magnify
Home Archive for category "Palestine"

Differentiated Statehood? ‘Pre-States’? Palestine@the UN

Published on April 3, 2013        Author: 

Nothing is ever simple in the Middle East in general, and the Arab-Israeli conflict in particular. The rather tired parable of the frog and the scorpion as applied to this arena (‘This is the Mid East, not the Mid West’, says the scorpion to the frog as they both drown) would be funny if it were not so sad; it can be applied to any number of protagonists in the conflict. Yet, in the case of the UNGA vote to ‘upgrade’ Palestine to non-member observer state status, the politics are, strangely perhaps, somewhat less knotty than the law.

Only the US, Canada, the Czech Republic and a few small Rent-a-States voted against the resolution. A good number of states, among them some undoubted Israel friends, abstained, and a large majority, including some other undoubted Israel friends, voted to accept Palestine to this new status.

The EU was all over the place, with member states in all three camps, including key member states such as Germany, the UK, Poland and the Netherlands among the abstentions, and others such as France, Italy and Spain, voting in favour. So much for the Common Foreign Policy.

Politically this was said to be a resounding defeat for Israeli diplomacy. That it was; but even the most brilliant diplomacy would probably have been of no avail here. The vote was a universal repudiation of Israel’s settlement policy which practically the whole world, including the United States, regards as an obstacle to peace and as illegal under international law. Indeed, it is illegal. The recent attempt by the Israeli-appointed Edmond Levy Committee to ‘kosher the pig’ by resurrecting arguments from the 1970s, which have today even less bite than they had then, has been largely met with derision. Interestingly the Levy Report remains ‘under study’ by the Israeli government, which has wisely avoided any official endorsement. Legally destabilizing the 1967 boundary, as the Report does, would be welcome, paradoxically yet understandably, not only to Israeli annexationists but also to Hamas. The UNGA vote was, indeed, intended by many as an expression of support for the PLO and Mahmoud Abbas in the intra-Palestinian struggles.

It was also, rightly or wrongly, an indication that in the blame-game, many in the international community ascribe more blame to Israel for failed movement in the peace process than to the Palestinians, the uncompromising and scary ‘negationist’ statements and policies of Hamas notwithstanding. If I am right in this last assessment it may also have an interesting, even profound, legal implication. Israel’s duty under the still-controlling UNSC Resolution 242 is to return Territories (and let’s not get into the stale discussion on the omission of ‘The’ in the resolution) in the context of a peace agreement, one objective of which would be to ensure peace within recognized and secure boundaries (the word ‘secure’ is the one which opens the possibility to mutually agreed border adjustments). Israel remains a lawful belligerent occupant pending such a peace treaty. Can that last forever? Surely this must be subject to some ‘good faith’ negotiation requirement if the legal formula does not become a recipe for permanent belligerent occupation. Read the rest of this entry…

Print Friendly
Filed under: Editorials, EJIL Analysis, Israel, Palestine, States and Statehood
 

Daniel Barenboim on Israel and Palestine

Published on February 5, 2013        Author: 

The great Daniel Barenboim has a very frank interview with Al Jazeera, dealing largely with his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which readers might find of interest. His diagnosis of the conflict as being in many respects asymmetrical, but in one aspect being “perfectly symmetrical, and that is the lack of curiosity about the other as human beings,” sounds right to me. This, of course, sounds even better:

Print Friendly
Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Israel, Palestine
 
 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
Comments Off

Settlements, Territory, and the ICC

Published on January 3, 2013        Author: 

The President of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas, has threatened to accept the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court in order to pursue a case against Israeli settlement construction. At first, this seems an odd choice. One might expect suits over more classic war crimes involving military forces, of the kind dealt with by the Goldstone Commission, to be a be a safer course.

Such cases have been repeatedly tried in international and national tribunals, and have a well-established jurisprudence. But the rule against “deporting or transferring” one’s civilian population into occupied territory would be a case of first impression, and thus pose potentially daunting obstacles. The attraction of settlements, however, is that the issue is not bilateral. Israel could not counter-claim, as it were.

The talk of taking settlements to the Court is difficult to understand. States refer “situations” to the ICC, not cases. Countries cannot simply engage in strategic claim-splitting, referring the alleged crimes of their enemies and not their own. What is the “situation” here? The scope of the term is not well understood. One might say, at the broadest level, it would seem be the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, of which settlements is a part – and Palestinian violence is another part. More narrowly, given the security buffer justification of many settlements, it would still be artificial to split the situation into an Israel-only offense.

However, while the GA vote makes the path to such a referral easier, there remains an under-underappreciated hurdle that a settlements-suit would have to clear. If Palestine accepts the jurisdiction of the ICC under Art. 12(2)(a) of the Rome Statute, the Court would only have jurisdiction over Israel for conduct that occurred “on the territory” of Palestine. Thus exercising jurisdiction requires determining Palestine’s territory.

