By Gary Raynaldo   DIPLOMATIC TIMES

The State of Palestine has instituted legal proceedings against the United States in the International Court Of Justice over Washington’s decision to move the US Embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.  Filed in the United Nations top court, Palestine alleged the US move is a violation of the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations. On Dec. 6, 2017,  President Trump recognized Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and announced the relocation of the American Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. The American Embassy in Jerusalem was then inaugurated May 14, 2018. The move upended seven decades of US foreign policy that has resisted a recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital before the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is resolved. During the past 22 years, after 
Congress in 1995 adopted the Jerusalem Embassy Act, urging the federal government to relocate the American Embassy to Jerusalem and to  recognize the  city’s is Israels’ capital,  every previous American president 
has exercised the law’s waiver, refusing to move the embassy to Jerusalem or to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital city.  Trump’s action is a  controversial move that breaks with decades of official US policy — and it comes at a tumultuous time for Israel and the region.

U.S. Embassy move to Jerusalem Breach Of Vienna Convention: Palestine 

In its petition before the United Nations’ top court, Palestine “requests the Court to declare that the  relocation, to the Holy City of Jerusalem, of the United States embassy in Israel is in breach of the Vienna Convention.”  Palestine further requests the Court “to order the United States of America to withdraw the diplomatic mission from the Holy City of Jerusalem and to conform to the international obligations flowing from the Vienna Convention.  Both the Palestinians and the Israelis claim Jerusalem as their capital, and the city contains sites sacred to both Jews and Muslims. The Palestinians are alleging in their lawsuit with the ICJ that the May inauguration of the US embassy in Jerusalem was illegal.

The ICJ is the principal judicial organ of the  United Nations. It was establish by the UN Charter in June 1945 and began its activities in April 1946.