In 2024, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered its advisory opinion on the “Legal Consequences arising from the Policies and Practices of Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.” However, a closer examination of Judge Julia Sebutinde’s dissenting opinion reveals striking similarities to a 2016 article by Abraham Bell and Eugene Kontorovich, titled “Palestine, Uti Possidetis Juris and the Borders of Israel.”
This blog highlights specific paragraphs in Sebutinde’s dissenting opinion that were directly copied, often with minimal modification, from Bell and Kontorovich’s work. The instances of plagiarism are evident in both the legal arguments and even specific phrasings. In particular, both texts rely on the doctrine of uti possidetis juris to argue that Israel’s territorial sovereignty should align with the borders of the British Mandate of Palestine.