Ref: 51/2008
Date: 09 November 2008
PCHR Co-hosts Cairo Conference on Extra-judicial Executions and Prosecution of Israelis Suspected of Committing War Crimes
On Saturday, 08 November, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), in conjunction with its Egyptian partners, the Arab Centre for the Independence of the Judiciary and the Legal Profession (ACIJLP), and the Arab Organization for Human Rights (AOHR) co-hosted a human rights conference in Cairo. The one day conference focused on extra-judicial executions and prosecution of Israelis suspected of committing war crimes.
The conference is part of PCHR’s project “Awareness raising and lobbying against the Death Penalty in the occupied Palestinian Territory” funded by the European Commission and Oxfam Novib.[1]
More than sixty international delegates attended the conference, including human rights lawyers and advocates from the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), Egypt, Morocco, Spain, South Africa and the UK. Representatives from the International Commission of Jurists (ICJ), Swedish NGO Diakonia, the Centre for Transitional Justice (CTJ) and the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH) also attended. The delegates discussed the legal and judicial issues surrounding extra-judicial executions perpetrated by the Israeli military (Israeli occupation forces occupying the OPT) and issues relating to accountability and transitional justice.
According to PCHR data, Between September 2000- the beginning of the Second Intifada – and 30 June, 2008, Israel committed 348 extra-judicial execution operations in the OPT. During these operations, Israel killed a total of 754 Palestinians, including 233 civilian bystanders, 71 of whom were children. The Centre has investigated these crimes, and concluded that in the overwhelming majority of cases, Israel used excessive lethal force in order to execute Palestinians who could instead have been either apprehended or arrested.
Under international law, this use of excessive use force may constitute a war crime. PCHR has rigorously pursued suspected Israeli war criminals through Israeli courts. Having concluded the Israeli judiciary was providing legal cover for suspected war criminals responsible for extra-judicial executions, the Centre launched a series of universal jurisdiction cases, in order to obtain justice for Palestinian victims, and survivors. Most recently, PCHR, with its Spanish colleagues, launched a
universal jurisdiction case in Spain against seven former senior members of the Israeli military suspected of having committed a war crime in the Gaza Strip in July 2002.
The Cairo conference provided a rare opportunity for human rights lawyers and advocates to discuss the current state of universal jurisdiction from several different international perspectives, and the potential for expanding universal jurisdiction across the 27 EU States. Speakers at the conference included PCHR Director Raji Sourani, who has worked extensively in universal jurisdiction cases, UK lawyer Daniel Machover, who specialises in international human rights law, including universal jurisdiction, Spanish lawyer Gonzalo Boye, who is working with PCHR on its current case against the 7 former Israeli military officials, Nasser Amin, Director of the Arab Center for Human Rights, and South African lawyer Brian Currin, who has worked in transitional justice for more than fourteen years, and has been heavily involved in three separate peace processes.
PCHR Director Raji Sourani stressed the importance of making universal jurisdiction powerfully effective through meticulous documentation, mutual collaboration and sharing legal expertise. Spanish lawyer Gonzalo Boye described universal jurisdiction as a legal instrument for those who seek universal justice on behalf of all victims of Israeli military actions amounting to war crimes. The conference was followed by a screening of a of PCHR’s 45-minute documentary on Israeli extra-judicial executions operations in the Gaza Strip.
[1] The EC is funding this project with a total contribution of $US 349,575.70 over 3 years (2006-2008).
