascist”. The research also offers the opportunity for a deeper understanding of the final fascist ideological trajectory, currently defined, not without a certain level of approximation, as the “Germanisation” or “Nazification” of fascist ideology.

This paper revisits the feud between Fatah and Hamas, after Fatah lost the legislative elections to Hamas on 25 January 2006. Using the unprecedented disclosure of US diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks, Palestinian negotiating documents disclosed by Al-Jazeera, and a leaked UN report to The Guardian newspaper in London, this paper argues that the rout of Fatah from the Gaza Strip in June 2007 was the result of economic and diplomatic pressures on the national unity government that was formed after the Mecca accord in February 2007. These pressures on the national unity government were heightened by misunderstandings between Fatah and Hamas amidst disagreements over a security plan that was exacerbated by rumors of an alleged coup plot that appears to have been deliberately stoked.

The Geneva Conventions and Additional Protocol I do not provide much guidance in determining the end of belligerent occupation in international armed conflict situations and discussions within the academic circle provided little assistance in analysing the situation. In this article attempt has been made to analyse various mechanisms and instances which may or may not end belligerent occupation. While the matter is largely a question of fact, the write-up will assist academics and practitioners alike in clarifying the delicate nature of the concept of occupation.

That the Acts took place in the Context of ‘Conduct of Hostilities’ is Not a Legal Element.

The ‘humanisation of international humanitarian law’, a key influence in the drafting of the Rome Statute, recognised that justice required criminalisation and prosecution of war crimes perpetrated during armed conflict, international, including occupation, or non-international. Divergence in the jurisprudence of the Court as to whether particular war crimes can be committed only during a ‘conduct of hostilities’ phase of armed conflict raise concerns that the application of international criminal law, premised on the acceptance ‘that norms of international humanitarian law were not intended to protect State interests; they were primarily designed to benefit individuals qua human beings’, might be undermined.

Total rejection of the aggression and territory occupation in the international law leads to their hybrid and concealed forms using gangs and mercenaries, proclaiming new “states” etc. These activities constitute serious threat to international security, can cause and already cause the fragmentation of states, anarchy, criminalization of politics, new forms of expansionism and so on. The authors of the article generalize the forms of illegal control over the territory in international law and their application considering the status of Donbas determination.
International law for more than a century provides for the possibility of separate regulation of the sovereignty and legal rights of the state to the territory, on the one hand, and the implementation of the regime of illegal control over the territory – on the other. Authors argue that in the modern sense, primarily developed by doctrine and courts, illegal control over the territory can be considered as a legal regime, one of the forms of which is occupation, while others are defined as effective, overall, general, de facto control and related to undisclosed actions and informal means used by the aggressor states. This regime is characterized by the exercise of power over the territory by the will of a foreign state, and the forms of implementation of the regime differ depending on whether such a will is officially recognized or concealed.
The transformation of international humanitarian law after the Second World War erased the boundaries between recognized and officially unrecognized occupation. But unlike occupation, the fact of which may be obvious, the fact of effective or other control over the territory requires the determination by judicial authorities.
The qualification of illegal control by the Russian Federation of the Donbas in national and international law is ambiguous. The authors argue that the full recognition of the international armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia in Donbas, as well as Russia’s illegal control over latter should be expected in the process of consideration of a number of cases in the international judicial institutions.
Keywords: international law, international humanitarian law, illegal control over territory, occupation, aggression, effective control, de facto control, general control

The Israeli-Palestinian dispute ranks among the most emotionally and widely discussed conflicts in contemporary international law. Leaving aside political debates over who is to blame for what and who ultimately bears the responsibility for this decade-long tragedy as well as historical questions regarding the rightful owner of the “Holy Land”, it poses a variety of difficult and therefore interesting legal questions such as the territorial characterisation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the right of self-defence against irregular combatants operating from these territories to the oftentimes unresolvable issue of proportionality in asymmetric warfare. Aiming at providing a small insight into these topics, this paper is divided into three distinctive chapters; each one of them will start with a short introduction into the state of law in the respective field and then further elaborate on Israel’s position, while contrasting it with the findings of international lawyers, the International Court of Justice, non-governmental groups, and UN reports.

