Under international law, neither East nor West Jerusalem is considered Israel's capital. Tel Aviv is recognised as Israel's capital, pending a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians. East Jerusalem is considered by the international community to be illegally occupied by Israel, in contravention of several binding UN Security Council Resolutions listed here. A fuller document on the legal status of East Jerusalem is available at:

http://www.arabmediawatch.com/amw/CountryBackgrounds/Palestine/LegalStatusOf/EastJerusalem/tabid/2155/ctl/Edit/mid/2839/Default.aspx

In these resolutions, the United Nations Security Council has also called for no measures to be taken to change the status of Jerusalem until a final settlement is reached between the sides: declaring Jerusalem as Israel's capital is an attempt to change this status, and is thus a violation of these Security Council resolutions. Accordingly, Costa Rica and El Salvador, the only countries to have had embassies in Jerusalem, moved them to Tel Aviv in August 2006.

The legal status of West Jerusalem is summarised in a 1997 UN report entitled "The Status Of Jerusalem", which reaffirms that the decision of the UN in 1947 to declare Jerusalem an international city remains valid:

"First acknowledged in an Israel-Jordan cease-fire agreement of 30 November 1948, the de facto division of the City between two countries at war, with sealed borders, was formalized in the Israel-Jordan Armistice Agreement of 3 April 1949. The Agreement, however, was considered internationally as having no legal effect on the continued validity of the provisions of the partition resolution for the internationalization of Jerusalem...Particular mention should also be made of the continued presence in Jerusalem of an international sui generis consular corps, commonly referred to as the 'Consular Corps of the Corpus Separatum'. Nine States have maintained consulates in Jerusalem (East and West) without, however, recognizing any sovereignty over the City. Unlike consuls serving in Israel, the consuls of those States do not present a consular letter of authorization to the Foreign Ministry and do not receive accreditation by the President of Israel. They do not pay taxes and have no official relations with Israeli authorities. In their activities, they respect common protocol rules designed to prevent any appearance of recognition of sovereign claims to the City."