THE COLLASPE OF GLOBAL INSTITUTIONS AND THEIR FAILING OF A PEOPLE
OBJECTIVE
This brief has been prepared for World Refugee Day on the 20th of June to remember the plight of Palestinian as well as the 42 million other refugees around the world. The theme for this year's refugee day is ‘real people real needs', a fitting description of Palestinian refugees who live in squalid conditions, suffer under a brutal siege and are further divested of rights guaranteed to other refuges under international law.
The brief will aim to explore the unique status of Palestinian refugees, which has lead to their weakened position as refugees under International Refugee Law. It will highlight the historical background to this exceptional status and further highlight the problems this has created for Palestinians and also the world community in finding a viable solution to the conflict. It aims to answer the following questions;
• What is international refugee law?
• What is meant by Palestinian refugee?
• In what respect do Palestinian refugees differ from other forced migrants?
• Why are Palestinian refugees excluded from the legal structures available to refugees in general?
• What are the ramifications of their weakened status?
It is argued in this paper that the current lack of legal protection of Palestinian refugees is a violation of the basic spirit of international law as it prioritizes the narrow political goals of one country over universal law. It will argue that the confusion surrounding the status of Palestinian refugees has been counterproductive to the original goals and aspirations of the agencies that were mandated to find resolution to their plight. Furthermore it will show that any future peace process that fails to address the basic rights of refugees will be an affront to universal human rights, will not command legitimacy and threaten long term peace in the region.
BACKGROUND
Following the outbreak of 1947/48 Arab/Israeli war, many Palestinians were forced to abandon their homes and properties. They left for safer parts of Palestine, other neighboring Arab countries, some moved to far away countries and most were compelled to settle in camps in and around Palestine. Later labeled as refuges, they constituted the largest group of Palestinian refugees who were denied the right of return to their ancestral homes and reclaim their property. The second major group of refugees comprised of those who were made refugees for the first time from their place of origin in the West Bank, Jerusalem and the Gaza strip after the 1967 War. The third category of refugees are the Palestinians who were not made refugees from the 1948 and 1967 war but are nonetheless unable to return to their home due to the revocable of their residency, denial of family reunification or the fear of persecution by Israel . There are also up to 200,000 internally displaced Palestinians, who remain within Israel but are forced out of their ancestral home.
A tragic feature of Palestinian refugees is the multiple forceful displacements that were experienced by some Palestinians. Many, after 1948, were displaced again in 1967 then again by Israel through its policy of house demolition and its Apartheid System.
Since their original flight, Palestinian refugees have now become one of the oldest refugees groups in the world. They also make up the largest world's refugee population with just under five million registered with UNRWA and more than Seven million who are refugees or displaced mainly around the Middle East .
The historical account of the birth of the Palestinian refugee problem as well as the definition of a Palestinian refugee is a bone of major contention. This is greatly in part due to an Israeli narrative of the conflict and more so because of the implications for Israel if a contrary account placed the burden of responsibility on Israel.
It is now an almost established fact, including amongst Israeli historians , of the systematic plan to forcefully transfer Palestinians out of historical Palestine and to make way for the state of Israel. It's hard to imagine that, without a policy of forced transfer, how the Zionist state could have come into existence. Within the minds of the founding fathers who aspired for a homeland for the Jews there had to be a plan to remove the native inhabitants in order to maintain the purity of Israel, which they defined exclusively in racial terms . This would have been known well before the 1948 war. Subsequent Zionist leaders were fully aware of this dilemma and engineered sophisticated plans to forcefully transfer Palestinians out of their ancestral land and maintain the racial purity of Israel. Plan Dalet, for example, was a sophisticated ethnic cleansing strategy that was executed to make way for the Zionsit dream.
Politically, Palestinians have been consigned to a footnote in someone else's story, to divest them of their rights as a nation. This presented itself in subsequent development in the history of the Palestinian people, none more so than in the area of international law where the legal rights and protection offered to nations and people has been shamefully denied. While enduring this travesty of justice they are further stripped of their protection as refugees and stateless people under international law. This has gravely affected their safety and security in their resident country.