This book explores the international law framework governing the use of armed force in occupied territory through a rigorous analysis of the interplay between jus ad bellum, international humanitarian law, and international human rights law. Through an examination of state practice and opinio juris, treaty provisions and relevant international and domestic case law, this book offers the first comprehensive study on this topic. This book will be relevant to scholars, practitioners, legal advisors, and students across a range of sub-disciplines of international law, as well as in peace and conflict studies, international relations, and political science. This study will influence the way in which States use armed force in occupied territory, offering guidance and support in litigations before domestic and international courts and tribunals.

Tom Moerenhout (Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva) and John Reynolds (Department of Law, National University of Ireland, Maynooth) on the obligations of the Irish State under international law with respect to the Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018.

n 2017, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories reached a half-century in duration. This reignited a conversation amongst legal scholars. In articles and books, lawyers questioned the efficacy of occupation law. They asked whether it had become an anachronism. Across Israel and the Palestinian territories, those that directly invoke the law of occupation sought a more effective means of adapting the law to meet the exigencies of a fifty-year-old occupation. The accompanying debates recalled questions concerning the legal treatment of prolonged occupation. This article seeks to fundamentally alter this recurring discourse.

Built around a detailed case study of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, I argue that as commonly interpreted, international law does not regulate – but instead – facilitates prolonged occupation. Referencing various historical moments, I describe when and how international law has been employed to entrench an occupying power’s control. These legal engagements are justified as responses to the exigencies of prolonged occupation. Such uses of international law, the article argues, are based on a common interpretative approach. This understands occupation as a fact or non-normative phenomenon. As a result, international law is unable to alter occupation. Instead, it may only manage it.

Identifying the motive of management as a causal factor, I argue that common responses to prolonged occupation may be necessary but when taken within the occupation framework’s traditional, non-normative confines they risk perpetuating occupation. They entrench a legal framework that is understood to neglect duration and curtail the inherent requirement of temporality. This interpretation of the occupation framework becomes susceptible to manipulation. In response, the article proposes a novel interpretative approach. This shifts the focus of the occupation framework. It emphasizes a conception of occupation as temporary and facilitates efforts to end the occupation. By recognizing that prolonged occupation constitutes an altered form of control, and grounding responses to this means of control in established legal principles, this amended normative approach identifies a legal basis under which an occupying power will be required to enable the conclusion of prolonged occupation. This reasserts the law of occupation’s relevancy and efficacy. It better aligns the purpose and function of occupation law with diplomatic objectives and international norms. And it shifts the discourse that accompanies prolonged occupation from management to termination.

The problematic on the authority, power and legal effects of unilateral state declarations (also referred as unilateral acts of state) is dominated by the element of inter-temporality, being a topic of major scholar debate since the –so-called– ancestral era of Public International Law, present in the works of well-celebrated authors such as Hugo Grotius and Georg Jellinek. Does Israel’s unilateral disengagement from the Gaza Strip suffice for the –de jure– termination of the status of belligerent occupation concerning the region in question? The current debate about the humanitarian obligations of Israel towards the Gaza population can substantially alter the answer to the riddle of the Strip’s current status?

The article analyzes the Israeli Military Justice system in the West Bank. It commences from its sources, in which legislative, executive and judiciary prerogatives are entrusted to the military. From this, the examination proceeds to investigate the substantive law of the system, emphasising its disparity in comparison with Israeli domestic law, and its draconian impact on the human rights of the Palestinian population. The analysis reveals radical incompatibilities not only with international legal standards, but – more profoundly – with the fundamental principles shaping liberal-democratic models of justice governed by the rule of law.

Review essay reflecting on the collusion of law as the companion of force in the colonisation of land. The life of the law is embedded in the processes through which the settler state is created, and through which settler sovereignty is reified, maintained and stretched at the frontier.

