Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man, the first Palestinian human rights institution, began its days in April 1979 when a group of West Bank Palestinians established it to uphold the principles of the Rule of Law and to defend Palestinians human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  It became officially registered in 1980.  Shortly thereafter, it became the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva.   For a period of at least 10 years, Al-Haq was the sole affiliate of the ICJ-Geneva in the Occupied Territories.  This affiliation was particularly important during the upheaval of the intifada.  ICJ-Geneva stood steadfastly behind Al-Haq offering it protection as a human rights institution in the Occupied Territories during which time staff members were occasionally harassed or even arrested by the Israeli authorities.  This relationship fostered over a twenty-year period has strengthened the work of Al-Haq at the local level and has had considerable effect upon its work.  At the same time, this affiliation has assisted in spreading information related to the defense of human rights in the Occupied Territories internationally and raising awareness at the level of the ICJ regarding the rule of law.  This has been particularly important in helping the ICJ identify its priorities in the OPT.
 

In the more recent years, Adama Dieng, Secretary-General of the ICJ, has contributed significantly to strengthening Al-Haq as a human rights institution.
 

The relationship between Al-Haq and the ICJ is a very active one. The ICJ has co-ordinated with Al-Haq several missions that examined the legal structure of the Occupied Territories and the judicial system. The outcomes and findings of these missions were very essential for Al-Haq’s work, and are referred to by many local and international organisations. Also, the ICJ responded positively to Al-Haq’s repeated requests to arrange for jurists with outstanding experience to observe trials of special significance to Palestinians in Israeli courts. The ICJ has also intervened with the Israeli authorities on many essential issues, on the basis of information from and at the request of Al-Haq.
 

The ICJ has also provided an essential facilitating role for Al-Haq in the UN system. Through the ICJ, Al-Haq could access the UN Commission on Human Rights, in addition to many of the other specialised bodies of the UN. The activities of Al-Haq in the UN have been in total co-ordination with the ICJ, which helped in many cases to advance mutual agendas. The Vienna World Conference on Human Rights and the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories are relevant examples.
 

Since the establishment of the PNA, Al-Haq has closely been involved in supporting the development of an independent Palestinian Judiciary.   In relation to this, Al-Haq in 1993 in cooperation with the ICJ held a seminar entitled “Towards an Independent Palestinian Judiciary’.  This took place at the end of a two-week fact-finding mission conducted by the ICJ and its Center for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers concerning the situation of civil courts in the Occupied Territories.  The purpose of the mission was to pinpoint the problems and obstacles facing the judicial system as a whole, in light of the accepted principles of the rule of law.  Following this mission the findings of it were set out in a book entitled The Civilian Judicial System in the West Bank and Gaza: Present and Future, as well as recommendations following the seminar. These recommendations specifically outlined suggestions on the requirements of legal and judicial functions that would help lead towards an independent Palestinian judiciary.
 

A second mission, similar to the one carried out in 1993, was carried out by the ICJ and its Center for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers from January 15-25, 2000.  This mission specifically was aimed at reviewing the independence of the Palestinian Judiciary and the legal profession in Palestine and the role of the Palestinian authorities.  It also examined the role of the international financial institutions with regards to questions related to the functioning of the judiciary and Israeli infringements of the administration of justice in the Occupied Territories.  The recommendations that resulted from this mission built upon the initial recommendations that the ICJ made during its first mission in 1993.  The role of the mission was also to examine whether the previous recommendations were carried out in the six-year period interim.   In addition, during this mission, Al-Haq in conjunction with the two other Palestinian human rights institutions affiliated with the ICJ, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and LAW, held two workshops in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip regarding ‘The Role of the Judiciary in Civil Society’.
 

It is with great pleasure that we begin a new period in Al-Haq’s history, building on our past relationships and entering into new ones.  In January 2000, the United Nations Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations recommended Al-Haq for Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.  This is truly an achievement for Al-Haq as a human rights institution not only in Palestine but also in the Arab world.  We take this responsibility seriously in continuing to persevere in our ultimate aim: the strengthening of the Rule of Law and the defense of Palestinians’ human rights as an important aspect of reinforcing international recognition of the rights of all peoples to self-determination.
 
