Rule of Law or Law of Rule: UNSC Resolution 2803 as Anathema to International Law

[Nandini Bulchandani holds an LLM in international law from UCL and is an incoming foreign law clerk at the Constitutional Court of South Africa]

Introduction

On Monday 17 November 2025, the UN Security Council adopted a resolution that sidesteps crucial international legal norms to foist a foreign administration upon Gaza. 

Stripping law of effect and reanimating imperial hegemonies, UNSC Resolution 2803 is a legal instrument that replaces the rule of law with the law of rule. Deplorably, however, this Resolution is not the only instance of such a move. It follows another Security Council Resolution, adopted in October 2025, that endorses Morocco’s 2007 Autonomy Proposal in contravention of the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination. This post explores first how UNSC Resolution 2803 violates the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people and the obligations on third states in relation to upholding this right. It then expands this inquiry to examine how the transformation of occupation into sovereignty through multilateral institutions threatens an international legal order that rests (at least, in principle) on sovereign equality. 

UNSC Res 2803: A Closer Look

UNSC Res 2803 endorses ‘President Donald Trump’s Comprehensive Plan to End the Gaza Conflict’ (‘Comprehensive Plan’) and calls upon all parties and Member States to implement it in its entirety, in good faith, and without delay (para 1). The Resolution provides an international legal mandate for the establishment of the Board of Peace (‘BoP’), a transitional administration that will supervise the running of public services and municipalities in Gaza (para 2; Annex, para 9). While this daily governance will be led by a ‘technocratic, apolitical Palestinian committee’, ultimate authority rests with the head of BoP, President Trump. (Annex, para 9). Furthermore, BoP is empowered to establish the framework and handle the funding for the redevelopment of Gaza, in accordance with ‘best international standards’ for the creation of ‘modern and efficient governance that serves the people of Gaza and is conducive to attracting investment’ (Annex, para 9). 

The Resolution also provides for the establishment of a second international body: the International Stabilisation Force (‘ISF’) (para 7). Comprising forces from participating States and charged with training ‘vetted Palestinian forces in Gaza’, the ISF will be responsible for securing borders, decommissioning weapons from non-state armed groups, and coordinating with relevant States to consolidate humanitarian corridors (para 7). Pitched as the ‘long-term internal security solution’, the ISF’s increasing control over Gazan territory will enable the IDF to withdraw from the territory based on timelines ‘that will be agreed upon between the IDF, ISF, the guarantors, and the United States’ (Annex, para 15). In sum, the Resolution establishes two bodies with coercive powers of extraordinary reach, subject to practically no checks and balances, and in whose creation and operation Palestinian involvement has been and will be negligible if not nil. 

The Law of Self-Determination 

‘All peoples have the right to self-determination’, says Common Article 1 of the ICCPR and ICESCR, which entitles them to freely determine their political status, freely pursue their economic, social and cultural development, and freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources. UNGA Resolution 1514 (XV) highlights the immediacy with which power should be transferred to the people of a given territory, noting that such transfer should accord with the ‘freely expressed will and desire’ of the people (para 5), and that inadequacy of political, economic, social or education preparedness should never provide a pretext for delaying independence (para 3). UNGA Resolution 2625 (XXV) stipulates that every State is obligated to ‘refrain from any forcible action which deprives peoples […] of their right to self-determination and freedom and independence’. Crucially, the right to self-determination, particularly in cases of foreign occupation, has been recognised as a peremptory norm of international law (para 233), which renders any derogation from it impermissible. Furthermore, the obligation to respect the right to self-determination is erga omnes (para 155), meaning that all States have a legal interest in the protection of the right. 

Turning to the right to self-determination as it pertains to Palestinians, UN General Assembly Resolutions have consistently recognised the right of Palestinians to self-determination, have condemned Israel’s continued occupation of Arab territories, and have expressed a determination to end Israeli occupation and fulfil the vision of a two-state solution. Indeed, as recently as 17 December 2024, the UN General Assembly reaffirmed the right of Palestinians to self-determination, including the right to their own independent State. Similarly, the ICJ recognised this right in its 2004 Advisory Opinion on the Wall (para 118). The Court reiterated this finding in its recent Advisory Opinion on the Obligations of Israel in relation to the Presence and Activities of the United Nations, affirming that the realisation of this right ‘would contribute to the regional stability and the security of all States in the Middle East’ (para 222). 

Significantly, in its 2024 Advisory Opinion, the Court went further than it had done previously. In addition to deeming Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory an unlawful obstruction to the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and obligating Israel to bring it to an end, the Court outlined key obligations for third States to (1) not recognise as legal the situation arising from Israel’s unlawful occupation; (2) not render aid or assistance in maintaining that situation; and (3) lawfully bring to an end any impediment to the exercise of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. The obligation of non-recognition along with the obligation to distinguish in dealings with Israel between Israeli and Occupied Palestinian territory also applies to international organisations, including the United Nations. 

Violating the Palestinians’ Right to Self-Determination

The practical realities of the Resolution illustrate how it runs afoul of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and renders third states in breach of their obligations to lawfully end any obstruction to the exercise of that right.  