מתוך המבוא לספר (מאת אייל גרוס ויופי תירוש): הטקסט החותם את הספר עוסק בטשטוש הגבול בין ישראל לבין השטחים הכבושים, והוא עצמו מטשטש גבולות בין ז'אנרים. במטבח אל יהוד ארנה בן־נפתלי ורפי רזניק נעים בין סוגת המאמר האקדמי לסוגת המסה, בין ספר בישול למדריך משפטי, בין לחם למלחמה ובין טקסט לסאבטקסט. את המתכון שהם מעלים על הכתב הם מכנים מתכון לסלט ערבי — סלט משפטי ואידאולוגי המורכב ממערכת מסועפת של דינים, אמנות, פרקטיקות, הגדרות, החלטות, פקודות, צווים וקונוונציות אחרות — כולם קצוצים דק ומעורבבים עד שקשה להבחין ביניהם. הסלט הערבי הוא למעשה אוסף הרכיבים והטכניקות המאפשרים את יחסם של המשפט הישראלי והחברה הישראלית אל הפלסטינים בשטחים הכבושים. רכיבי הסלט הם הנורמות המשפטיות והמערכים הרטוריים העשירים המספקים הצדקה וכלים לכיבוש. בסיום הקריאה בטקסט — שהוא עצמו סלט חתוך דק ועשיר ברפרנסים תרבותיים, מטבעות לשון שחוקים, תבלינים מפתים אך גם נגיסות שטעמן בפה טורדני — הקוראים נותרים ללא תחושה ברורה של שובע או של רעב.

The blind spot of the wealth of scholarship on the legality or illegality of specific actions undertaken by Israel to maintain its control over the Occupied Palestinian territory (OPT) is the question of the very legality of this occupation. This question is the focus of this article.
The article advances the proposition that the legality of the phenomenon of occupation has to be assessed in relation to two parameters: an intrinsic parameter relating to the occupier's responsibility to manage the territory and an extrinsic parameter relating distinction between the norm of sovereign equality and the exception of belligerent occupation.
The intrinsic legality of an occupation is to be measured in relation to three fundamental legal principles: (a) Sovereignty and title in an occupied territory are not vested in the occupying power. The roots of this principle emanate from the principle of the inalienability of sovereignty through actual or threatened use of force. Under contemporary international law, and in view of the principle of self-determination, sovereignty is vested in the population under occupation. (b) The occupying power is entrusted with the management of public order and civil life in the territory under control. In view of the principle of self-determination, the people under occupation are the beneficiaries of this trust. The dispossession and subjugation of these people violate this trust; and (c) Occupation is a temporary form of control. It may be neither permanent nor indefinite. These principles interrelate: the substantive constraints on the managerial discretion of the occupant elucidated in principles "(a)" and "(b)" generate the conclusion in "(c)" that occupation must necessarily be temporary. Violating the temporal constraints expressed in principle "(c)" cannot but violate principles "(a)" and "(b)," thereby corrupting the normative regime of occupation in the sense that an occupation that cannot be regarded as temporary defies both the principle of trust and of self-determination. The violation of any one of these principles, therefore, unlike the violation of a specific norm that reflects them, renders an occupation illegal per se. This is the nature of the Israeli control over the OPT. Section II.A: Intrinsic Dimensions of the Israeli Occupation of the OPT, substantiates this argument.
The extrinsic dimension of the regime, functioning to create an orderly space that is nevertheless distinct from the normal political order of sovereign equality between states, is to be measured by its exceptionality: once the boundaries between the normal order (i.e., sovereign equality between states) and the exception (i.e., occupation) are blurred, an occupation becomes illegal. The nexus between the two functions is clear: an occupation that is illegal from the perspective of managing an otherwise chaotic situation is also illegal in that it obfuscates the distinction between the rule and its exception. The Israeli occupation of the OPT is illegal both intrinsically and extrinsically. Section II.B: Extrinsic Dimensions of the Israeli Occupation of the OPT, substantiates this argument.
Concluding section III focuses on the indeterminacies of this occupation as reflecting both its essential feature and its legitimizing mechanism, and proceeds to consider the normative consequences of an illegal occupation.

