Balakrishnan Rajagopal

MIT Professor of Law, Human Rights and Development
Former UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to adequate housing

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

As former UN special rapporteur on right to housing, this comes too late and means too little when he has totally supported even worse destruction of housing in Gaza. I don’t know that he is ‘delegitimizing’ Israel or simply saying to Israel - you are in the way of something I want.

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

Speaking at Oxford next Monday! https://t.co/QG4V4OxC7Q

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

My former student! Nithya Raman in the LA Mayor’s race!

https://t.co/6cF3IeULYm via @NYTimes

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

The message to Germany must be clear - you can’t defy world public opinion so blatantly on Israel’s genocidal and unlawful behavior and still expect warm support from the world’s majority. Germany must recover its moral bearing.

[DW Politics @dw_politics]

Germany has failed to win a non-permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul (CDU) secured 104 votes in the General Assembly, falling 23 short of the required two-thirds majority. It is the first time Germany has missed out on a rotating seat.

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

America reduced homelessness for the first time in almost a decade during the last year of the Biden administration but the Trump administration is battling to produce more homelessness while treating them as criminals. What will the numbers be next year? https://t.co/Yk1hLp4XS9

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

Netanyahu orders Israeli army to seize ‘70% of Gaza Strip’, violating ceasefire. This “would mean that the 2.2 million Palestinians who have survived the war would be crammed into less than a third of their original territory, ..already overcrowded.��� https://t.co/7ryVsOOhlG

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

@koldo_casla This development merits a close look by you. Annexation of occupied land through these measures is a complete obliteration of the right to to self determination which part of the right to land and housing in the context of occupation.

[Itay Epshtain @EpshtainItay]

BREAKING: Israel this morning launched the “Land Registry and Settlement of Rights” online system for the occupied State of Palestine.

In May 2025, Israel’s Security Cabinet resolved to initiate comprehensive land title settlement across the West Bank. The objective was plain: to complete the juridical and administrative annexation of occupied territory through the wholesale registration of land under Israeli authority.

Operationalized on 15 February 2026, the scheme transferred powers to the Israeli Ministry of Justice and the Survey of Israel, allocated ILS 244 million (USD 79 million), and set in motion the permanent acquisition and registration of approximately 58 per cent of Area C, some 35 per cent of the West Bank excluding East Jerusalem.

The system, codenamed “Grenade”, was launched this morning and openly endorsed by Ministers Smotrich and Strook as “a central pillar in applying sovereignty in the territory and strengthening our hold and roots in Judea and Samaria.”

The candor is striking. What was once advanced incrementally, is now pursued through digitized cadastral engineering. A land registry presented as bureaucratic modernization is, in substance, an instrument for the consolidation of unlawful territorial acquisition.

International law is neither ambiguous nor silent. An occupying Power is prohibited from annexing occupied territory, permanently appropriating public or private property outside the strict limits of military necessity, or altering the legal status of the territory under occupation. Yet this is precisely what is now occurring, in broad daylight, through administrative and technological means designed to render unlawful presence increasingly irreversible.

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

@EpshtainItay @leilanifarha This is exactly what I have been predicting and point to the very case of OPT and Israel in my report last year to the UNGA on Land and the right to adequate housing

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

@UCLG_Saiz Thank you Emilia! 🙏🏽

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

@adequatehousing Thank you 🙏🙏

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

My reflections on the global
Housing crisis and international law last week at the Lauterpacht Center on international law, Cambridge University. Through YouTube etc. https://t.co/m9FQCUC2Ma

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

@PaulaGaviriaB Look forward to your report! Drawing your attention to my draft Guiding Principles on reconstruction and its legal commentary available publicly for some time now since April.

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

During my last week as UN Special Rapporteur, I contributed this UNICEF video on the unique risks faced by children with regard to the violation of their right to adequate housing. Now it is public. https://t.co/zdMezWrjTt

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

This is so disturbing. The illegal sanctions against Francesca Albanese have been reinstated by an appeals court in the US. I strongly oppose this and call for this illegal and unprincipled decision to be reversed or opposed. https://t.co/WO1xrY5x9p

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

That’s a welcome news. The rest of the world must move towards dedollarization rapidly to end the US’ unlimited recourse to sanctions.