Now, more than six decades after the initial displacement, Palestinian refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) - Palestinians living in Israel- remain in forced exile. All refugees and displaced persons have the right to return to their homes and repossess their properties. These rights are affirmed in international law. UN General Assembly Resolution 194(III) and Security Council Resolution 237 reaffirmed these rights for Palestinian refugees and IDPs. Israel, however, refuses to allow the refugees displaced in 1948 to return mainly due to their ethnic, national and religious origins. Military occupation of the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip also prevents the return of refugees displaced in 1967 and after. The international community has not exerted sufficient political will to advance the internationally recognized solution for Palestinian refugees and IDPs that are consistent with international law and relevant UN resolutions. As refugees also, they have been denied the rights under the full canopy of international refugee law.
Since 2001 World Refugee Day has been celebrated on 20th of June to mark the anniversary of the 1951 Conventions relating to the Status of Refugees. This convention is the central feature in today's international regime of refugee protection. With 144 states having ratified this convention it is central to the activities of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
The protection afforded by this convention to refuges has been absent in the case of Palestinians. Unlike any other group of refugees in the world, Palestinians are singled out for exceptional treatment in the major international legal instruments which govern the rights and obligations of states towards refugees and stateless persons. As a result, Palestinian refugees have been deemed ineligible for the most basic protection rights guaranteed under international law to refugees in general such as the right to sufficient standard of living, freedom of movement, the right to education, and the right to work, as well as access to durable solutions. Two generations of Palestinians have nearly passed and the choices made immediately after the conflict by international institutions regarding the new refugees up to now haunts the Palestinians.
The fact that most Palestinian refugees are also stateless complicates their position even further. Their statelessness has prolonged their refugee status as without a recognized Palestinian state the possibility of a normal resolution to the refugee crises is gravely diminished. Their statelessness is due to six decades of disenfranchisement of a nation and its people. Ever since the 1917 Belfour Declaration - A formal statement of policy by the British government to create a Jewish homeland in Palestine - Palestinian voices have been forcefully muted and subsumed under a broader regional Arab Israeli conflict. Denying Palestinian nationhood was crude but rather convenient strategy on the part of Israel and its allies to deny Palestinians a state, a strategy which has played a detrimental part in the refugee problem.
1. INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE LAW
There are two international instruments that affect the status of refugees including Palestinian refugees namely the 1951 Refugee Convention and the Convention relating to the status of stateless persons adopted in 1954. The promise of these instruments is overseen by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) whose remit however, does not branch out to Palestinian refugees where due to various reasons, two separate institutions were set up in order to tackle the uniquely grave situation of Palestinian refugees. United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) the United Nations Conciliatory Commission on Palestine (UNCCP) were both tasked to serve the needs of Palestinian refugees.
1.1 BACKGROUND TO INTERNATIONAL REFUGEE LAW
Like so many other good things that came out the brutality of Second World War, International refugee law is another demonstration of the universally held sentiment to protect humanity from the scourges of war. The UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights approved by 1948 affirmed;
a) Everyone has the right to a nationality.
b) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality
Following its commitment to legally sanctify the rights of refugees the Convention relating to the status of Refugees was promulgated on 28th July 1951. Its original intention made no mention of stateless persons. On 26th April 1954 the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) of the United Nations adopted a resolution to convene a conference to regulate and improve the status of stateless persons by an international agreement.
These agreements were the first truly international agreement covering the most fundamental aspects of a refugee's life. It spelled out a set of basic human rights which, at least, should be equivalent to freedoms enjoyed by foreign nationals living legally in a given country and in many cases those of citizens of that state. It recognized the international scope of refugee crises and the necessity of international cooperation, including burden-sharing among states, in tackling the problem.
The 1951 Refugee Convention was limited to protecting mainly European refugees in the aftermath of World War II, but a 1967 Protocol expanded the scope of the Convention as the problem of displacement spread around the world. The original document also inspired regional instruments such as the 1969 Africa Refugee Convention and the 1984 Latin American Cartagena Declaration .
Together with the Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees of 31 January 1967, the 1951 Convention provides standards for the treatment of refugees in more than 130 countries. However, most countries in the Middle East where large concentrations of Palestinian refugees reside are not bound by the Convention and/or the Protocol.