Read the rest of this entry…

Print Friendly
Filed under: EJIL Analysis, International Criminal Court, International Criminal Law, Palestine
 

Palestine, When is Your Birthday?

Published on December 5, 2012        Author: 

lironpic

 Col. (Retired) Liron A. Libman, LL.M, is a former Head of the International Law Department of the Israeli Defense Forces.

On 29 November, in what some reports described as a historic vote, the UN General Assembly accorded to “Palestine” the status of a “non-member observer state” in the organization. The Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) has enjoyed an observer status in the UN since 1974. Since 1988 the PLO mission to the UN was designated “Palestine”. Therefore, the supposed novelty is the UN recognition of Palestine as a state.

I do not want to discuss here the question of Palestinian statehood itself: whether “Palestine” has the objective qualification of a state under international law. Rather, I want to concentrate on the Palestinian official view as to the date when the Palestinian state was established. Many states celebrate their national day on that date, so in simple words, I ask when will the Palestinians celebrate their Independence Day?

I start my inquiry with the epilogue of Dr. Abbas, chairperson of the PLO, in his speech to the General Assembly:

“Sixty-five years ago on this day, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution 181 (II), which partitioned the land of historic Palestine into two States and became the birth certificate for Israel.

The United Nations General Assembly is called upon today to issue the birth certificate of the reality of the State of Palestine.”

Dr. Abbas asked the General Assembly to grant a “birth certificate” to the state of Palestine. Taking this metaphor seriously, this implies that the Palestinian state already exists. To the best of my knowledge (as a father, if I may add), first, a child is born and only afterwards can the happy parents receive a birth certificate. The certificate is an official acknowledgement of a fait accompli.

However, Dr. Abbas paralleled the resolution he asks for with General Assembly resolution 181(II) of 29 November 1947, which he views as the birth certificate of the state of Israel. The problem is that clearly resolution 181(II) did not recognize an existing state of Israel, but rather recommended the future establishment of a Jewish state (alongside an Arab state) upon the termination of the British Mandate. The resolution even set a timetable for the coming into existence of the two future states.  Israel was established only about six months later, on 14 May 1948, when the Jewish People’s Council approved the Declaration of the establishment of the state of Israel. Clearly, resolution 181(II) was not the birth certificate of the state of Israel.

Read the rest of this entry…

Print Friendly
Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Israel, Palestine, States and Statehood
 

Does General Assembly Resolution 67/19 Have Any Implications for the Legal Status of Palestine?

Published on December 4, 2012        Author: 

Jure Vidmar is Leverhulme Early Career Fellow in the Faculty of Law, and Research Fellow at St Johns College, University of Oxford. He has written widely on the process of State creation (see SSRN page here), including: ‘Explaining the Legal Effects of Recognition’ (2012) International and Comparative Law Quarterly 361.

On 29 November 2012, with 138 votes in favour, nine against and forty-one abstentions, the General Assembly adopted Resolution 67/19, which, inter alia, “accord[ed] to Palestine non-member observer State status in the United Nations…” This post considers whether the vote in the General Assembly objectively confirms that Palestine is a state and/or whether the General Assembly on 29 November 2012, in fact, created a new state (a matter considered briefly by Dapo at the end of his post on the Resolution). In essence, did the Resolution change anything in terms of legal status and did Palestine on 29 November become more of a state than it was on 28 November? The post thus narrowly focuses on the implications of Resolution 67/19; it does not intend to clarify Palestine’s legal status in general.

In this instance, Palestine’s legal status could be implicitly clarified in two ways. One way would be if the Resolution meant admission to the international organisation, which prescribes statehood as a prerequisite for membership. The other possibility is that by voting for the Resolution which accords “to Palestine non-member observer State status” [emphasis added], those states voting in favour implicitly recognised Palestine as a state. Indeed, the Resolution here says that Palestine is a state. What is the legal significance of this phrasing and of the fact that 138 states are happy with it? Did the 138 states voting in favour thus create a state by (implicit) recognition or at least confirm Palestine’s legal status?This post will argue that the General Assembly resolution itself and the voting behaviour of states neither altered nor clarified the legal status of Palestine. On 29 November 2012, Palestine did not become more or less of a state than it was before. The Resolution may well be a significant step in an internationalised political process which could ultimately clarify and settle Palestine’s legal status. But the Resolution of 29 November 2012 does not have any direct legal implications for Palestine’s statehood.  Read the rest of this entry…

Print Friendly
Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Palestine, States and Statehood
 

Palestine as a UN Observer State: Does this Make Palestine a State?

