Palestine and EU

The state-bound conception of diplomatic practices is deficient. It fails to account for the diversity of international actors who do not fit the nation-state geopolitical ordering. Unrecognised and subaltern subjects have constantly contested this structuring.

Although excluded from orthodox praxis of diplomacy, self-determination and anti-colonial movements are always already involved in diplomatic practices as a means to resist their elimination from the world’s map. Diplomacy literature has increasingly become attentive to the diplomatic conduct of unsovereign actors and provided instructive conceptual contributions to interpret this phenomenon.

This chapter explores the less considered diplomacy of liberation movements that have a priori right for self-determination and self-representation, and does this by examining official diplomatic interactions between Palestine and the European Union (EU).