Statement by the Permanent Representative of Brazil to the United Nations, Ambassador Sérgio França Danese, at the 54th plenary meeting of the 10th Emergency Special Session of the General Assembly - September 17th, 2024

Mr. President,

As we convene today to discuss this issue of utmost importance, my delegation has two questions:

How will this Assembly respond to the Court’s ground breaking acknowledgment that Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory is illegal and must end as rapidly as possible?

What are we going to make of the Court’s deference to this Assembly’s authority to establish the modalities and further action necessary to end the occupation?

We can no longer pretend Israel’s breaches of international law and international humanitarian law are acceptable. Overlooking them would only serve injustice, 2 against Palestinians, for sure, but also against so many Israelis who want to live in peace. We cannot use the claim of ignorance as a subterfuge to evade our responsibilities. That would amount to indifference in the face of serious breaches of international law.

The Court has made our responsibilities clear. They include changing the way we deal with actors benefitting from illegal practices of the Occupying Power in Palestine. They made clear, for example, the duties of nonrecognition of and not providing assistance to the maintenance of illegal situations.

The International Court of Justice has acknowledged the important role of the General Assembly in this matter. This Assembly owes to Palestinians the setting of a realistic framework, mechanisms and processes that enable member States to follow through with international law, including Israel’s duty to withdraw from occupied Palestine. And the GA owes to the international community guidance and support on the implementation of 3 our respective duties, so as to ensure successful results through collective action.

Mr President, We can no longer treat the Palestinian people as if their right to self-determination depended on Israel’s permission. We can no longer delay the realization of that right, nor the pursuance of consequences for violations. Israel’s security needs cannot require the stripping of Palestine of its sovereignty and independence.

A sense that the international law would never be enforced has created successive waves of disillusionment and suffering for generations of Palestinians.

To change the situation and respond to the Court’s advisory opinion, we must act decisively, with the political and legal tools at our disposal, in order to enable a return to legality in the whole of the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Implementation and follow-up actions, we hope, 4 should not be confrontational. We can really create an unprecedented momentum for compliance with the law, by all parties, as well as dialogue between Israel and Palestine, for example, in the context of the conference asked for in the Palestinian draft. And while negotiations, strictly speaking, may no longer be a condition for ending occupation - which must happen regardless - they remain necessary to comprehensively settle other aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and lay the foundations for mutual respect and a peaceful coexistence between Palestinians and Israelis in two states, living side by side in security, on the borders of 1967.

Brazil will thus vote in favor of the draft resolution tabled by the State of Palestine, as we understand it provides for modalities and actions that will bring us closer to that goal and to the ultimate goal of peace in the whole of the Middle East.

Thank you.