[Margaret Satterthwaite @SRjudgeslawyers]

Good news, long overdue: US removes UN expert Francesca Albanese from sanctions list https://t.co/L1ztF7pwEk

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

Glimpses of the sickening barbarism practiced as state policy by Israel. But the dam is breaking and this will end with accountability for all these crimes.

[Reem Alsalem UNSR Violence Against Women and Girls @UNSRVAW]

The mistreatment and abuse the #flotilla activists are receiving, including this woman punched in the face, is very disturbing.

It is nevertheless important that the world got a glimpse of what Israel has in store for them.

If their reception is being enthusiastically described by Israel’s own officials as “hell“ picture the treatment of Palestinian hostages and prisoners receive? What description would do justice to their reality?

They all must be immediately released!

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

The long history of torture and inhuman treatment of Palestinians by Israel laid out by @FranceskAlbs. The real question is why this overwhelming evidence is being ignored while demonizing the recent NY times oped by @NickKristof. The prohibition of torture is supposed to be a jus cogens norm under international law.

[Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur oPt @FranceskAlbs]

🧵on 'NYT rift'
1/22
A NYT article on sexual abuse against Palestinians -accurate but barely scratching the surface- is triggering hysteria in the Israeli govt not bcs of the facts, but bcs of the audience.
Apartheid Israel fears NYT readers will finally see and no longer ignore.

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

Despite the attacks on the ICC, accountability cannot be evaded.

[Johann Soufi @jsoufi]

🚨 According to @Haaretz, the @IntlCrimCourt has issued new SECRET arrest warrants against 5 Israeli officials: 3 political and 2 military figures.

Despite unprecedented attacks, the ICC is continuing its work.

And this is probably only the beginning. ⚖️
https://t.co/iPYwtwA1tN

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

I’ll be speaking at this important event next week in London. Poverty and homelessness should not be criminalized. Better solutions are available. I outlined this issue in my report with @DeSchutterO in 2024 to the UN HRC:

https://t.co/hatV3uJe4X

[Institute of Commonwealth Studies @ICwS_SAS]

We are delighted to host the UK launch of the People-Centred Public Safety Fellowships and the Practitioners’ Guide on a Human Rights-Based Approach to the Decriminalisation of Poverty and Status.

The event will be delivered in partnership with the @ICJ_org and @commonwealthsec with support from the @OpenSociety under auspices of the @DecrimPS.

We look forward to welcoming key guests and speakers including, @DrLizMacharia, #LivioZilli, #HugoTovar and Prof Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw.

View the event details and full programme here: https://t.co/PgBjAxfhuG

And learn more about the project on our website: https://t.co/QR9iUVVhU7

#HumanRights #PublicSafety #RuleOfLaw #Commonwealth #CriminalJustice #Decriminalisation #Poverty #Security @SASNews @LondonU @HRC_News

[Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw]

Speaking at this event in London next week!

[Institute of Commonwealth Studies @ICwS_SAS]

We are delighted to host the UK launch of the People-Centred Public Safety Fellowships and the Practitioners’ Guide on a Human Rights-Based Approach to the Decriminalisation of Poverty and Status.

The event will be delivered in partnership with the @ICJ_org and @commonwealthsec with support from the @OpenSociety under auspices of the @DecrimPS.

We look forward to welcoming key guests and speakers including, @DrLizMacharia, #LivioZilli, #HugoTovar and Prof Balakrishnan Rajagopal @rajonlaw.

View the event details and full programme here: https://t.co/PgBjAxfhuG

And learn more about the project on our website: https://t.co/QR9iUVVhU7

#HumanRights #PublicSafety #RuleOfLaw #Commonwealth #CriminalJustice #Decriminalisation #Poverty #Security @SASNews @LondonU @HRC_News