On 5 November Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, in a press conference in Ramallah, urged for the “ending” of the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. The importance of such a call lies in that it, from the first impression, breaks from the standard line on ways to end the occupation.

The statement, moreover, left me enthusiastic, and lead me to rethink the ways any given occupation comes to an “end” according to international law and whether the “ending” of occupation is possible.

Even in their dictionary definitions, there is a huge difference between “end” and “ending”. The first term means the cessation of something, either by itself or after a period of time. The later, however, means imposing a force that results in the cessation of something.

A similar difference exists in international law, and even in law around the legality of occupation and its cessation. There is, however, ambiguity in the practical aspects of the legal definitions.

The rules of international humanitarian law and customary international law recognize, explicitly, only the normal ways for the termination of occupations. The most common of which are either via a treaty of peace or the withdrawal from an occupied territory by the occupying army; both ways are totally dependent on the will of the occupier.

Still, what are the possibilities for the ending of occupation under international law? How can the occupied legally compel their occupier to leave in a way that is binding under international law and recognized by international organizations like the United Nations, for example.

One possibility is a binding Security Council Resolution, which can force the occupier to withdraw from the occupied territory. Under the authority granted to the Security Council by the United Nations Charter, the body can take measures to ensure international peace and security. The question is whether or not the Security Council considers the continuation of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories a threat to international peace and security. For precedent, we can turn to the Security Council resolution on the occupation of Iraq in 2004.

Security Council Resolution 1546 (2004) welcomed the end of the occupation of Iraq by the end of 2004. In combination with Article 25 of the United Nations Charter, the resolution overrode the rules of international humanitarian law since it was issued under chapter VII of the UN charter.

The resolution is proof that an occupation can be terminated by fiat from the Security Council. The resolution on Iraq stipulated that Iraq would reassert its full sovereignty as a result of the formation of “a fully sovereign and independent Interim Government.” Hence, in theory, since the end of June 2004, the continued presence of coalition forces in Iraq is by invitation of the new Iraqi Government. In practice, however, there was little change on the ground following this decreed termination of occupation.

Still, the case of Iraq is so far the only one on record in which the Security Council terminated, even theoretically, an occupation. While the in-practice components do not parallel the Palestinian case, the Iraq resolution sets a clear legal precedent and the Security Council should be lobbied by the Palestinian Prime Minister in accordance with that example.

For the Palestinian case, the Security Council must be fully convinced that the continuation of occupation endangers or threatens international peace and security. Getting the body to this point will require intense work on two tracks by Palestinian delegates to the UN. First and foremost, members of the Security Council must be apprised of the situation and convinced to vote in favor of such a resolution, this task will be made all the less complicated with the Iraq precedent in hand.

Riziq Sammoudi is a Palestinian PhD candidate in International Law, studying in Belgium