Ref: 20\2016 

Malaga Legal Experts Conference “4” organized by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) was inaugurated in Spain on Saturday, 14 May 2016.

The conference attended by international human rights organizations and lawyers aims at promoting networking and developing effective strategies to address the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to discuss the legal submissions presented by human rights organizations to the ICC.

Moreover, the conference aims at reviewing all efforts relevant to employing the principle of Universal Jurisdiction to prosecute Israeli war criminals and how these efforts relate to action before the ICC.

The conference was opened yesterday by lawyer Raji Sourani, Director of PCHR, and Mr. Shawan Jabareen, Director of al-Haq.

The conference agenda covered 4 sessions yesterday. The discussions addressed the current strategy of human rights organizations’ work and relationship with the ICC in view of the preliminary investigation initiated by the Prosecutor of the ICC into the 2014 Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip. In addition, the future legal submissions to be prepared by Palestinian human rights organizations and submitted to the ICC were highlighted.

The discussions tackled also the principle of Universal Jurisdiction and the efforts exerted in this regard in addition to the stages of future engagement as well.

The conference continues today. The conferees are supposed to discuss the most prominent issues addressed yesterday in addition to drafting practical action plan for the future.

It should be noted that this conference organized by PCHR in Malaga is the fourth of its kind.

PCHR already organized 3 similar conferences in cooperation with international and Palestinian human rights organizations and lawyers in 2006, 2010 and 2013.