The Convention clearly defines what the term 'refugee' means. The 1951 Convention not only establishes specific rights of refugees, but also prescribes certain standards of treatment for refugees as inhabitants of the country of refuge. The Convention provides, as a minimum standard, that refugees should receive at least that treatment which is afforded to immigrants generally. The convention provides security over a wide range of issues: religion, artistic rights and industrial property, access to courts, legal assistance, rationing, elementary education, public relief, labor legislation and social security, and fiscal charges. A key provision stipulates that refugees should not be returned to a country where he or she fears persecution. It also spells out people or groups of people who are not covered by the Convention such as war criminals and those who have committed crimes against humanity .
1.2 WHO ARE REFUGEES AND HOW ARE PALESTINIAN REFUGEES CLASSIFIED
A refugee is a person who flees to escape conflict, persecution or natural disaster.The Refugee Convention and Protocol, which is concerned with political refugees define a "refugee" as a person who is outside the country of his nationality and is unwilling or unable to obtain the protection of his country due to a well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion .
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) further defines a "refugee" as a person who has fled his/her country of nationality (or habitual residence) and who is unable or unwilling to return to that country because of a "well-founded" fear of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership in a particular social group. This definition of a "refugee" excludes those who have left their homes only to seek a more prosperous life.
The above definition of a refugee clearly recognizes a refugee as a person that is outside of the country of his nationality. Palestinians have been denied this recognition. After the emasculation of UNCCP the only functioning definition of a Palestinian refugee is the one used by UNRWA. Unlike the 1951 Refugee Convention, which has a broad definition that includes notions of race, religion, ethnicity, security and more importantly nationhood, UNRWA has a very narrow definition that automatically precludes Palestinians from having a normal refugee status which assumes rights of a people and nationality. According to UNRWA, Palestine refugees are persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946 and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict. UNRWA's services are available to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition, who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance. The descendants of the original Palestine Refugees are also eligible for registration . Consistent with its assistance mandate, UNRWA applies a refugee definition that relates solely to persons from Palestine meeting certain criteria that are "in need" of assistance. When the agency became operational in 1950, it was responding to the needs of about 750,000 Palestine refugees. Today, 4.6 million Palestine refugees are eligible for UNRWA services .
2. PALESTINIAN REFUGEES - HISTORY OF THEIR LEGAL STATUS
The confusion surrounding Palestinian refugees are not simply due to the reasons already mentioned; it is not simply a case of a failure to implement recognized legal instruments. Almost everything in this conflict is subsumed under the political aspiration of Israel. History, Geography, Archeology are all instruments to justify and legitimize an imperialist ideology. No other conflict is contested in this way and there isn't a genuine desire amongst leading states such as the US to acknowledge historical crimes and bring Israel to task and give the Palestinians their human, political and legal rights.
The intention of the world community was clear when it set up UN Conciliation Commission for Palestine (UNCCP) and UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) to specifically address the plight of the new refugees. The idea of a UN conciliation commission was the brainstorm of UN Mediator for Palestine Folke Bernadotte who was assassinated by Israeli extremists in 1948. In his Progress Report of September 1948 he sets out the framework for a durable solution for the refugees, including repatriation, resettlement, economic and social rehabilitation, and payment of adequate compensation. It then suggests that a conciliation commission be established by the UN to supervise and assist in implementation of a durable solution. With this promise the UN General Assembly voted to create a body called the United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine on the basis of its Resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948. The purpose of UNCCP was to assume the mission of the assassinated UN mediator. The UNCCP was structured as a body made up of three members responsible to the General Assembly. The members were not persons but member states of the UN: France, Turkey, and the United States of America.
During the early years of its mandate, the UNCCP attempted to fulfill many of the protection functions that the UNHCR carries out in other refugee situations. The committee with its subsidiary bodies was authorized to investigate ways to improve the plight of the refugees through the collection of information concerning repatriation, resettlement, rehabilitation and payment compensation. It was influential in the preparation of a draft refugee definition, It intervened with Israeli authorities to permit the return of certain categories of refugees (without prejudice to the right of all refugees to return to their homes) based on humanitarian considerations; reunification of separated families, it also gave recommendation on measures to safeguard the rights and property of the refugees.
