[News] Bogota Summit launches Global South’s legal intifada against Israel and US impunity

[Anti-Imperialist News]

 Bogota Summit launches Global South’s legal intifada against Israel and US
impunity

Colombia’s defiant pivot from Washington and the growing Hague Group
alliance marks a potentially historic rupture with western legal hypocrisy
on Palestine.

José Niño <https://thecradle.co/authors/jose-nino>

JUL 17, 2025 -
https://thecradle.co/articles/bogota-summit-launches-global-souths-legal-intifada-against-israel-and-us-impunity
Photo Credit: The Cradle

>From 15–16 July, Bogota became the unlikely capital of a global
insurrection against western legal impunity. Over 30 countries – including
key powers from the Global South and even some European states – gathered
in the Colombian capital for the Hague Group Emergency Summit
<https://thecradle.co/articles/officials-from-over-30-nations-meet-in-colombia-to-demand-end-to-gaza-genocide>
.

This was the most ambitious multilateral initiative yet to directly confront
<https://thecradle.co/articles/no-nation-is-above-the-law-colombia-to-host-international-summit-against-israeli-impunity>
what participants unflinchingly termed Israel’s genocide in Gaza, and the
broader culture of impunity that has shielded the occupation state since
1948.

*From steadfast client to anti-imperial spearhead*

That the summit was held in Colombia – a long-standing US vassal in Latin
America – was not incidental. Once regarded as Washington’s most loyal
client <https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/R43813> in the hemisphere,
Colombia’s dramatic pivot
<https://josbcf.substack.com/p/colombia-vs-united-states-a-harbinger> under
President Gustavo Petro represents the boldest regional defiance of US
authority in decades.

Petro, who severed
<https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2024/5/1/colombia-to-cut-diplomatic-ties-with-israel-over-gaza-war-petro-says>
diplomatic ties with Tel Aviv in 2024, has placed Bogota on a collision
course with the US over his unwavering opposition to the occupation state’s
onslaught in Gaza.

Washington reacted predictably by issuing warnings
<https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/israel-genocide-united-states-the-hague-group-colombia-international-law-united-nations>
to allies against the “weaponization of international law,” and sanctioning
<https://thecradle.co/articles/us-sanctions-francesca-albanese-for-exposing-western-profiteering-from-gaza-genocide>
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her “illegitimate and shameful
efforts” to advance the International Criminal Court's (ICC) prosecutions
of Israeli and US officials. Bogota responded with direct defiance. In the
run-up to the summit, Petro publicly backed Albanese, declaring
<https://progressive.international/wire/2025-07-12-pi-briefing-no-25-nos-vemos-en-bogot/en>
that “the multilateral system of states cannot be destroyed,” in a thinly
veiled rejection of US diktats.

Over 30 nations participated, including the eight founding members
<https://english.elpais.com/international/2025-07-15/colombia-hosts-first-hague-group-summit-to-finalize-action-against-israels-gaza-offensive.html>
of the Hague Group – Bolivia, Colombia, Cuba, Honduras, Malaysia, Namibia,
Senegal, and South Africa, co-chaired by Colombia and South Africa. They
were joined by more than 20 additional states spanning Latin America,
Africa, Asia, and even Europe.

The participation of European countries such as Portugal and Spain was
noteworthy. Both states only established full diplomatic relations with
Israel in the latter half of the 20th century: Portugal in 1977
<https://new.embassies.gov.il/portugal/en/the-embassy/bilateral-relations>
and Spain in 1986
<https://israeled.org/israel-spain-establish-diplomatic-ties/>, emblematic
of their historic caution over Israel’s contested legitimacy.

But since Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza began in late 2023, Madrid has
adopted a string of punitive diplomatic moves.

Spain canceled
<https://www.irishtimes.com/world/europe/2025/04/24/spain-cancels-ammunition-purchase-from-israel-amid-political-outcry/>
a €6.6 million (around $7.2 million) ammunition purchase from an Israeli
firm, scrapped
<https://www.yahoo.com/news/spain-cancels-285-million-missile-114529887.html?fr=yhssrp_catchall>
a €285 million (around $310.7 million) anti-tank missile deal with the
Spanish subsidiary of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems, banned
<https://apnews.com/article/us-spain-israel-weapons-shipping-7cb890af47716111445f7726ce19ddb4>Israeli
weapons from port entry, formally recognized
<https://www.cnn.com/2024/05/28/middleeast/spain-ireland-norway-recognize-palestinian-statehood-intl/index.html>
Palestinian statehood, and pushed
<https://www.algemeiner.com/2025/06/23/spain-pushes-eu-suspend-israel-trade-pact-amid-gaza-conflict-sparking-division-bloc/>
to suspend the EU–Israel Association Agreement.