First, the Resolution stipulates that the IDF will withdraw as the ISF’s control over the region increase, ‘save for a security perimeter presence that will remain until Gaza is properly secure from any resurgent terror threat’ (para 7). The ambiguity of this condition empowers the IDF to maintain an indefinite incursion into Gazan territory. Indeed, this incursion is already in place, as Gaza has been divided into two zones along the ‘yellow line’, which is the boundary to which IDF forces withdrew pursuant to the latest ceasefire agreement. The red zone, to the West of the Strip, houses almost all of the surviving Gazan population, amounting to over 2 million people, while the green zone to the East affords Israel operational control over extensive parts of Gaza, including key points of access such as the Rafah crossing into Egypt. With IDF leadership claiming this ‘yellow line’ as a “new border” for Israel and the US military planning for the long-term partition of Gaza, the arrangement envisioned by the Resolution risks entrenching a de facto annexation of Palestinian territory by Israel and its allies. Not only does this contravene the prohibition of territorial acquisition by force, it also fragments Palestinian territory in violation of the Palestinians’ right to territorial integrity, a corollary of the right to self-determination (para 237). 

Second, the governance structure outlined in the Resolution impedes the Palestinians’ exercise of their right to self-determination by enabling exploitation of Palestinian territory in accordance with foreign political and financial interests. That such interests are at the heart of the Resolution is reflected in the capital-oriented language of the resolution, focusing on establishing special economic zones and preferred tariff and access rates, with a view to making Gaza ‘conducive to investment’. President Trump’s vision of Gaza as a riviera of high-tech multi-cities, devoid of Palestinians, is also subtly indicated in the Plan through reference to the ‘miracle cities in the Middle East’, the designers of which will be involved in the rebuilding of Gaza (Annex, para 10). Furthermore, the complete discretion afforded to President Trump over when to transfer authority to Palestinian leadership augments the risk of foreign powers establishing an indefinite, long-term presence in the territory, in violation of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, as recognised by the ICJ (para 257).

Third, the limitation of Palestinians’ involvement in their own governance to ‘technocratic, apolitical’ committee leadership further undermines the right to self-determination. Not only is Palestinian leadership restricted to lower level roles, but in focusing on technocratic as opposed to democratic representation, Palestinians are deprived of the political agency that would be engaged by the act of choosing one’s own leaders. 

Thus, far from dismantling the Israeli occupation, third States and the Security Council have stamped it with the legalising force of a Security Council resolution, in violation of the non-recognition obligation. The endorsement of measures that risk entrenching occupation by another foreign power violates the obligation on third States to not assist in the maintenance of this unlawful situation. Making the retraction of military forces from Gaza contingent on the prior disappearance of structural violence from Palestinian society particularly exacerbates this violation, as it fails to recognise the root cause of such violence: foreign occupation. By enabling the very impediment to the exercise of Palestinian self-determination that they are legally obligated to end, third States breach not only the rights of Palestinians but also the obligations by which they themselves are bound under international law.

Comparison with the Situation in Western Sahara

UNSC Resolution 2803 is merely one iteration of a larger trend in which multilateral mechanisms are being used to legitimate unlawful occupations in the spirt of political expediency. The Security Council’s adoption of Resolution 2797 in October 2025, endorsing Morocco’s ‘Autonomy Proposal’ for the occupied territory of Western Sahara is another iteration of this trend. 

Morocco’s unlawful occupation of Western Sahara dates back to 1975 and has persisted to this day, despite the affirmation of the Sahrawi people’s right to self-determination by numerous judicial and multilateral bodies and the establishment of a UN peacekeeping mission (‘MINURSO’) to conduct a referendum that would enable the Sahrawi to exercise this right. Notwithstanding such efforts, Morocco has continued to expand its grip over the territory, by: sponsoring settlement programmes that alter Western Sahara’s demographic; investing in major infrastructure projects that integrate Western Sahara’s transport network into Morrocco’s; and financing mineral extraction and export schemes that drain Western Sahara of its resources allow Morocco to absorb its economy into its own. This has resulted in deep and irreversible shifts in the social, political, and economic fabric of the occupied territory, creating facts on the ground that amount to a de facto annexation.

In 2007, Morocco introduced an ‘Autonomy Proposal’ (‘the Proposal’) that envisioned a devolved system of Western Saharan self-governance under Moroccan sovereignty. Under this framework, certain limited issues would fall under local jurisdiction, while significant issues, such as national security, defence, and foreign relations would remain solely under Moroccan jurisdiction (paras 12-18). The Proposal restricts any legitimate Sahrawi participation in decision-making to how the Statute conferring autonomous status on Western Sahara would be implemented, glossing over whether such a Statute comports with the will of the Sahrawi people in the first instance (para 28). Despite the threat to self-determination that the Proposal poses, almost two decades after its initial proliferation, the Security Council has endorsed it as the basis for ‘a final and mutually acceptable political solution’ to the conflict. 

Read together, UNSC Resolutions 2803 and 2797 project a dangerous precedent for international law, where multilateral institutions (themselves comprised of powerful states) enable other powerful states to obtain sovereign title over territories by unlawfully occupying them for decades. International law has never been a stranger to the asymmetries of political power that exist within the global order; indeed, the very inception of international law stems from the colonial encounter. However, the precedent established by Resolutions 2803 and 2797 is reprehensible not merely because it harks back to an earlier era of international law, but because it in fact guts the foundations of international law today. The right to self-determination and the illegality of conquest are fundamental norms that work symbiotically to uphold the principle of sovereign equality, upon which the international legal order rests. Eroding these norms for some is eroding them for all. 

Conclusion

Charged with maintaining international peace and security in conformity with principles of international law, the Security Council has arguably acted beyond its legal powers by legitimising occupation and violating the international law of self-determination. That further violence is the only outcome of such resolutions is evidenced by the repeated violations of the ceasefire in Gaza that have already occurred. Patently, any shot at ‘a political horizon for peaceful and prosperous existence’ in occupied territories requires a seat at the table for the Occupied. Otherwise, there is no security, let alone peace, for anyone in the international community.