East Jerusalem is the sector of Jerusalem that was held by Jordan after the 1948 Arab–Israeli War, as opposed to the western sector of the city, West Jerusalem, which was held by Israel. Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered a part of the West Bank and, therefore, of the Palestinian territories. A number of states recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of the State of Palestine, whereas other states assert that East Jerusalem "will be the capital of Palestine", while referring to it as "an occupied territory".

Corpus separatum was the internationalization proposal for Jerusalem and its surrounding area as part of the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly with a two-thirds majority in November 1947. According to the Partition Plan, the city of Jerusalem would be brought under international governance, conferring it a special status due to its shared importance for the Abrahamic religions. The legal base ("Statute") for this arrangement was to be reviewed after ten years and put to a referendum. The corpus separatum was again one of the main issues of the post-war Lausanne Conference of 1949, besides the borders of Israel and the question of the Palestinian right of return.