Though neither European state fully endorsed all of Bogota’s proposals,
their participation and scathing denunciations of Israeli policy reflect a
deeper fracture within Europe over Tel Aviv’s legitimacy and the cost of
complicity.

*Laying the legal gauntlet*

Central to the summit was a blistering legal and moral condemnation of
Israel’s conduct in Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The Hague Group issued
a detailed catalog of war crimes
<https://www.palestinechronicle.com/hague-group-meeting-most-significant-development-for-gaza-albanese/>:
the mass killing of over 57,000 civilians, the targeting of hospitals and
schools, the weaponization of starvation and siege, and the deliberate use
of forced displacement.

The apartheid state in the occupied West Bank, enforced through racial
segregation, parallel legal systems, and land confiscations for
settlements, was cited as a textbook violation of the Fourth Geneva
Convention and, per the International Court of Justice's (ICJ) 2024
advisory opinion <https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204176>, a breach of
international prohibitions against forced territorial acquisition and
apartheid.

Francesca Albanese delivered the summit’s keynote
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jul/15/united-nations-francesca-albanese-colombia-conference-israel-palestine>,
setting the tone with an uncompromising indictment:

“For too long, international law has been treated as optional – applied
selectively to those perceived as weak, ignored by those acting as the
powerful ... That era must end.”

The ICC arrest warrants
<https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges>
against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense
Minister Yoav Gallant – citing crimes such as starvation as a weapon,
indiscriminate civilian targeting, and the murder of Palestinian
non-combatants – were repeatedly invoked as a historic turning point.

*The Resistance Axis of lawfare*

The summit's ethos was clearly to rupture the impunity enabled by the UN
Security Council’s paralysis. The Hague Group, founded
<https://orinocotribune.com/the-hague-groups-bogota-meeting-what-is-at-stake/>
in January 2025, framed itself as the Global South’s corrective to a
postwar order that protects violators so long as they are shielded by US
power.

That paralysis, most attendees argued, was not accidental but structural:
The P5 veto system
<https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/voting-system> ensures
impunity for those, such as Israel and its allies.

Meeting in the San Carlos Palace, delegates from 12 states – Bolivia,
Colombia, Cuba, Indonesia, Iraq, Libya, Malaysia, Namibia, Nicaragua, Oman,
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, and South Africa – announced
<https://dirco.gov.za/press-release-by-the-hague-group-states-announce-unprecedented-measures-to-halt-the-gaza-genocide-at-the-bogota-conference-in-bogota-republic-of-colombia-16-july-2025/>
six binding measures. These included a full arms embargo on the occupation
state, port bans for Israeli military vessels, contract reviews to
terminate commercial complicity with the occupation, and firm support for
domestic and international prosecution of Israeli officials.

These policies were anchored in the ICJ’s 2024 opinion declaring Israel’s
occupation illegal and the UN General Assembly’s September 2024 resolution
<https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/09/1154391> urging decisive global
action within 12 months.

*A global rift – but still an uphill battle*

Despite the breakthrough, significant limitations remain. Only 12 states
adopted the measures outright. Others were given until the UN General
Assembly in September to sign on. Key powers, including China, withheld
endorsement
<https://www.mei.edu/publications/israel-and-china-time-choosing> – despite
supporting the initiative’s aims – likely due to economic entanglements
with Israel, including port infrastructure investments.

Organizers acknowledged the uphill road ahead: absent broader UN uptake and
stronger alignment from economic powers, Washington’s veto and European
hesitation could neuter the Hague Group’s legal insurgency. But the
coalition remains adamant that justice is no longer negotiable.

Colombian Vice Minister Mauricio Jaramillo Jassir captured
<https://www.cadtm.org/At-Hague-Group-Emergency-Summit-30-Nations-Seek-to-Halt-the-Genocide-in-Gaza>
the summit’s urgency:

“The Palestinian genocide threatens the entire international system … The
participating states will not only reaffirm their commitment to opposing
genocide, but also formulate concrete steps to move from words to
collective action.”

*A warning – and a promise*

The Bogota summit was not just another international conference. It openly
challenged the post-1945 legal fiction of a “rules-based order
<https://thecradle.co/articles/the-axis-of-asymmetry-takes-on-the-rules-based-order>”
– a system long exposed as a euphemism for western prerogative.

As South Africa’s International Relations Minister, Roland Lamola, asserted
<https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hkgwojvull>

“No country is above the law, and no crime will go unanswered.”

Yet the struggle remains unfinished. The Hague Group’s bold confrontation
with Israeli impunity marks a decisive break, but the future of this legal
uprising hinges on whether its momentum can breach the fortified walls of
New York and The Hague, and whether powers like China, India, and Brazil
shift from quiet endorsement to active alignment.

On 16 July, as thousands gathered in Plaza Bolivar in support, the message
was unambiguous: either the era of impunity ends, or the legitimacy of the
global order collapses with it.
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