The Israeli-Palestinian dispute ranks among the most emotionally and widely discussed conflicts in contemporary international law. Leaving aside political debates over who is to blame for what and who ultimately bears the responsibility for this decade-long tragedy as well as historical questions regarding the rightful owner of the “Holy Land”, it poses a variety of difficult and therefore interesting legal questions such as the territorial characterisation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, the right of self-defence against irregular combatants operating from these territories to the oftentimes unresolvable issue of proportionality in asymmetric warfare. Aiming at providing a small insight into these topics, this paper is divided into three distinctive chapters; each one of them will start with a short introduction into the state of law in the respective field and then further elaborate on Israel’s position, while contrasting it with the findings of international lawyers, the International Court of Justice, non-governmental groups, and UN reports.

The status of the Gaza Strip as occupied territory has been the subject of renewed policy, judicial and academic debate following a series of noteworthy developments in the territory since 2005. This article considers the present status of Gaza from the perspective of international humanitarian law in light of these events, which include Israel’s ‘disengagement’ from the Gaza Strip in 2005, its declaration of Gaza as a ‘hostile territory’ in 2007, and the military action labeled ‘Operation Cast Lead’ which commenced in late 2008. It addresses the concept of occupation and the application of the laws of belligerent occupation, making recourse to the travaux préparatoires of relevant treaties, and international and national jurisprudence. In focusing on the situation in the Gaza Strip, the article assesses the various criteria identified in customary international law for determining the existence of a situation of occupation.

How should we understand the function of the right to self-determination in situations of prolonged occupation? To shed light on this question, the first part of this chapter examines doctrine on the meaning of the right in international law and its relation to the law of occupation. It explains how the right to self-determination may serve as part of the law of occupation’s interpretative framework, but also as a standalone component of the international legal framework for prolonged occupations. The second part of this chapter examines the prolonged occupation of Palestinian territory from the perspective of the right to self-determination. Specific attention is given to the Oslo Accords, circumstances in Gaza, population movement, and natural resource usage. The analysis brings more fully into focus the distinct nature of the two functions of the right to self-determination and illustrates the importance of keeping them separate. The third part of the chapter examines the legal consequences that follow from denying the right to self-determination. The focus is on the right’s importance for the international community of states and the obligations this generates.
The chapter argues that when circumstances add complexity and uncertainty to the operation of a specialised legal regime, it is important to recognise that fundamental principles of international law continue to operate as a baseline securing protection of international community interests. The right to self-determination as a precept of non-domination provides legal protection in situations of prolonged occupation regardless of the haze that can form around the meaning and application of the law of occupation

Cette étude effectue une analyse du régime juridique de la « mer de Gaza » selon le droit international après l’adhésion de l’État de Palestine, le 2 janvier 2015, à la Convention des Nations unies sur le droit de la mer. À la suite de cette adhésion, le 24 septembre 2019, l’État de Palestine a notifié au Secrétariat général des Nations unies les coordonnées de ses frontières maritimes en spécifiant l’extension de la mer territoriale, de la zone contiguë, de la zone économique exclusive et du plateau continental. L’étude est axée sur trois questions fondamentales : le régime juridique des zones maritimes de la Palestine, les contentieux des délimitations maritimes entre la Palestine et les États adjacents ou qui se font face et le régime juridique des ressources biologiques et minières des eaux adjacentes à la Bande de Gaza. Toutefois, le statut juridique de la mer au large de la Palestine ne peut être évalué qu’à partir des circonstances particulières qui concernent le territoire palestinien en tant que territoire sous occupation militaire depuis 1967.

This paper argues that while the Geneva Conventions allow the creation of military tribunals under occupation, the governing military authority has an obligation to prefer the local court system over its own military tribunals unless certain exceptions apply.

The article focuses on the decision of the Israeli Military Advocate General (MAG) to charge an officer who ordered the shooting of a handcuffed, blindfolded Palestinian demonstrator, and the soldier who executed the order, for 'conduct unbecoming'. It advances the following propositions: (i) from the perspective of the applicable international law, the facts of the case qualify the shooting as a war crime; (ii) said decision of the Israeli MAG is indicative of a policy of tolerance towards violence against non-violent civilian protest against the construction of the Separation Wall; (iii) the implication of such policy is twofold: first, it might transform 'conduct unbecoming' - which as a matter of law is a war crime -  into a crime against humanity; second, it may well be construed as an invitation to the international community to intervene through the exercise of universal jurisdiction.

