By Raphael Ahren December 28, 2014 ICH - TOI - The avalanche of European resolutions calling for the recognition of a Palestinian state is entirely symbolic and therefore meaningless, Israeli officials often argue. Palestinian statehood, they say, will only come about when the two sides sit together, negotiate and come to an agreement. And yet, the large number of parliaments that have voted in favor of recognition — including in Britain, France, Spain, Ireland, Belgium, Portugal, Luxembourg and the European Union — is more than just a symbolic gesture. While Europe cannot create a state where there is none, it could be argued that the mere fact that more and more countries want to recognize Palestine accords this entity a certain status approaching statehood. The former chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said Friday that the Palestinians will submit their UN Security Council statehood resolution to a vote by Monday at latest. However it fares, the snowball of international recognition for “Palestine” is gathering pace. The constitutive view of statehood vs… According to one school of thought in international law, an entity becomes a state not only when it fulfills all objective criteria of statehood, but also when it is recognized by a critical mass of other states. The so-called constitutive theory postulates that “the act of recognition itself actually creates the state” based on a common definition. Followers of this theory could argue that if Palestine hadn’t already been considered a state before the onset of the European moves toward recognition, that time has certainly come. Indeed, the argument that it’s the recognitions that make the state could have been made since November 29, 2012, when 138 countries voted to accord Palestine non-member state status at the United Nations General Assembly. The European legislators’ current eagerness to recognize Palestine further strengthens that reasoning. “Each act of recognition, though not constitutive, is essentially another pebble in the pan of the balance, especially in light of the momentum captured in the 2012 GA resolution,” said John Cerone, a professor of international law at Lund University in Sweden and a visiting professor at Tufts University’s Fletcher School. “Of course, whether each is seen as a sizable pebble or as a grain of sand is a matter of interpretation,” he told The Times of Israel in an email. “It would also be relevant whether this new act is consistent with that state’s vote in the GA, or whether this is a ‘new’ pebble.” In 2012, France and Portugal, for instance, voted in favor of non-member state status for Palestine — they already recognized Palestinian statehood, and their parliamentary motions don’t add anything. While the new status at the UNGA actually improved the Palestinians’ standing in that it enabled them to accede to international treaties, conventions and organizations such as the International Criminal Court, the largely symbolic parliamentary votes have absolutely no concrete effect. Britain, on the other hand, abstained in 2012, which lends the House of Commons’ October 14 vote some significance, in that it adds the UK to the list of states that officially endorse Palestinian statehood.
Posted on: Sun, 28 Dec 2014 18:28:09 +0000
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