Ref: 8/2010

On Monday, 25 January 2010, Daragh
Murray, International Legal Officer at the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
(PCHR) attended a conference on ‘Politics and Law after the [[Gaza]] War’ in the [[Netherlands]]. The conference was the first of its kind organised by the
Leonhard-Woltjer Foundation, and was held in the Peace Palace in The Hague. Raji
Sourani, Director of PCHR, had been scheduled to give the opening presentation,
but was not permitted to exit the [[Gaza Strip]] in order to travel to the
Netherlands.

In his presentation, Mr. Murray spoke about the Israeli occupation, and its
effects on the [[West Bank]] and the Gaza Strip, focusing on the illegal closure of
the Gaza Strip. He stressed that Israel’s occupation has had two consistent
features, continuous and escalating violations of international law – as
evidenced by last years offensive on the Gaza Strip – and impunity for these
actions. Accountability is thus one of the most important issues facing
Palestine today, and must be pursued through universal jurisdiction, and the
implementation of the Goldstone Report’s recommendations.

The conference was chaired by Karen Koning AbuZayd, former Commissioner-General
of [[UNRWA.]] Next to the presentation by PCHR, it also featured an intervention
from Daniel Machover, co-founder of Lawyers for
Palestinian Human Rights and Head of civil litigation for Hickman &
Rose (London), a major partner in PCHR’s Universal Jurisdiction efforts. Other
speakers included Professors Brus and MacDonald of the Department of
International Law at
the University of Groningen; Mrs V. De Keyser, Vice-Chair
of the Middle-East Working Group at the European Parliament; and Dr. Van Dam, a Labour party member
of the Dutch Parliament.