The document below illustrates the application of PACBI guidelines, as well as “common sense” boycotts, in light of the ICJ determination that Israel is plausibly perpetrating genocide against Palestinians in Gaza and the ICC arrest warrants issued against Israeli leaders. The legal basis would apply to suspected perpetrators of grave crimes, wherever they may have been committed. PACBI and the BDS movement as a whole consistently apply our comprehensive anti-racist principles, as a movement whose demands and nonviolent tactics are recognized by UN Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, international human rights organizations, the European Court of Human Rights, and even the European Union as being in harmony with the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association.
If you have any questions or are in a situation where the document below would apply, we strongly encourage you to get in touch: [email protected].
The indictment of Israeli leaders by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated against Palestinians in Gaza, alongside the ongoing genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), is a watershed in the Palestinian quest for long overdue justice and accountability. The ICC arrest warrants against Israeli leaders are expected to usher in a wave of domestic and international prosecution initiatives that promise to hold complicit Israelis accountable for the ongoing genocide against 2.3 million Palestinians in Gaza, as well as for the decades-old illegal occupation and the crime against humanity of apartheid.
Amnesty International, in its December 2024 report concluding that Israel is indeed committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, has called for investigations and prosecution of suspected individual perpetrators. The report includes the following in its recommendations for third states:
“Where sufficient evidence exists, ensure that competent authorities conduct criminal investigations and prosecutions in civilian courts. This applies to individuals within their jurisdiction, based on the principles of universal jurisdiction and the nationality of both perpetrators and victims, including cases of dual nationality. This should encompass potential perpetrators who may have committed crimes as members of the Israeli army or settler movements. In addition, proactively cooperate with other states who have opened national-level investigations.” [Emphases added]
Given the gravity of Israel’s Gaza genocide, in particular, and the near consensus support for it among Jewish Israelis (1), and given Israel’s decades of perpetrating war crimes and crimes against humanity against Indigenous Palestinians, Israeli academics, scientists, programmers, college students (2), artists, writers, athletes, among others, who fall under any of the following categories must be investigated and, if warranted, prosecuted by all States – as part of those States’ legal obligation to, inter alia, prevent genocide and ensure accountability for grave breaches of international humanitarian law:
- Anyone who has served since 7 October 2023 in the Israeli military (including logistical and intelligence units).
- Anyone who is reasonably suspected of aiding, assisting, or conspiring in the commission of war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide anytime (3), whether during military service or not.
- Anyone who is reasonably suspected of involvement in public incitement to commit war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide anytime (4), whether during military service or not.
Also, any Israeli who resides or works in, and any Israeli or international who provides material support to, an illegal Israeli colonial settlement in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), including East Jerusalem, or in the occupied Syrian Golan Heights, is knowingly participating in a war crime and must therefore be held accountable. Colonies are a main driving force behind Israel’s mass human rights violations in the OPT. In determining in July 2024 that Israel’s continued 57-year presence in the OPT is unlawful, the ICJ reiterated that all such colonies are illegal and must be dismantled, in part because they have facilitated the illegal acquisition by Israel of Palestinian territory, the violation of the Palestinian people’s right of self-determination, and the imposition upon Palestinians of a regime of “racial segregation and apartheid.”
In its implementing resolution for the ICJ’s opinion, the United Nations General Assembly has called upon all States, inter alia:
“To take steps to ensure that their nationals, and companies and entities under their jurisdiction, as well as their authorities, do not act in any way that would entail recognition or provide aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.” (5)
Accordingly, any entity (i.e. public or private) that engages in relations with such Israelis without conducting an appropriate, meaningful and effective due diligence review aimed at ensuring that its engagement does nothing to maintain, expand, or recognize the settlements and Israel’s continued unlawful presence in the OPT or other international crimes must be held publicly accountable for condoning and supporting violations of international law (including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide) and for failing to meet its own obligations not to recognise or in any way assist such violations.
Given Israel’s presence in the OPT is itself unlawful, and the settlements are a key element of that illegality, failure by Israel to provide evidence beyond doubt to entities engaged in such a due diligence process should be construed in a manner that presumes the relations in question help maintain Israel’s illegal occupation, including its settlements.
Institutional Complicity
In parallel, academic ties to Israeli universities – all of which are not just complicit but also constitute a pillar of Israel’s 76-year-old regime of settler-colonialism and apartheid, and now genocide – must be immediately severed. This is a measure needed in order for international academic institutions to avoid complicity in serious violations of peremptory norms of international law, derogation from which is not permitted under any circumstances. This especially concerns the prohibitions on territorial conquest, apartheid, genocide and the violation of self-determination of peoples.
Current and ongoing serious violations of peremptory norms of international law by Israel and its partners in the colonial West also bring consequences to public entities, including universities, as organs of the state. A legal opinion published by international law experts at the University of Antwerp in Belgium says:
“Universities are organs of society endowed with the responsibility to teach and educate. They must avoid aiding and assisting the commission of serious breaches of peremptory norms of international law created by Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and address such aid and assistance when it occurs.”
Affirming the deep complicity of Israeli universities, the University of Antwerp legal opinion states:
“Israeli universities as institutions are embedded in the exclusivist nature of the Israeli political system and benefit from the occupation. They have put their expertise at the disposal of governmental measures aimed at maintaining and expanding the occupation. Institutional cooperation with these universities thus amounts prima facie to aid and assistance in maintaining a situation that breaches peremptory norms of international law.”