Following the end of the cold war, the incidence of statebuilding interventions
has visibly increased in the case of dysfunctional (failed) states. Today,
such interventionism in a good faith promotes liberal values and is believed to
be in line with international legal regimes that makes it distinctive from neo-imperial
politics. Even if state-building does not generally refer to regular warfare,
it often takes analogous forms to occupation, which was codified in jus in bello
at the beginning of the XXth century. While the occupation law requires occupants
to maintain status quo on the occupying territory (article 43 of Hague
Regulations), armed state-building is transformative by definition that seems to
undermine conservative provisions of the former. The article presents traditional
criteria for occupation in the Hague and Geneva conventions as well as prospects
and limitations of its refinement (jus post bellum). In theory, such a redefinition
could launch the formulation of the statebuilding regime, which aims to reduce
deficits or double-standards in international state-building by focusing on
the interests of local stakeholders of transformative projects. Hence, the Author
addresses three interlocking issues: occupation within state-building, the occupation
law and state-building, and transformative occupation as state-building.

While contemporary international law is often understood as teleological, encompassing notions such as progress, development, and prosperity for all of human kind, in this essay the field of the international law of belligerent occupation is read as katechonic, as embodying the figure of the katechon within international law's eschatology. The essay considers Carl Schmitt's political theology through his employment of the figure of the katechon, as well as Schmitt's brief notes on international law of belligerent occupation. The reading that follows is an attempt to put Schmitt's famous claim that 'all significant concepts of the modern theory of the state are secularized theological concepts' to use and to point to the contemporary relevance of Schmitt's scholarship.

This considers whether Israel's withdrawal from Gaza terminated its occupation of the territory as a matter of international law.  What are the conditions for the termination of a military occupation?  Is self-determination a relevant consideration in this assessment?

Time is the most essential component of the legal regime that followed the 1967 war and the Israeli conquest of the Palestinian Territories. It is essential since one of the most basic components of a regime of occupation under international law is being temporary. In this paper I argue, first, that occupation has been and still is the best definition for its control of these territories that Israel could have hoped for, since under the current framework Israel can argue that it can hold the territory both indefinitely and temporarily, without giving full civil and political rights to their Palestinian population. Second, and this is my main argument, that the choice of the occupation as the legal paradigm was an Israeli choice, despite the apparent controversy over it. Based on recent autobiographic publications and archival documents, this paper shows that the Israeli military legal system used the paradigm of occupation with relation to the takeover of these territories starting 1963, and has persisted ever since. Moreover, the emergency and temporary mode of the military government that followed the conquest of the Palestinian Territories lasted only a few weeks, and has been swiftly replaced by a permanent and indefinite mode of government. In doing so, Israeli military legal advisors have shown incredible foresight of the future, which still enables the longest occupation in modern times. By opting for a regime of occupation, Israel could have practiced a de-facto annexation as it does, while maintaining a regime that is still considered legitimate and legal under international law. It has managed to equate "temporary" with "indefinite".

The comment Focuses on the construction o/ tine in the normative regime of occupation. Beginning (in section 2) with a critique of the [CJs reading of Article 6 ol the Fourth Geneva Convention concerning the scope of applicability , ratione temporis of the Convention in cases where the duration of an occupation lasts longer than one year, the comment proceeds (in section 3) to argue (a) that the gap between the working assumption informing Article 6 (of relatively short-term occupations) and reality (of prolonged occupations) defines a problem which the Court erroneously construed as a solution; (b) that the problem of prolonged occupation has allowed/lor the substitution of an indefinite for a temporary duration of an occupation. a move which defies the basic tenets of the normative regime of occupation: and (c) that a proper solution involves the construction of the notion of "reasonable time" into the Fourth Geneva Convention. The comment includes (in section 4) a proposal designed to minimize the temporary/ indefinite blurring of boundaries in situations where an occupation has not ended within one year.