Published on December 3, 2012        Author: 

Last week, the UN General Assembly voted by 138 to 9 (with 41 abstaining) “to accord to Palestine non-member observer State status in the United Nations”. Thus, Palestine which has been an observer at the UN since 1974 has had its status within the UN upgraded to being an observer State. There has been much euphoria on one side as a result of this decision, and dismay on the other side. However, what are the implications, if any, of this decision. It is thought that one reason why Israel opposed the change, though it asserts that the decision achieves nothing, is that characterising the Palestinian as an observer State would give Palestine access to legal, particularly judicial, remedies that it otherwise would not have (see BBC Q & A report here). It was reported that the United Kingdom, which in the end abstained from voting, was prepared to vote in favour of the resolution, if Palestine had been prepared to pledge not to ratify the Rome Statute of the ICC or to seek to utilise the International Court of Justice. So though the granting of observer Status does not change “the facts on the ground”, it is thought that it would change the legal position of Palestine under international law. But does it? Are there new legal options open to Palestine as a result of the resolution and does the resolution constitute Palestine as a State?

Any student of international law will be familiar with the debate between the declaratory theory of recognition of States and the constitutive theory. Theory, practice and judicial decisions favour the declaratory theory and assert that recognition does not create Statehood. Although last week’s decision does not grant Palestine membership of the UN (which would require Security Council approval), the decision to grant observer State status to Palestine is an act of collective recognition of the statehood of Palestine. If that decision is capable of effecting the legal changes hoped for (by proponents) or feared (by those oppose the decision), this will provide strong support to the view that collective recognition is capable of creating Statehood. Read the rest of this entry…

Print Friendly
Filed under: EJIL Analysis, International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, International Criminal Law, International Tribunals, Palestine, State Responsibility, States and Statehood
 

ICC Assembly of States Parties Urged to Decide on Status of Palestine.

Published on September 24, 2012        Author: 

In April of this year, the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court indicated, in an official statement, that he was not competent to decide whether Palestine is a State such that it can accept the jurisdiction of the ICC under Article 12(3) of the ICC Statute. As a result, the ICC Prosecutor took the view that he could not take any action as a result of the declaration made by the Palestinian National Authority in January 2009, accepting the jurisdiction of the ICC over crimes committed on the territory of Palestine. In that statement, the Prosecutor decided that:

“competence  for  determining  the  term  “State”  within  the meaning of article 12 rests, in the first instance, with the United Nations Secretary General who, in case of doubt,  will  defer  to  the  guidance  of  General Assembly. The  Assembly  of States Parties of the Rome Statute could also in due course decide to address the matter in accordance with article 112(2)(g) of the Statute.”

In an earlier post, I provided analysis of the Prosecutor’s statement and was critical of the Prosecutor’s view that it is the UN Secretary General that has initial competence with regard to all questions of Statehood under Art. 12 of the Rome Statute.

A group of eminent international law scholars have now written to the President of the Assembly of States Parties to the Rome Statute to urge her to place the question of the Statehood of Palestine, for the purposes of Art. 12(3) of the Rome Statute, on the agenda of the next meeting of the ASP. That meeting will be held in November this year. The letter is as follows:

Read the rest of this entry…

Print Friendly
Filed under: EJIL Analysis, International Criminal Court, Palestine, States and Statehood
 
 Share on Facebook Share on Twitter
Comments Off

Who Can Apply to Add Sites Situated in Disputed territory to the World Heritage List?

Published on September 17, 2012        Author: 

Dr Shlomit Wallerstein is a CUF Lecturer in Law at the University of Oxford and Fellow of St Peter’s College, Oxford.

Recently (on 29 June 2012), the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) accepted the Palestinian application  for the recognition of the Church of Nativity and the Pilgrimage Route as a world heritage site and included it in the World Heritage List. At the same time, it also added it to the list of ‘World Heritage Sites in Danger’. The site is described as located in Bethlehem. What is less known is that part of the pilgrimage route recognised as part of the site goes through East Jerusalem, which is currently under Israeli control. Israel opposed the recognition both with regards to the Church of Nativity, which is located in Bethlehem, and with regards to the pilgrimage route, which passes in part in an area under Israeli control and over which Israel claims sovereignty (a claim rejected by many in the international community). Leaving aside questions about the legitimacy of the recognition of Palestine as a state by UNESCO, the recognition of this site raises interesting questions about the relationship between the location of the site and the state that is applying tor recognition of the site as a world heritage site.

According to Art. 3 of the Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (hereafter: the Convention) it is the responsibility of each state to identify and delineate the different properties situated on its territory that should be recognised as either cultural or natural world heritage. Each State Party should then submit a tentative list of all these sites to UNESCO in accordance with Art. 11(1). UNESCO will only consider sites included in these lists.