The Commission called for the abrogation of Israel's 1950 Absentee Property Law under which refugee property had been expropriated, the suspension of all measures of requisition and occupation of Arab houses, and the unfreezing of waqf (charitable) property. The commission also intervened with Israeli authorities to abrogate discriminatory property laws, and insured facilitation of refugee access to blocked savings accounts and assets in banks inside Israel. Against the opposition of the Israeli government it attempted to promote the voluntary repatriation of refugees to their homes and lands inside Israel.
Depressingly UNCCP has not provided Palestinian refugees with the basic international protection afforded to all other refugees since 1952. The Commission reached the conclusion that it was unable to fulfill its mandate due to the lack of international political will to ensure the return of those refugees and displaced persons wishing to go back to their homes and villages . When the United Nations established the UNCCP in 1948 the UN assumed that the refugees would return to their places of origin within a short period of time and the rights of refugees would not become part of a political football. This was, to say the least, misplaced optimism, as Israel blocked the path to the right of return in order to sure up its Zionist dream. Faced with Israeli obduracy and a lack of international will, the Commission faced insurmountable obstacles. It was not provided with the machinery or with the resources to carry out its mandate in the context of a protracted conflict .
UNCCP was doomed to fail. In Israel it faced an insurmountable obstacle, added to that it has a dual mandate that was contradictory. In settling the refugee crises, it had a clear vision which as stated above was premised under UN resolutions and international law. However, its wider role to work towards a durable solution meant that there was a conflict of interest. Pursuing the specific guidelines on the refugee issue was never going to be possible with Israeli obstinacy and its whimsical disregard for international law. Israel clearly did not see resolution of the refugee problem, as set by Folke Bernadotte and subsequently authorized to implement by UNCCP, as part of a durable solution, a position which it was determined to defend even if it meant assassination. In its determination to pursue a durable political solution it failed to implement what was clearly the rights of Palestinian refugees, the wider political goals smothered all the individual rights guaranteed to Palestinian refugees.
Since the cessation of its tasks, Palestinian refugees are not represented by any agency to pursue the rights afforded to all refugees under the 1951 Convention. Astonishingly the vacuum left by UNCCP has up to now, not been filled by any authority, which is in clear breech of the rights guaranteed to Palestinian refugees and this is all the more amazing as there already exists international authorities like UNRWA who can expand their role to fill the vacuum left by UNCCP.
2.1 REVIEW OF PALESTINIAN REFUGEES AND THEIR STATUS IN REFUGEE LAW
The 1951 Refugee Convention, although it was designed for all refugees, it disqualified Palestinian refugees from the services of UNHCR through Article 1D. Paragraph 7 of the UNHCR Statute provides that "the competence of the High Commissioner...shall not extend to a person: .... who continues to receive from other organs or agencies of the United Nations protection or assistance." The "other agencies of the United Nations" originally referred both to UNRWA and to the UNCCP.
While Palestinian refugees are not specifically mentioned in this provision, it is evident from its historical context that Palestinians are the only group to which the Article applies. When the draft was being ratified, it was established that Palestinian refugees constituted a unique problem and in recognition of that, the UN, at the inception of the refugee crises in 1948, instituted UNRWA and UNCCP to exclusively address the plight of Palestinian refugees.
With the UNCCP having become moribund, Palestinian refugees are entitled to nothing more than assistance for their basic needs for mere survival through the offices of UNRWA; they are left outside the mandate UNHCR protection and the Refugee Convention, furthermore with UNCCP's protection mandate emasculated, they are left without any of the protection mechanisms or guarantees to which all other refugees in the world are entitled. This standard position has the following detrimental consequences for Palestinian refugees:
a. Palestinians are left outside the Refugee Convention regime.
b. Their life exists on the brink of subsistence with no active pursuit of their human and political rights
c. Basic human rights for Palestinians are denied for narrow political goals
d. Under the most prevalent interpretations majority are considered ineligible for permanent resettlement as refugees or asylees in third states.
e. A final consequence of this special Palestinian refugee regime is that there is neither a representative for the refugees with authority to take their claims to international fora, nor is there a forum with jurisdiction over their claims for repatriation, compensation or restitution.
