The Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Obligation to Pursue Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes
![handle is hein.journals/ukalr19 and id is 423 raw text is: SYMPOSIUM: THE MIDDLE EAST CRISIS
THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT
AND THE OBLIGATION TO PURSUE PEACEFUL
SETTLEMENT OF INTERNATIONAL DISPUTES*
John Norton Moore**
The principal focus of international-legal analysis in the literature of major
war-peace issues has been the permissibility of the contending belligerents' use
of force. That is, whether each belligerent's use of the armed forces was in
violation of Article 2(4) of the United Nations Charter, which proscribes the
threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence
of any state. In contrast, there has been little or no analysis of each belligerent's
obligation under Articles 2(3) and 33(1) of the Charter to pursue peaceful
settlement of international disputes. The resulting pattern is one of over-
emphasizing the normative appraisal of initial use of coercion while woefully
neglecting a continuing appraisal of each belligerent's efforts at peaceful settle-
ment. The belligerent's positions on settlement, however, may be responsible
for indefinite prolongation of conflict and as such may sometimes be a more
meaningful indicator of compliance with Charter obligations than a single-
barrelled focus on the appraisal of initiating coercion. Both the Indo-China and
the Arab-Israeli conflicts, the principal contemporary war-peace issues, demon-
strate this one-sided focus. A preoccupation in the Indo-China conflict has
been whether the conflict could most meaningfully be characterized as an
international or an internal conflict for purposes of assessing the lawfulness of
initiating coercion. The negotiating positions of the contending belligerents,
while a subject of generalized speculation, have not been the subject of norma-
tive analysis under the Charter.' Similarly, the principal focus in the Arab-
Israeli conflict has been the lawfulness of the Arab and Israeli uses of force
in the Six Day War and the consequences of that use of force with respect to
retention of the occupied territories. There has been only sporadic attention
paid to the Charterability of the negotiating positions of the belligerents.2
*This is a revised and updated version of a paper presented at a regional meeting of the American
Society of International Law at the University of Kansas on November 20-21, 1970. I would like to
thank Professor John Francis Murphy, the organizer of the meeting, for providing me with a forum to
test and refine initial formulations. I would also like to thank Mr. Jacob Zemach for his helpful suggestions
on an earlier draft. Any errors and infelicities are my own.
** Professor of Law and Director of the Graduate Program, the University of Virginia School of Law.
B.A. 1959, Drew Univ.; LL.B. 1962, Duke Univ.; LL.M. 1965, Univ. of Illinois.
'There are more than 115 books and articles dealing with some aspect of the legal issues presented
by the Indo-China War. None of these focus on appraisal of the principal belligerent's compliance with
the Charter obligation to pursue peaceful settlement of international disputes. The only concession is an
occasional article that mentions the Article 33 obligation to pursue peaceful settlement and briefly urges
that one side or another is in violation of this obligation. What few materials have been published on
efforts at settlement, such as D. KaASLOW & S. LooRY, THE SECRET SEARCH FOR PEACE IN VIETNAM (1968),
have made no effort at international legal analysis. See the bibliography of writings on Indo-China and
the legal order in J. N. MooRE, LAW AND THE INDO-CHINA WAt (to be published by the Princeton Uni-
versity Press in late 1971).
a In compiling a reader on THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT AND INTERNATIONAL LAW I recently collected
more than 65 books and articles dealing with some aspect of the legal issues presented by the Arab-Israeli
conflict. A number of these focus on the legal issues surrounding Security Council Resolution 242 of
1971]](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/ukalr19&div=33&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
The Arab-Israeli Conflict and the Obligation to Pursue Peaceful Settlement of International Disputes
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most