KUALA LUMPUR, July 15 (Bernama) — Malaysia has joined over 30 countries at the landmark Bogota Emergency Conference in Colombia to coordinate legal and diplomatic action in response to the dire situation in Gaza.
Other participating countries in the multilateral initiative, co-hosted by Colombia and South Africa under the framework of The Hague Group, include Algeria, Brazil, China, Cuba, Honduras, Indonesia, Namibia, Qatar, Senegal, South Africa and Spain.
The Secretariat of The Hague Group said in a statement that the conference on July 15 and 16 was the most ambitious multilateral initiative yet to confront Israel’s actions in Gaza and to push for compliance with international law.
“It is part of the effort to strengthen multilateral support for accountability and justice for the Palestinian people,” it said.
UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, Francesca Albanese, described the gathering as a turning point.
“The Bogota conference will go down as the moment in history that states finally stood up to do the right thing,” she said, hailing the formation of The Hague Group as the most significant political development of the past 20 months.
At the opening session on Tuesday, Albanese is expected to highlight the failure of the international system to protect Palestinians and the selective application of international law, which has undermined its credibility and legitimacy.
“For too long, international law has been treated as optional — applied selectively to the weak and ignored by the powerful,” she said in the statement released ahead of the conference.
Albanese is also expected to address recent sanctions imposed against her by the United States (US) and to highlight the UN Charter and universal human rights instruments as a shared moral and legal compass.
“United in purpose, we can reclaim justice and, standing together, we will,” she said.
Colombian President Gustavo Petro said the objective was to “move from condemnation to collective action” while Colombia’s Vice Foreign Minister Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir warned that the alleged genocide against Palestinians threatens the multilateral system and global legal norms.
The conference builds on the formation of The Hague Group earlier this year.
Its eight founding members – Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia, Senegal and South Africa – committed to three main actions: to uphold the ICJ’s provisional measures on Gaza; to prevent arms transfers to Israel that risk facilitating genocide; and to block vessels carrying military supplies to Israel from docking in their ports.
The Bogota Conference also aims to follow up on the ICJ’s 2024 advisory opinion and implement UN General Assembly Resolution A/RES/ES-10/24, which requires concrete action by member states by September 2025.
— BERNAMA