Ottawa, July 21 (RHC)-- Ardi Imseis, the legal counsel for the State of Palestine, told Al Jazeera that the ICJ’s advisory opinion creates obligations for “all states on earth” to end Israel’s continued presence in the Palestinian territory.

“The court has determined that Israel’s presence in the territory is accompanied by a regime of racial discrimination, racial segregation and apartheid [that] must be brought to an end forthwith by the international community,” said Imseis, who is also an associate professor of law at Queen’s University in Canada and the author of the book The United Nations and The Question of Palestine.

Imseis acknowledged that advisory opinions themselves are “on their face non-binding”, but said that some “aspects of the ruling are binding.”  These include instances where the court made an “authoritative determination on how to interpret relevant international legal principles, which are themselves already binding”.