Press Releases

Commentary: No international law = no peace

BADIL Resource Center
24 September 2003
For Immediate Release

When international law and human rights conventions are ignored in the search for Middle East peace, peacemaking efforts will continue to fail, says the BADIL Center.

BADIL takes a rights-based approach to the issue of Palestinian refugees and is sponsoring a series of Expert Forums to improve the understanding of this approach; build a network of experts supporting this view; encourage research on the issue and enhance the understanding of and support for a rights-based approach among policymakers, politicians, the media and Palestinians themselves.

A recent BADIL seminar was held at the University of Ghent, Belgium on the Role of International Law in Peacemaking and Crafting Durable Solutions for Refugees.  Legal experts, researchers and human rights activists from academia, the UN, NGOs plus representatives from the Canadian Government, the European Union and the PLO agreed that the degree to which international law is incorporated into the peacemaking process depends on the political will of the dominant participants: the United States, Israel and Europe.

Seminar participants suggested a number of ways of instilling the political will to include refugee law and UN Resolution 194 on the right of return in the process:

  • raise international awareness of Palestinian rights in a systematic way;

  • build broader alliances with media, political leaders and those involved in movements against institutionalized discrimination as in South Africa;

  • intensify the intra-Palestinian debate on the right of return among refugees and non-refugees, stressing the active involvement of Palestinian exiles and NGOS in both West Bank and Gaza;

  • highlight Israel’s use of discriminatory laws to dispossess and displace Palestinians;

  • engage Israeli society in a debate on the creation of the Palestinian refugee issue, institutionalized discrimination and the requirements for a durable solution; and

  • develop research and information dissemination tools to advance a rights-based solution for Palestinian refugees including the comparative study of other recent refugee return programs and the  experience of UNHCR which could provide guidance on the Palestinian issue .                                                                                                                                 

The findings of the Ghent seminar are available on BADIL’s web site www.badil.org.  As well, print copies of four key papers presented at the seminar are available from BADIL:

  • The Role of International Law and Human Rights in Peacemaking and Crafting Durable Solutions for Refugees: Comparative Comments  by Lynn Welchman, Director, Center of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, SOAS, University of London
  • Justice Against Perpetrators, the Role of Prosecution in Peacemaking and Reconciliation by Alejandra Vicente, Asst. Legal Officer, International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia
  • The Right to Housing and Property Restitution in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Case Study by Paul Prettitore, Legal Advisor, OSCE, Bosnia-Herzegovina
  • Popular Sovereignty, Collective Rights, Participation and Crafting Durable Solutions for Palestinian Refugees by Karma Nabulsi, Nuffield College, University of Oxford

Upcoming seminar on housing/property restitution

As follow up to the Ghent Seminar, the second 2003 BADIL Expert Forum will be in Geneva, Switzerland, 2-5 October. Co-organized with the Graduate Institute for Development Studies (IUED), University of Geneva, it will examine law and mechanisms available for housing and property restitution in the case of Palestinian refugees.  For more information about the upcoming seminar, contact: [email protected].

Print copies of the individual Ghent papers listed above are available for $5 per paper from [email protected]. 

BADIL is a community-based Palestinian organization providing alternative information on Palestinian refugees and the search for a durable solution for Palestinian refugees based on the right of return.

 

 

BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
P.O. Box 728, Bethlehem, Palestine Tel/Fax: 970-2-274-7346
[email protected]                              www.badil.org