The established interpretation, as stated above, has failed to provide the support and assistance envisaged by the international community for Palestinian refugees. Knowing the history and purpose of Article 1D which was made in recognition of the heightened status of Palestinian refugees, it is ipso facto, untenable to maintain the status quo. The language was axiomatic to the fact that Palestinian refugees required continuous protection, albeit under various organizations and instruments. The fact that this is the intended meaning of Article 1D is also grounded on two other factors.
a. First, the UN body has recognized through hundreds of resolutions that it bore a large part of the responsibility for creating the refugee situation in the first place by way of General Assembly Resolution 181 (II) of November 1947, recommending partition of Palestine .
b. Second, the Palestinian refugee problem was to be resolved on the basis of a special formula, that of repatriation and compensation--on which there was complete consensus by all states but Israel-- rather than the formula commonly accepted for refugees at the time, which was third-state resettlement.
The consensus of the world body was that the Palestinian refugee situation required special attention because of the unique responsibility of the UN in creating it, and was of such urgency that it should not be subsumed under the existing refugee regime, but required a heightened protection formula.
Viewed in this way Palestinians are guaranteed all the rights under the full panoply of international law and under international refugee law, as opposed to the basic assistance they receive as refugees. If understood in context and in the true spirit of international law, due to the heightened status two agencies with immediate mandates over the Palestinian refugees, UNRWA and UNCCP were instituted to meet this heightened need. Also self evident is that Article 1D was designed to ensure that if for some reason either of these agencies failed in its remit that agency's function was to be transferred to the UNHCR and the Refugee Convention would fully and immediately apply without preconditions to the Palestinian refugees. If UNCCP fails to fulfill its protection mandate, which it has, that function must be meet through other means.
2.2 REPRESENTING PALESTINIAN REFUGEES
It's easily gleaned from the accounts outlined in this paper that the right of return is an international human right which needs to be facilitated by an authority singularly dedicated in bringing about this resolution. As it's an individual human right it's not an issue to be bartered with and more importantly it can only be relinquished by the individuals themselves. This is uncontested and UNHCR has for quite some time but in a limited away expanded its protection mandate over Palestinian refugees in various situations, in de facto if not explicit recognition of this requirement. The protective duties of UNHCR spelled out in its Statute thus applicable to Palestinian refugees include:
a. Promoting the conclusion and ratification of international conventions for the protection of refugees, supervising their application and proposing amendments
b. Assisting governmental and private efforts to promote voluntary repatriation or assimilation within new national communities
c. Promoting the admission of refugees, not excluding those in the most destitute categories, to territories of States
d. Endeavoring to obtain permission to transfer their assets and especially those necessary for resettlement
UNHCR recognizes the right of Palestinian refugee to the basic rights guaranteed in international law, it is also empowered to oversee and implement the appropriate Conventions and Resolutions relating to the rights and enforcement of solutions for the Palestinian refugees. Second, if the UNCCP ceases to function, the alternative regime under Article 1D will not apply, consequently triggering the Refugee Convention and all its guarantees towards refugees becoming fully applicable to the Palestinian refugees as well. These guarantees include rights to freedom of movement, access to courts, administrative assistance, regarding movable and immovable property, freedom of religion, and housing rights among many others.
Furthermore the numerous UN Resolutions which are to be implemented in any final resolution of the refugee problem will needless to say require first and foremost an international will and a drive to enforce Israel to implement UN resolutions, it will require the agency of NGOs and UN mandated authorities such as UNRWA to fill the vacuum left by UNCCP. The legal effect of these Resolutions, which include UN Resolution 194 and UN Resolution 181, guarantee rights and obligations applicable to Palestinians as refugees. The Resolutions establish a body of legal authority, repeatedly assured in the general assembly, that in addition to standard refugee law and rights, the Palestinian case is to be resolved in accordance with a particular agreed-upon solution, that of repatriation and compensation. The right of Palestinian refugees is not compromised because their position has not been settled by a third agency. The fact that UN Resolution 194 has been reaffirmed over 100 times is strong evidence of its authority as customary international law on the Palestinian refugee question which requires the agency of another organization including UNRWA to implement it.
