PRESS RELEASE

PCHR Initiates an International Campaign for the Implementation of the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Ref: 37/99

Date: 5 April 1999

Yesterday, Raji Sourani, the Director of the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR), left for Geneva where on Tuesday, April 6, 1999, at the United Nations headquarters, the preparatory meetings for the international campaign for the application of the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Occupied Territories will be held. Recently, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has intensively followed up the developments on this issue and initiated a campaign to exert pressure on Israel to make sure the Convention is applied in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In this context, PCHR invited a number of Arab, Palestinian, and international human rights organizations, as well as activists in the field to participate in the meeting. Among these international institutions are the International Federation for Human Rights – Paris, the International Commission of Jurists -Geneva, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights – Washington, D.C., Middle East Watch – New York, Amnesty International – Geneva, the International Commission of Jurists – Sweden, the Cairo Center for Human Rights Studies, the Moroccan Organization for Human Rights, the Arab Lawyers Union, the Palestinian Bar Association, Al-Haq, the Palestinian Independent Commission for Citizens’ Rights, and the Jerusalem Center for Legal Aid. It is expected that the participants in the meeting will develop a plan of action in regard to the work on implementing the Fourth Geneva Convention. The Centre’s draft plan of action will serve as the basis for discussion and will be distributed to all of the meeting’s participants.

In the last two years the United Nations General Assembly has adopted five resolutions in which it called for a conference of the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention. In order to implement the Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, the UN General Assembly delegated the Swiss government, as the depository of the Convention, to conduct a conference on July 15, 1999. The Swiss government, however, has taken a number of steps and carried out a number of meetings which, from PCHR’s point of view, deviate from the spirit of the UN General Assembly resolutions. PCHR has closely followed up the activities of the Swiss government and has published a number of press releases as well as a number of legal assessments pertaining to its actions regarding the Convention.

Since the UN General Assembly chose July 15, 1999 as the date for conducting the conference, PCHR has been preparing for an international campaign with the cooperation of Palestinian, Arab, and international organizations. This campaign is intended to force the Swiss government not to undermine the UN General Assembly resolutions and to guarantee that the High Contracting Parties to the Convention implement their legal commitments toward the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

What makes this conference of High Contracting Parties so important is not only that it is supposed to work toward the implementation of the Convention, but also because it is the first such meeting in the 50-year history of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Accordingly, PCHR believes that all efforts, formal and informal, have to be devoted toward the end of fully guaranteeing that this conference achieves its goals; namely, the full implementation of the Fourth Geneva Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.