Al-Haq at the UN Human Rights Council’s 60th Session: Self-Determination, Accountability, and Third State Obligations by Al-Haq

At the 60th Regular Session of the UN Human Rights Council (HRC60), between 8 September and 8 October 2025, Al-Haq pursued an advocacy programme anchored in one principle: the inalienable and absolute right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. The catalogue of violations and atrocities of Israel’s genocidal, settler-colonial apartheid regime, the machinery that sustains them, and the global responses they demand all flow from this premise.

Over the course of the session, Al-Haq delivered three oral interventions on the HRC record and convened a side event with members of the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel (COI), under the title “Israel’s Genocide Against the Palestinian People: International Law, Accountability, and Third-State Obligations.” Together, these engagements traced the architecture of Israel’s genocidal settler-colonial and apartheid regime and set out the duties that arise for all States – non-recognition, non-assistance, and cooperation to bring serious breaches to an end – in light of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) Advisory Opinion of 19 July 2024 on the Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem (Palestine Advisory Opinion).