After Colombia’s exit, what is left of the Hague Group?
Ana Maria Monjardino writes in Middle East Eye on 8 October 2026:
Under former president Gustavo Petro, the Colombian state found it so difficult to halt coal shipments to Israel through diplomatic and bureaucratic channels that Petro called on the Wayuu, an Indigenous people of La Guajira, to occupy the train lines.
Now, his right-wing successor has signed a decree resuming those exports, and Colombia has walked away from the Hague Group, the coalition it once co-chaired to hold Israel to account for breaches of international law. Its departure in August made it the third founding member, alongside Bolivia and Honduras, to leave the Hague Group in six months, leaving co-chair South Africa to steer the bloc alone.
The Hague Group was founded in January 2025 by these nations, joined also by Cuba, Malaysia, Namibia and Senegal. “The Hague Group was born to advance international law in an era of impunity,” South African Minister of International Relations Ronald Lamola told the meeting.
“Not only for the people of Gaza but for the future of a world where justice prevails over impunity,” the group agreed to take “coordinated legal and diplomatic measures” against Israel’s genocide in the midst of international failure to stop the carnage and complicity in Israel’s actions.
This month, at the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, 40 countries gathered to address how states can act collectively to ensure that international law is not merely proclaimed, but enforced.
“It is also important to understand that The Hague Group is not a body that drafts, consolidates or passes new norms of international law,” explained Guillaume Long, diplomatic advisor to the Hague Group. Instead, it provides “a platform for states to try and articulate strategies, coordinate measures and have discussions,” he told Middle East Eye. However, he added, “the application of international law is usually at the domestic level.”
The group is a kind of coalition of the willing attempting to ensure that international law is enforced in the face of a push by the United States and its allies to dismantle much of the global legal and humanitarian order. Political will is therefore essential. But in Latin America, a region where pink-wave politics once galvanised government support for Palestinians rights, the rise of a new right-wing order has led to the withdrawal of three founding Hague Group members.
Meanwhile, as bombs continue falling on Gaza, ethnic cleansing escalates in the West Bank and the rule of law is under escalating threat from Palestine to Cuba, The Hague Group faces an up-hill battle.
Losing Latin America