But what happens where a site is found on a disputed territory? These cases create two potential scenarios. The first is that the state that claims sovereignty over the territory and which has effective control over that territory would apply to add the site on the World Heritage List. Assuming for the sake of this argument that Palestine is a state, its application concerning the Church of Nativity is a situation of this type as the site is found in Bethlehem, which is under the control of the Palestinians. The second scenario involves applications made by any state who has a claim on the territory on which the site is found but which does not have effective control over it. The Palestinian application to include the pilgrimage route, which is found (in part) in East Jerusalem (assuming for these purposes that this is a disputed territory), is an example of this second type scenario. Read the rest of this entry…

Print Friendly
Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Palestine, States and Statehood, UNESCO
 

Justice Levy’s Legal Tinsel: The Recent Israeli Report on the Status of the West Bank and Legality of the Settlements

Published on September 6, 2012        Author: 

In February 2012, the Israeli government appointed a commission, headed by former Supreme Court Justice Levy, to “examine the status of building in Judea and Samaria”—in other words, to examine the legality of settlements, whether authorised by the Israeli government or not, in the West Bank.  On 9 July 2012, the Commission’s report was released.  The report is in Hebrew, but its conclusions and recommendations have been translated into English by one of the Commission’s members, Alan Baker, and an unofficial translation of its arguments regarding international law has been published on a pro-Israeli US blog.

The reasoning of the Report, such as there is, is a travesty of legal argumentation.  It is selective in the issues it chooses to address, and perverse in its interpretation of international law. The arguments employed with regard to the status of the West Bank and legality of the Israeli settlements there are not novel.  Indeed, they are well-worn, tired, and have been thoroughly discredited in the past.  They contradict established legal opinion, both international and Israeli.

The Commission’s conclusions fall into two categories, one dealing with international law and the other with domestic Israeli law.  The Report states:

“Our basic conclusion is that from the point of view of international law, the classical laws of “occupation” as set out in the relevant international conventions cannot be considered applicable to the unique and sui generis historic and legal circumstances of Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria [ie, the West Bank] spanning over decades.

In addition, the provisions of the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, regarding transfer of populations, cannot be considered to be applicable and were never intended to apply to the type of settlement activity carried out by Israel in Judea and Samaria.

Therefore, according to International Law, Israelis have the legal right to settle in Judea and Samaria and establishment of settlements cannot, in and of itself, be considered to be illegal.”

Read the rest of this entry…

Print Friendly
Filed under: EJIL Analysis, Israel, Occupation, Palestine, States and Statehood
 

ICC Prosecutor Decides that He Can’t Decide on the Statehood of Palestine. Is He Right?

Published on April 5, 2012        Author: 

On Tuesday, the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court issued a statement denying the Prosecutor’s competence to decide on Palestine’s acceptance of ICC jurisdiction. The ICC Prosecutor indicated in his statement that he could not take any action as a result of the declaration made by the Palestinian National Authority in January 2009, accepting the jurisdiction of the ICC over crimes committed on the territory of Palestine. The declaration by the Palestinian Authority was made under Article 12(3) of the ICC Statute. That provision allows States that are not party to the ICC Statute to accept the jurisdiction of the Court over crimes committed on the territory of that State or by its nationals. If the Palestinian declaration were accepted as a basis for ICC jurisdiction, it would grant the ICC jurisdiction over all ICC crimes (genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity) committed on Palestinian territory since July 2002. Crucially, the declaration would give the Court jurisdiction not only over acts of Palestinians but also over acts by Israeli officials and nationals in Gaza and the West Bank. The key question with regard to the Palestinian declaration is whether Palestine is a State, since only States may make declarations under Article 12(3) of the ICC Statute. In his one and a half page statement, the Prosecutor has decided that:

“competence  for  determining  the  term  “State”  within  the meaning of article 12 rests, in the first instance, with the United Nations Secretary General who, in case of doubt,  will  defer  to  the  guidance  of  General Assembly. The  Assembly  of States Parties of the Rome Statute could also in due course decide to address the matter in accordance with article 112(2)(g) of the Statute.”

In short, it has taken the Prosecutor over three years to decide that it is not up to him to decide the question of the statehood of Palestine. The Prosecutor’s decision that it is up to the organs of the UN or to the Assembly of State Parties to the ICC Statute to decide on the statehood of Palestine, even in the context of decisions relating to the ICC is reasonable, both from the political and legal points of view. To the extent that the Prosecutor is asking throwing this explosive decision back to States, the Prosecutor is seeking to safeguard himself and his office from allegations that he is taking political decisions. However, there are questions as to whether this reasonable decision is legally correct. Oddly, an important factor, ignored by the Prosecutor is Palestine’s admission to UNESCO (see previous EJIL:Talk! post on that issue here). At first glance, the admission of Palestine to UNESCO seems most unrelated to questions to do with the jurisdiction of the ICC. However, as explained below, and by Bill Schabas on his blog last year, UNESCO’s decision may be highly relevant.

Read the rest of this entry…

Print Friendly
Filed under: EJIL Analysis, International Criminal Court, Palestine, States and Statehood