WALL STREET JOURNAL
International Law Is No Bar to Trump’s Gaza Proposal
Eugene Kontorovich
March 3, 2025

…The president is successfully trolling European and United Nations officials, who have insisted the plan would violate international law. They’re wrong. The legal basis for the proposal is straightforward. Gaza is one of the very few pieces of land not under the sovereignty of any nation, a status known as terra nullius in international law. Such situations are rare because in the postwar era local populations can win recognition for a new sovereign state with relative ease. Once established, sovereignty is hard to extinguish. But because of a confluence of circumstances, Gaza has a sovereignty vacuum. A distinct Gaza Strip came into being as a result of Egypt’s invasion of Israel in 1948. Cairo failed in its attempt to destroy the newly independent Jewish state, but it did occupy a finger of coastal territory between Sinai and Tel Aviv, which came to be known as the Gaza Strip. READ MORE

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