Civil Rights? But Not For You: Chilling a Globalized Palestinian Resistance Movement’s Freedom of Expression Protections As Guaranteed by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The past decade has seen both an increase in Israeli violence against Palestinians and a notable surge in global solidarity with Palestine. One of the most effective solidarity movements has been the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, created by a coalition of Palestinian civil society activists in 2005. With the increase in popularity of this global movement, many countries began to fiercely respond to BDS with legislation limiting participation in the movement. Most notably, states in the U.S. and EU, and of course the State of Israel itself, have all passed anti-BDS laws. In violation of international law treaties that each of these states and entities are party to, these anti-BDS laws generally prohibit participation in the movement based on disingenuous anti-discrimination justifications and the interest of protecting State of Israel.
Spurred by the European Court of Human Rights’ decision in Baldassi and Others v. France in July 2020, and its similarity in reasoning to the United States Supreme Court decision in NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware and the United Nations Human Rights Committee decision in Ballantyne and Others v. Canada, this article assesses whether proposed and passed anti-BDS laws in the United States, France, and Israel are legal under international law. BDS is a coordinated global solidarity movement and a principled nonviolent effort of resistance in the face of devastating settler colonialism. As a key to the overall movement for Palestinian rights, BDS activities are legal and protected by law in the respective states discussed in this article; yet they are consistently legislated against. Therefore, in the interest of further protection, this article turns to the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights and the United Nations Human Rights Committee’s interpretation of the treaty to prove the BDS movement must be protected by international human rights law.
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