Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories
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28 March 2001, Geneva
Mr. Chairman, the Center for Economic and Social Rights would like to congratulate you on your appointment as Chairman of the 57th Session of the Commission and thank you and the other members of the Commission for your attention today.
The Commission has already heard testimonies on widespread and grave violations of international law by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT). For many years, the Commission has played a leading role in bringing these violations to the attention of the international community. Yet year after year, Israel persists in its policies in the face of universal condemnation. Indeed, the Prime Minister of Israel recently demonstrated contempt for international law and opinion in declaring that no one in the world has the right to judge Israel’s behavior.
Israel’s refusal to apply universal principles of human rights and humanitarian law to its conduct in the OPT presents a fundamental challenge not only to the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people, but also to the credibility of the United Nations itself. It is therefore incumbent upon the Commission, as a leading voice for human rights in the UN system, to develop effective international measures to establish the rule of international law in the OPT.
In its recent emergency session, the Commission took an important step forward by establishing a high profile human rights inquiry commission. One of the crucial contributions of the Inquiry Commission is to highlight the decisive role of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land and rejection of the Palestinian right to self-determination as the root cause of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and as the catalyst for all other violations of human rights and humanitarian law. The report points out that:
It is of pervasive significance that the Palestinian people are struggling to realize their right to self-determination, which by virtue of international law and morality provides the foundation for the exercise of other rights. Of comparable significance is the appreciation of the extent to which Israel’s continued occupation of Palestinian territories has remained the most formidable obstacle to Palestinian self-determination (E/CN.4/2001/121, p. 7).
While Israel’s occupation is the underlying cause of the current crisis, the immediate cause is its policy of expropriating land for settlements and depriving Palestinians of free movement and economic opportunity through closure. Since the Oslo process began in 1993, Israel has extended rather than ended its occupation by doubling the number of illegal Jewish settlers and imposing a comprehensive closure that has crippled the Palestinian economy and caused grave violations of human rights and humanitarian law.
The Inquiry Commission draws attention to this fundamental interconnection between settlements, denial of self-determination, and the current intifada:
Settlements are a major obstacle in the way of peace between Israelis and Palestinians. First, they virtually foreclose the possibility of a viable Palestinian state, as they, together with the road system connecting them, destroy the territorial integrity of Palestine. In this sense, they act as a major impediment to the exercise of the right to self-determination… Secondly, the settlements provide daily evidence of the violations of international law and the failure of the international community, acting through the United Nations and the High Contracting Parties of the Geneva Conventions, to remedy such a situation. The despair and cynicism in the Palestinian community about the willingness of the international community to enforce the rule of law is in large measure due to its failure to halt the growth of the settler population and to persuade the Israeli Government to reverse this practice. The link between settlements and the present intifada is clear. Many of the acts of violence carried out by the IDF and settlers, that have resulted in Palestinian deaths and injuries, have occurred on the heavily defended roads leading to the settlements or in the proximity of the settlements (p. 26).
The Inquiry Commission also highlights another crucial issue: Israel's unacceptable rejection of international law. The report states that:
While an occupying power or party to a conflict may be given a margin of appreciation in its assessment of the nature of the conflict, it cannot be allowed unilaterally to categorize a situation in such a way that the restraints of international humanitarian law and human rights law are abandoned (p. 17).
The Inquiry Commission therefore insisted on the full application of international law to Israeli conduct and further urged “the organs of the United Nations to rehabilitate their reputation” through decisive “follow-up action.”
We believe that the issue of follow-up action should be the Commission’s top priority in this session. This means not only proposing measures for the Commission itself, but also requesting concrete actions from other UN bodies concerned with a just resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Towards these ends, the Center for Economic and Social Rights urges the Commission to support the following practical measures proposed by the High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Inquiry Commission, and other UN bodies :
- Declaring that the root cause of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is Israel’s ongoing occupation, confiscation of land, water and other resources, and construction of settlements, bypass roads, and military installations in the OPT.
- Calling upon Israel to take immediate and effective measures to end its occupation and cease violating human rights and humanitarian law, in particular by ending the siege in the OPT and the destruction of Palestinian property.
- Requesting the General Assembly to support the call to reconvene the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention in order to establish an effective mechanism to protect the rights of Palestinians under Israeli occupation.
- Requesting the Secretary-General to carry out an analytical study relating to issues concerning the compensation of victims of violations of human rights and humanitarian law, including claims for wrongful death, injury, and damage to property and livelihood, with a view to proposing viable mechanisms to ensure full enjoyment of the right to compensation.
- Requesting the Security Council to consider the establishment of an effective international protection force to safeguard the rights of Palestinian civilians.
- Deciding to establish, on an urgent basis, an effective international mechanism to undertake on-site monitoring and reporting of violations of human rights and grave breaches of international humanitarian law by all parties.