What if the problem with a UN investigation is not only its conclusions, but the system behind them?

The Architecture of Bias assesses the UN's permanent Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel against the UN's own standards of independence, impartiality, objectivity, and equal treatment, across every report it has issued from 2021 through May 2026.

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1,557 mentions of Israel. 155 of Hamas. The Commission's own reports, counted word by word.

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The introductionThe findings, in 90 seconds, from the team that wrote the report.

Executive summary

A fact-finding mechanism, measured against its own standards.

This report evaluates the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel (COI)'s adherence to UN standards of independence, impartiality, objectivity, and equal treatment.

Bottom line up front

Based on a comprehensive analysis of the complete corpus of COI reports issued from 2021 through May 2026, we conclude that this apparatus is structurally defective, compromised by blatant bias, and systematically misapplies international law. It functions not as an impartial fact-finding mechanism, but as a unique and unprecedented apparatus for perpetual scrutiny of a single UN member state.

Read the Full Report Key findings

Key findings

Six findings, from the Commission's own record.

Every finding below comes from the COI's institutional design and the complete corpus of its published reports, 2021 through May 2026.

A temporary investigation became a permanent mechanism

Unlike conventional UN fact-finding missions, the Commission operates under an exceptionally broad, open-ended mandate with no sunset clause, no defined endpoint, recurring reporting obligations, and continuing institutional funding and staffing. Its mandate extends beyond investigating specific events to examining undefined "root causes," allowing scrutiny of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to continue indefinitely.

Commissioners with a record of prejudgment

A fact-finding body must approach evidence without prejudgment. Yet key COI commissioners had already taken public positions on issues they were later tasked with investigating. Navi Pillay had endorsed "Sanction Apartheid Israel" and repeatedly called Israel an apartheid state before becoming Chair. Chris Sidoti dismissed antisemitism concerns as being thrown around "like rice at a wedding" and had ties to an organization that had already accused Israel of apartheid and international crimes.

Responsibility is not attributed equally

The report identifies a recurring asymmetry in how responsibility is assigned. Israeli conduct is repeatedly connected to named officials, state institutions, military policies, and institutional intent. Palestinian responsibility, by contrast, is frequently dispersed among broader categories such as "armed groups," "militants," "attackers," and civilians. The result is a reporting framework that institutionalizes Israeli responsibility while giving substantially less attention to the organizational responsibility of Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups.

Two standards of evidence

Israeli evidence and security explanations are repeatedly subjected to demanding corroboration and are sometimes rejected as insufficient. At the same time, information from Palestinian governmental sources, advocacy organizations, confidential sources, and social media is often incorporated with less visible scrutiny of authentication, competing evidence, methodological limitations, or corroboration.

The issue is not whether one category of sources should be trusted and another rejected. It is whether the same evidentiary standard is being applied to both sides.

October 7 exposes the asymmetry

The imbalance becomes particularly significant in the Commission's treatment of October 7. While the Commission formally condemns Hamas's crimes, the report finds that it does not examine Hamas's leadership, command structure, organizational policy, or responsibility for civilian harm with the same depth and rigor applied to Israeli institutions and officials. Israeli suffering and Palestinian armed-group responsibility therefore receive substantially less institutional analysis than allegations concerning Israel.

Numerical proof of bias

Lexical analysis of the COI's own reports exposes a severe attributional asymmetry across the analyzed corpus.

1,557 vs 155Mentions of "Israel" or "Israeli" vs mentions of "Hamas": a 10 to 1 ratio

803Mentions of "occupation" and "settlements"

96 & 6Mentions of "hostages" and of "human shields"

Flags of member states at the United Nations in Geneva

Palais des Nations, GenevaWhere the Commission reports, and where Member States can end its mandate.

Photo: Getty Images / diegograndi

Call to action

Member States should terminate the COI's mandate.

Its open-ended structure, recurring methodological failures, and permanent use of UN resources undermine the credibility of international fact-finding. Those resources should be redirected toward time-limited, event-specific investigations subject to periodic review, transparent evidentiary standards, and enforceable requirements of independence and impartiality.

The UN's fact-finding standards exist for a reason. Does the Permanent Commission of Inquiry meet those standards itself? The core question of this report

Our findings raise serious concerns about its institutional design, evidentiary methodology, attribution of responsibility, and application of international law. Read the evidence. Examine the methodology.

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