Among the Forum's conclusions: the current "crisis of international law" is not a crisis of substantive law at all, but a crisis of enforcement, caused or sustained by a small number of States. The body of law remains intact; what is missing is uniform application and the political will for rules-based enforcement - while the will of civil society is to be bent or broken through State violence and repression, as well as attempts at media intimidation. The international judiciary is being disrupted and beset by personal and infrastructural attacks on its reputation, funding, data systems, and data access, precisely because it holds powerful States to account.

In the case of Palestine, and contrary to the position taken by the German Federal Government, there is no unclear or complex legal situation. The findings of the ICJ, the UN Commission of Inquiry, the Special Rapporteurs, and the OHCHR converge on apartheid as the framework and a (plausible) genocide as the culmination of a system that encompasses Gaza and the West Bank alike - entrenched in legislation by the Death Penalty Law of 30 March 2026 as an arbitrary, discriminatory, and annexationist "legalisation of the illegitimate."

Just how far from abstract all of this is, Rana Arrabi drove home during her address in Geneva, using the example of the law on the death penalty for "terrorists" passed by the Knesset on 30 March 2026:
 

"So for Palestinians, this is not an abstract legal debate. It is about whether law will continue to be used as a weapon against them or whether international law will finally be applied with seriousness, consistency, and consequence."
 

Arrabi continued:
 

"(...) in the absence of accountability unlawful conduct escalates. What is required now is not merely condemnation, but action. States must act consistently with their obligations under international law. They must not aid, assist, recognize, normalize or sustain unlawful situations as confirmed by the ICJ and its advisory opinions. They must ensure accountability and they must act with urgency to prevent this law [the death penalty law] from becoming yet another mechanism through which Palestinian lives are placed at the mercy of a discriminatory and coercive system. At the minimum, at this moment, pressure must be exerted to at least revoke this law. But we all know that this alone is not enough. What this moment reveals is the danger of always treating a new Israeli measure as an isolated incident, detached from the wider structure that produces it. So if the broader reality is still intact, the next measure will follow and the next measure will follow."

- Rana Arrabi, Counsellor of the
Permanent Observer Mission 
of the State of Palestine to the UN,
24 April 2026
 

From this arise binding obligations for third States - in practical terms, the immediate cessation of arms deliveries, the targeted sanctioning and arrest of war criminals, and the non-recognition of Israel's seizure of land - the fulfilment of which does not lie within the discretion of the States acting in breach, Germany foremost among them.

The repeatedly documented double standards - for instance, Ukraine as compared to Palestine - are the central credibility problem of the West. In the view of all participants of the Geneva Forum, there is no alternative to the rules-based order.