Recognition of the State of Palestine: Still too much too soon?

In 1990 James Crawford wrote ‘The Creation of the State of Palestine: Too Much Too Soon?’, rejecting the claim that in Resolution 43/177 the UN General Assembly (UNGA) recognised the existence of a State of Palestine. Surprisingly, perhaps, in 2012 a similar question arose, whether UNGA Resolution 67/19, in the operative part of which the General Assembly decided ‘to accord to Palestine non-member observer State status in the United Nations’, recognised the existence of the State of Palestine. And no less than in 1990, ‘[i]t seems difficult for international lawyers to write in an impartial and balanced way about the Palestine issue’. Scholars who support the Palestinian cause at times converge the ‘ought’ with the ‘is’, citing the resolution as confirmation of their position that a State of Palestine already exists, without delving into the resolution’s content; while those less convinced that such a State already existed prior to the resolution, are correspondingly more reserved about the legal consequences of the resolution. The differences of view concern practically every element involved, including an assessment of the effectiveness criteria, of the effect of recognition and of whether Resolution 67/19 constituted an act of recognition. Partisanship is not unavoidable; it is nonetheless useful to articulate one’s point of departure in order to establish a common ground with the reader. Those who contest it, while unlikely to convert, might nonetheless find interest in the intellectual journey proffered in the following lines.