 

Workshop ‘The Role of the Judiciary in Civil Society’, Ramallah 25.2.2000

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Mr. Shehadeh, you have been one of the founders of Al-Haq, which achievements did you strive for by establishing such an organization?
 

Before the establishment of Al-Haq there was no local organization carrying out human rights work.  Al- Haq was the first organization to do this kind of work.
 

We also strove to create a committed organization that was politically independent. This too was a first since many of the active non-governmental organizations working in the occupied territories were politically affiliated and serving one or the other of the political organizations.
 

We also had the conscious objective of creating a truly democratic organization. One that was fully owned and run by its staff.
 

The spirit of voluntarism was also very important. The founding members and several of the staff volunteered their services free of charge. They strove for no other benefits other than the satisfaction to see the success of their work. There was a unique and profound commitment on the part of those involved in the creation and development of Al-Haq.
 

This is as far as the type of organization which the founding members tried to establish. As to the kind of work done by the organization, the organization tried from the beginning to fill the enormous gap in the absence of documentation of human rights violations committed by the Israeli occupation. The advocacy on behalf of the victims of human rights violations was always a primary objective as was the promotion of the rule of law. The organization also established the first public legal and human rights library in the West Bank.
 

Do you think Al-Haq had an influence on other organizations of that kind in the region?
 

The fact, that such an outspoken and active organization as Al-Haq was possible in the occupied territories had, I believe, a strong influence on the neighboring countries. They looked up to Al-Haq both because of the fact that it was able to operate at all. But they also studied carefully how it was organized. Some of the innovative ideas generated by A- Haq extended also to the legal approach it was taking to various matters it dealt with. The enforcement project, for example, produced important literature which had influence within and outside the region.
 

It is important to remember that prior to the creation of Al-Haq the Israeli Position on the nature and conduct of the occupation was the only one heard in the world. Al-Haq was able through the approach and kind of work it did to gain credibility and become an alternative voice which eventually made a complete shift in the perception of the world about the nature of the Israeli occupation.
 

Al-Haq always tried to enforce the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention concerning the West Bank and Gaza. Do you think it succeeded in that issue?
 

The position that Al-Haq took from the beginning was that the Fourth Geneva Convention is applicable and it used it along with the Hague Regulation as standards against which to assess the human rights situation. In this the organization had made many allies. Only a political process could have succeeded in getting Israel to concede that the Fourth Geneva Convention Applied. This was beyond the powers of the organization. But the fact that Israel refused this did not deter the organization from insisting on its principle position and forging ahead with its work.
 

Which impact did the beginning of the peace process have on the work of Al-Haq?
 

It is my belief that the organization missed an important opportunity, which the beginning of the peace process provided for the following reasons:
 

First there was the best opportunity to use the strong interest generated by the political developments to promote the positions Al-Haq had been advocating for years, and, second, because the organization should have used its good standing and substantial network of friends and allies in the international human rights movement to have more of an impact on the course and outcome of the negotiations.
 

Rather than attempt to study the new situation and see what new opportunities it provided, the organization was paralyzed by the political considerations of what political position it should take towards the negotiations. This was a very grave failure which went against the ethos and tradition of the organization.
 

As a result only lip service was paid to human rights and the accords that came out of the negotiations did not have a human rights component to them.
 

How do you see the present role of a human rights organization such as Al-Haq?
 

The present situation differs in many fundamental ways from the past. I have been an outsider to the human rights work since 1991 when I left Al-Haq. From my previous involvement I realize that only an insider is privy to all the factors and conditions that must be taken into consideration in developing a strategy for human rights work. It is difficult and perhaps not prudent for me as an outsider to pontificate on these matters. What I can say is that the important feature of the present situation is its transitional nature. Perhaps this should influence to a large degree the kind of work that the organization does. Transitional situations can provide an opportunity for establishing and fortifying traditions as well as institutions which may become much more difficult to achieve once the situation settles into a permanent political structure.
 

