Opinion: Why the Trump-Blair Gaza plan is unlawful

In a column for Middle East Eye, Ralph Wilde, a professor of international law, lays out the legality of the proposed international trusteeship of Gaza involving Donald Trump and Tony Blair. 

He writes: "Befitting his role as an icon of western liberal interventionism, Blair’s association with the Gaza trusteeship builds on the tradition of western humanitarians who sought to “humanise” colonialism by grafting onto it a duty of care. 

This concept of “trusteeship over people” was adopted by Europeans for colonial rule over Africa at the Berlin Conference in the late 19th century; by the League of Nations after the First World War for the Mandate territories; and by the United Nations after the Second World War for the Trust Territories and all other non-settler colonies.

Trusteeship assumes a world divided between “child-like” people incapable of looking after themselves - a characterisation now applied to the Palestinian people of Gaza - and “adults”, such as Blair et al, who are able to rule over not only their own people, but also others.

Falling into the “child” category is the rationale for requiring trusteeship. In the League of Nations Covenant, the people of the mandates were “not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world”. 

The child/adult relationship is the rationale for the duty of care - the adult is in charge, but must act in the interests of the “ward”. The adult’s responsibility is to “bring up” the child so it will eventually attain maturity. To conduct tutelage, enabling “development”.

The Gaza trusteeship will thus be temporary, because it is transitional: the adults will build up local capacities for self-administration; the children will consequentially mature and attain adulthood, and the need for trusteeship will then end."

Opinion: Why the Trump-Blair Gaza plan is unlawful