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Ref: 52/2004

Date: 24 March 2004

PCHR Interventions at the 60^th Session of the Commission on Human Rights

PCHR has submitted seven written interventions to the UN Commission on Human Rights 60^th session on human rights issues prevalent in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  PCHR, which currently enjoys Special Consultative Status to UN ECOSOC, has submitted interventions to the Commission’s annual session for a number of years.  PCHR considers the Commission as the primary UN forum for discussion of human rights issues around the world.  However, in recent years PCHR has expressed increasing dismay at the politicization of the Commission by its member states.  Human rights considerations have been increasingly subordinated in favour of political interests and states responsible for gross human rights violations have continued to escape any serious scrutiny or criticism during the Commission.  The reports and opinions of Commission experts, including Special Rapporteurs, are largely ignored.  Even where resolutions are passed by the Commission, no effective enforcement mechanism exists.  PCHR demands that the Commission reform to ensure its position as an effective monitor of human rights throughout the world.

PCHR interventions to the 60^th session include agenda item 11b (summary executions).  This intervention highlights the ongoing Israeli policy of extrajudicial execution of alleged Palestinian activists.  Four interventions were submitted jointly with Al Haq under agenda items 5 (self-determination), 6 (racism), 11d (administration of justice) and 17b (human rights defenders).  The submission under item 5 summarises previous UN resolutions reiterating the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination and denounces the failure of the international community to enforce this right.  The racism submission details in particular the Nationality and Entry into Israel Law, promulgated in 2003, which denies the right of family unification where one spouse is a resident of the OPTs.  In the submission on administration of justice, PCHR and Al Haq have emphasized the lack of independence of the Israeli judiciary and its failure to hold the Israeli government and military accountable in accordance with their obligations under international human rights and humanitarian treaty law.   On human rights defenders, PCHR and Al Haq detailed the ongoing attacks on and obstruction of international, Palestinian and Israeli human rights defenders operating in the OPTs.  PCHR and Al Haq have also submitted a joint written intervention with the Federation Internationale des Ligues des Droits de l’Homme (FIDH) under agenda item 8 (human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories) which details grave breaches of international humanitarian law perpetrated by the Israeli military throughout the OPTs in 2003.  A second joint intervention has been submitted under agenda item 8 with FIDH and the International Commission on Jurists (ICJ).  This submission focuses on Israel’s Annexation Wall as a violation of international human rights and humanitarian law.  All interventions are available on PCHR’s website at www.pchrgaza.org.

Public Document

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For more information please call PCHR office in Gaza, Gaza Strip, on +972 8 2824776 – 2825893

PCHR, 29 Omer El Mukhtar St., El Remal, PO Box 1328 Gaza, Gaza Strip. E-mail:[email protected], Webpage http://www.pchrgaza.org