The Legal Value of International Treaties in the Palestinian Constitutional System: The Problem of Combining the Theories of Monism and Dualism

Abstract

This research aims to study the status of international treaties in the Palestinian constitutional system in light of the confusion regarding the relationship between local laws and international treaties as a result of the ambiguous interpretation of jurisprudence by the Palestinian Supreme Constitutional Court. This confusion led to the emergence of the combined theories of monism and dualism in determining the relationship between Palestinian legislation and international treaties ratified by the State of Palestine. This comes as a result of the failure of the Palestinian constitutional legislator to define the nature of this relationship and the place of ratified international treaties within the hierarchy of legislation. The researcher followed the descriptive and analytical approach to arrive at the results and recommendations. The author concludes that the theory of unilateralism is the theory that constitutes the true approach to ensuring the supremacy of international treaties over domestic law. This is because the amended Palestinian Basic Law of 2003 did not provide any mechanism to integrate rules derived from ratified international treaties into the domestic legal system. This research is significant in studying the status of international agreements by analyzing judicial jurisprudence without a constitutional text defining this status.