It concludes by calling on universities to:
“End all collaborations with academic and other institutions directly or indirectly implicated in the violations of international law, international human rights law and international humanitarian law in Gaza and in the Occupied Palestinian territories, more generally.”
Similarly, all ties to Israeli cultural institutions must be cut unless they can prove beyond doubt that they have not been complicit in the commission of human rights violations and that they publicly uphold the UN-stipulated rights of the Indigenous people of Palestine, particularly the right of refugees to return, reparation and compensation in accordance with international law.
Legal Background
On 21 November 2024, the International Criminal Court (ICC) finally issued its long overdue arrest warrants against sitting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former war cabinet minister Yoav Gallant for war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated in Gaza. In September, almost a year into Israel’s ongoing genocide against Palestinians in the illegally occupied Gaza Strip, a UN Special Committee investigating Israeli practices affecting Palestinian human rights concluded:
“The policies and practices of Israel … are consistent with the characteristics of genocide. The targeting of Palestinians as a group; the life-threatening conditions imposed on Palestinians in Gaza through warfare and restrictions on humanitarian aid – resulting in physical destruction, increased miscarriages and stillbirths – and the killing of and serious bodily or mental harm caused to Palestinians in Gaza and the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are violations under international law.”
On 1 October 2024, UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the occupied Palestinian territory Francesca Albanese submitted to the UNGA her report titled, Genocide as Colonial Erasure, contextualizing Israel’s carnage in Gaza:
“The Gaza genocide is a tragedy foretold, and one that risks expanding to other Palestinians under Israeli rule. Since its establishment, Israel has treated the occupied people as a hated encumbrance and threat to be eradicated, subjecting millions of Palestinians, for generations, to everyday indignities, mass killing, mass incarceration, forced displacement, racial segregation and apartheid. Advancing its goal of ‘Greater Israel’ threatens to erase the Indigenous Palestinian population.”
Under the Genocide Convention, every State is obliged to prevent, to not commit, and to punish genocide. The State obligation to prevent genocide arises as soon as the State becomes aware, or should reasonably be aware, of a “serious risk of genocide.” The determination on 26 January 2024 by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that there is a real and imminent risk that Israel is violating the Genocide Convention in Gaza triggered the responsibility of all States and entities to act to prevent genocide and to end any direct or indirect complicity in its commission. Every State is obliged to investigate and prosecute those suspected of committing genocide and ancillary offences of direct and public incitement, as well as aiding, assisting or conspiring to commit genocide.
In July 2024, the ICJ ruled that Israel’s very presence in the whole of Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal and must be brought to an end as rapidly as possible. The UNGA subsequently determined that this means by 17 September 2025.(6) It also determined that Israeli policies and practices in the OPT have imposed a system of racial segregation and apartheid against the Palestinian people in violation of the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD).
On 18 September 2024, following the ICJ’s July ruling, dozens of UN human rights experts warned that the international-law based order was “on a knife’s edge” due to Israel’s impunity in perpetrating its genocide in Gaza, urging States to fully comply with the ICJ ruling by adopting measures to, inter alia, “Cancel or suspend economic relationships, trade agreements and academic relations with Israel that may contribute to its unlawful presence and apartheid regime in the occupied Palestinian territory.” [Emphasis added]
But doesn’t BDS target institutions, not individuals?
Indeed, as the BDS boycott guidelines state, “Anchored in precepts of international law and universal human rights, the BDS movement, including PACBI, rejects on principle boycotts of individuals based on their identity (such as citizenship, race, gender, or religion) or opinion.” However, the boycott, including the academic boycott as well as the cultural boycott of Israel, has consistently been applied to the activities of individuals “representing the state of Israel or a complicit Israeli institution (such as a dean, rector, or president), or is commissioned/recruited to participate in Israel’s efforts to ‘rebrand’ itself,” in which case the institutional boycott applies.
In addition, lawful forms of protest, including “common sense” boycotts (beyond the scope of the BDS institutional boycott criteria), naturally apply to individuals complicit in, responsible for, or inciting to violations of international law, “such as direct or indirect involvement in the commission of war crimes or other grave human rights violations; incitement to violence; racial slurs; etc.” Conscientious citizens around the world may call for this type of protest in response to egregious individual complicity in human rights violations, regardless of where they occur or who commits them. Thus, calling for not platforming individuals who should be investigated for possible involvement in international crimes is consistent with “common sense” boycotts, and one that we call on supporters to apply.
What about freedom of expression?
The universal right to freedom of expression excludes hate speech that can “cause real harm,” particularly to “vulnerable communities.” The Genocide Convention, for instance, “requires States to criminalize incitement to genocide.” In some situations, State inaction against incitement to genocide “may contribute to very serious consequences for vulnerable communities. Such inaction itself is condemnable, just as the incitement itself must be opposed and punished.”
Under article 20(2) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and article 4 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, States parties are obligated to prohibit by law “any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.”
Update, June 18, 2025: This document was updated for clarity.
1. An authoritative Israeli poll published on 10 November 2023, after Israeli forced had already killed over 10,000 Palestinians in Gaza, almost half of them children, a total of over 94% of Jewish Israelis said that the “IDF” was using “too little firepower in Gaza” or “an appropriate amount” of firepower. https://time.com/6333781/israel-hamas-poll-palestine/
2. At least 30% of whom have done military service during the genocide.
3. UN Convention on the Non-Applicability of Statutory Limitations to War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity. https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/pt/customary-ihl/v2/rule160.
4. Ibid.
5. A/RES/ES-10/24, 18 September 2024 [emphasis added].
6. Id. at para. 2.