A final possibility for representing the refugees is creating separate bodies directly authorized by the refugees to carry out their wishes; of course they will require recognition and legitimacy from the international community. Examples are the various Jewish groups that negotiated for restitution and compensation with the European Nazi states following World War II. Another example is the World Organization of Jews from Arab Countries, which represents the interests of those individuals in their claims for restitution and compensation against the Arab states. This will no doubt prove difficult as Israel, without the international will, will deny the rights of Palestinian refugees.
Any final status solution will need to consider the status of Palestinian refugees as an issue in itself and avoid the trap of making it a bargaining tool for a short term political resolution. This needs to be pursued by an active agency with an immediate mandate to defend their rights under international law. There is no contradiction between individual and collective rights in this regard and there are historical precedents - Bosnia and Kosovo are prime examples - where the collective rights to an independent entity or statehood were preserved, along with a mechanism for individual refugees to assert their claims to repatriate and obtain restitution and/or compensation. Each of these situations involved the establishment of claims commissions as part of a negotiated settlement, but the right of the individual to assert his/her claim was preserved independently of the outcome of the self-determination issue.
The sorrow history of the Palestinian refugees is a clear demonstration of the failure if not the hypocrisy, of our international structure set up to implement the common goals and aspirations of mankind. The UN through its assistance of UNHCR has facilitated the cases of more than 10 million refugees during the 1990s, demonstrating clearly that, when there is the will our international structures work perfectly. Ashamedly when it comes to the Palestinians their rights have been defiled for over Six decades. This travesty of justice does not bode well for the future legitimacy of global structures such as the UN. The UN needs to garner the will and support of powerful stakeholders and find methods of implementing its vision.
CONCLUSION
The weakened position of Palestinian refugees under international law is not the intended goal of the UN and any argument to the contrary goes against the very fundamental of international law. Being acutely aware of its responsibility in solving a problem, which was part of its own making, the UN felt compelled to address the immediate problem directly and instituted UNCCP to put into practice its aspirations which were reflected through its numerous resolutions. Accurately interpreting Article 1D of the Refugee Convention and the provisions related to it in the UNHCR Statute, UNCCP Resolution and UNRWA Regulations compels one to the conclusion that a heightened protection regime was intended-and, indeed, established-for Palestinian refugees.
There is no evidence that a weakened protection system was ever envisioned for Palestinian refugees by the drafters of the relevant instruments. Moreover, there is no legal justification for denying Palestinian refugees the benefits of the existing refugee regime governing the rights of all other refugees worldwide. The alternative scheme, presented in this brief, of Article 1D must be recognized as affording Palestinian refugees full benefits under the Refugee Convention, including access to the right of asylum and residence in whatever state they find themselves until they can exercise their rights of return, compensation and restitution, in accordance with the relevant UN Resolutions.
Given that the world community initially recognized the heightened need for securing the rights of Palestinian refugees there needs to be institutions active and fully authorized to act on their behalf. One option would be to expand the mandate of UNRWA and UNHCR. The mandated authority, should draft its own framework for durable solutions based on the appropriate UN Resolutions on the question, and make clear to all stakeholders that an agreement not based on these Resolutions embodying the consensus of repatriation, restitution and compensation will not be acceptable to the refugees.
In UNCCP there was semblance of a model and a structure of the kind's work that is required to be carried out in implementing the solutions. The relevant authority must intervene with Israel and with other state signatories to the Refugee Convention in which Palestinian refugees are found to demand the protection of the refugees and prevent further erosion of the refugees' human rights.
On a wider scale the rights of Palestinian refugee must not be quashed under any political negotiations that strip away the individual rights for a limited gain. The rights to national self determination must be met with a guarantee of the rightful settlement of the refugee issue, anything else would be to deny the historical crime committed against the refugees and to become cajoled by the Israeli narrative. And to this end, the UN cannot absolve itself of its historical responsibility and allow this to be negotiated away by any Palestinian Authority seeking a political solution. These are sentiments which, as shown below, are shared by both, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International.
"Any viable final agreement should recognize [the right of return] for Palestinian refugees and exiles from territory located in what is now Israel or in what are likely to be a future state of Palestine. Like all rights, the right to return binds governments. No government can violate this right. Only individuals may elect not to exercise it. The international community has a duty to ensure that claims of a right to return are resolved fairly, that individual holders of the right are permitted freely and in an informed manner to choose whether to exercise it, and that returns proceed in a gradual and orderly manner."
"With regard to the specific issue of Palestinian exiles, durable solutions respectful of their human rights must be made available to them in any final peace agreement. Their right to return has been recognized by the United Nations since UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948 and continues to be recognized by authoritative bodies within the UN system for the protection of human rights. Any peace agreement reached should resolve the issue of the Palestinian diasporas through means that respect and protect individual human rights. There are other considerations that must be addressed in the negotiations -- the security concerns of both sides, for instance -- but these issues must be resolved within a framework that does not sacrifice individual human rights to political expediency"
CASE STUDY - THE PREDICAMENT OF BEING A PALESTINIAN REFUGE AND STATELESS
Taken from the book Palestinian Refugees in International Law by Lex Takkenburg
Every Palestinian refugee has a unique story of their plight all of which demonstrate in their unique way the constant threat and insecurity they face as a result of their legal status.
Rula is a Palestinian refugee who was living in Kuwait in the early 90s. Like many of her friends Rula is a Palestinian born in Kuwait who has not been able to renew her residence permit and the same applies to the other members of her family. With no signs of improved status many of her friends and their families have packed their belongings and crossed the border with Iraq and soon they will join the many other Palestinians who have recently made the trip to Baghdad.
Rula's father, Khalil, was born in 1936 in Al Majdal, next to the site of the second millennium BC Philistine port of Ashkelon, or Ascalon, on the Mediterranean coast between Jaffa and Gaza in Mandate Palestine. Many Majdalites were weavers and the town had a reputation for its distinctive high quality fabrics. Khalil's father owned a large orange grove and the family was relatively well off. Khalil was the second of five children; he had one older brother and three sisters. All five went to local schools run by the Mandate government.
Khalil left Al Majdal, together with his mother, brother and sisters and a number of other relatives, on 1 November 1948. Khalil's father had decided to evacuate his family to relatives in Gaza, while staying behind himself, with one brother, to protect the family property. Their efforts were unsuccessful. During the summer of 1950 they were forcibly transferred to Gaza by the Israeli army. Khalil and his family travelled the twenty-five kilometres to Gaza on foot, while they carried some of their belongings on a donkey cart. On the third day they arrived in the city of Gaza, where they were put up with distant relatives. The small house that normally accommodated a family of nine now provided shelter to some twenty-six persons.
The massive influx of refugees totally overwhelmed the tiny, Egyptian controlled strip of land in the south of Palestine. Some 80,000 Palestinians already living in the Gaza Strip were joined by approximately 200,000 refugees from other parts of Palestine. The vast majority of the refugees were less fortunate than Khalil and his family, as they did not have relatives in Gaza. They camped in the open, close to existing towns and villages, and soon the first makeshift camps were established. The Egyptian military authorities, jointly with the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), started improvising relief and medical assistance to the refugees. Local food stocks were rapidly exhausted and the first UN arrangements were made to bring in emergency supplies from abroad. When it appeared that the refugee problem could not be solved at short notice, UNRWA was established to take over the relief effort from early 1950 onwards.
After graduation, Khalil decided to join his many fellow graduates who were trying their luck in the Gulf states. Although the Palestinians in Gaza were not given Egyptian nationality, they were eligible for a special Arab League travel document for Palestinian refugees, that enabled them to travel to most of the Arab states. It was in that period that the Gulf states were beginning to exploit their oil resources and accordingly there was a high demand for skilled foreign workers. Before leaving, Khalil got married to Maha, a woman who also came originally from Al Majdal and whom he had known since early childhood. At the beginning of October 1958, the newly-wed couple left for Kuwait. Both Khalil and Maha were twenty-two years old at that time.
Like most Palestinians, Khalil made sure his children were well educated. Dispossessed of his land and national rights, khalil considered investment in education the only secure, long-term investment. Accordingly he encouraged all his children to pursue higher education. After Rula completed high school, she enrolled in Kuwait University to study electrical engineering. In 1984 she obtained her first degree, followed by an M.Sc. in 1990. One month later Saddam Hussein invaded the country. Until that fateful day in August 1990, Rula's life had been happy and uneventful. Although neither Rula nor the members of her family had been able to obtain Kuwaiti nationality, they had greatly benefited from the country's newly exploited wealth, Rula's education had been excellent and, as the Palestinian community in Kuwait was quite liberal, she looked forward to a professional career. She was raised as a Palestinian, and as such she dreamt about returning to Palestine, but in all other respects she felt completely at home in Kuwait.
The Iraqi invasion changed all that. In the months following the invasion, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled Kuwait to Jordan, the country where they, or their parents had originally taken refuge. For the Palestinians who had come from Gaza it was more complicated to leave. Unlike the Palestinians of Jordan, who had been granted full Jordanian citizenship, the Gaza Palestinians only had their refugee travel documents and, although these had been issued by Egypt, that country did not allow the holders of the document to reside within its borders. Moreover, since Israel had occupied the Gaza Strip during the 1967 war, it had also become impossible to return there. The Gaza Palestinians were trapped in Kuwait-they had nowhere to go.
After Kuwait was liberated by the United States-led coalition in early 1991, the situation of the remaining Palestinians in Kuwait deteriorated rapidly. The public support for Saddam Hussein by the PLO leadership had resulted in Palestinians now being considered traitors by most Kuwaitis. All Palestinian government employees were immediately dismissed. Accordingly, Khalil lost his job after having been employed by the ministry of education for thirty-two years. Rula similarly lost her chances of employment with Kuwait University or with other government institutions. More seriously, the wave of hatred against Palestinians was so severe, that it soon became apparent that it would be nearly impossible to continue living in the country. During the first months after the liberation, a considerable number of Palestinians were even expelled to Iraq. The forced deportations ceased, however, in response to international protest.
By the summer of 1992, the remaining Palestinians in Kuwait had become quite desperate. The authorities continued to encourage them to leave and most of those having the option of leaving had already done so. Many of those who had nowhere else to go went to Iraq, which still considered Kuwait its eleventh province. Others had managed to go to Sudan or Yemen. Rula had been lucky in that she had managed to find a job in the private sector, which enabled her to obtain a temporary residence permit for herself and her family. It was unclear, however, whether the residence permit would be extended. Although some Palestinians were allowed to stay in the country, at the same time the authorities stepped up their efforts to encourage the remainder to leave. Former teachers were especially singled out, as in the eyes of many Kuwaitis they had openly collaborated with the Iraqi occupiers. Like Rula, many other Palestinians in the Middle East and various points in their history have suffered similar conditions of insecurity and destitution.
The 1952 Israeli Nationality Law Prevents Palestinians from returning to their ancestral home
http://www.internal-displacement.org/idmc/website/countries.nsf/(httpEnvelopes)/F11200E8ECD83F71802570B8005A7276?OpenDocument
http://www.un.org/unrwa/publications/index.html
http://www.badil.org/Refugees/facts&figures.htm
See for example Dr Illan Pappe's book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine
Even now Benjamin Netanyahu's persistence that Israel be recognised as a Jewish state is a major obstacle to peace and further denies the rights of Palestinian refugees in order to maintain Jewish purity which smacks at the face of democracy.
Part of UN Resolution 194: ‘that the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date, and that compensation should be paid for the property of those choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or in equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible'
Part of UN Resolution 237: Calls upon Israel to ensure safety and welfare of inhabitants in combat zones as per Geneva Conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1949), and their return to their homes once fighting ceases. Recommends all governments involved respect humanitarian treatment of POWs and civilians as per the Geneva Conventions Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War (1949).
Article 15 of UN Declaration of Human Rights
http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/o_p_ref.htm
http://www2.ohchr.org/English/law/refugees.htm
Article 1 Convention and Protocol relating to the Status of Refugees
http://www.un.org/unrwa/refugees/whois.html
http://www.un.org/unrwa/publications/index.html
Badil Report :The United Nations Conciliation Commission for Palestine
and a Durable Solution for Palestine Refugees. Page 18
http://www.badil.org/Protection/UNCCP.htm
http://www.badil.org/Protection/UNCCP.htm
The fact also that the UN has continued to pass countless resolutions on this conflict shows the heightened responsibility.
Human Rights Watch Report, December 2000
Amnesty International Report, March 2001