Do you think people’s attitudes towards human rights have changed within the last twenty years?
 

The best evidence that there has been a change in people’s attitude is the fact that when Al-Haq began no one could understand what human rights work meant. There was a lot of suspicion surrounding the work and its motivation. Challenge and suspicion remain. There will always be those who reject human rights work, but they are now in the minority.

How does the fact that the PA came into power influence Al-Haq’s work?
 

The emphasis in Al-Haq’s work has always been the legal aspects. The PA tends to neglect the legal aspects. There is a lot of work for Al-Haq to do in developing the rule of law and acting as a watchdog to ensure that the legal developments are consistent with the human right principles. There is much work for the organization to do and much ingenuity is needed to determine where the line should be drawn between human rights work and political work.
 

At the beginning you mentioned that Al-Haq was also established as a new-idea organization quoting participation of its members and its democratic structure. Should the way the organization is structured change after this transitional period? Could a membership model comply with our needs?
 

The initial structure the organization took was related to what it aimed to achieve. There was no recognition of human rights as a profession. The organization wanted to develop human rights activists rather than employees in a human rights organization. This objective has now been achieved. The structure of the organization should develop in line with the organization’s objectives.
 

Whether the organization should become a membership organization is related to whether it wants to become a pressure group which will have impact as a movement that draws strength from its membership. But if Al-Haq wants to continue to be an organization that provides very specialized work, it may not need to change into a membership organization. It should also be borne in mind that a membership organization is more susceptible to political pressure.
 
 

Lots of our work has been done in the field of woman's rights, especially through our publications. We still have not installed a woman's rights unit but we are helping other organization out in that field. So do you think that Al-Haq has contributed to the issue of woman's rights?
 

In the past there was a strong women’s right movement. Al-Haq’s role was to provide it with legal advice and promote the legal aspect of the work of the movement. I believe that much has been achieved in this regard. The legal considerations are fully incorporated in the activities of the women’s movements. Many specialized women’s rights organizations have been established which are very effective.

Al-Haq used international podiums, UN-mechanisms, international campaigns and conferences as a way of promoting and defending human rights. Do you think this is a role that Al-Haq should continue to have under the PA?
 

Al-Haq must have strategy of how to help Palestine move ahead in the future as far as human rights are concerned. In future it could help Palestine as a state join the various human rights convention and afterwards help ensure that they are implemented.
 

Retaining the connection with the international bodies remains an important function for Al-Haq. You are part of the world. In former times we used these fora and institutions to advocate human rights positions. Now you have to make the necessary adjustments and continue to interact with the Human rights movement worldwide for the service of the organization’s present objectives.
 

Israeli police arresting boy during a demonstration in Jerusalem, 1989

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- Selected publications by Al-Haq -

 

Hopes that the practice of torture would end with the peace process were frustrated. The use of torture continued, in spite of the fact, that Israel is a Party signatory to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) since 1991. As recently as September 1999 and only after a long and determined campaign by human rights organizations, including Al-Haq, the Israeli High Court of Justice finally decided, that torture is indeed illegal in Israel. However, the High court decision did not rule out the possibility to legitimize the use of torture through new legislation. Thus, at the moment, four bill have been introduced to the Knesset – two with the aim to pass a law that would officially allow torture for so called security reasons, while the other two promote the implementation of a total ban on torture in Israeli legislation. The issue has yet to be decided by the Knesset. Meanwhile, the practice of torture against Palestinian detainees in Israeli interrogation centers was not brought to an end by the High Court decision, but new excuses were found for it: for example hand cuffing in painful positions is now explained to be necessary to protect interrogators from presumably aggressive and dangerous detainees.
 

In addition, the occurrence of torture against Palestinians in custody of the Palestinian Security Apparatus gives further need to Al-Haq and other human rights organizations to continue working on the subject of torture.

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STOP SEPARATING PALESTINIAN FAMILIES!

 

In the areas occupied since 1967, the Israeli authorities proceeded to implement a series of policies and measures, which resulted in the loss of the right of residency for Palestinians of the Occupied Territories.  From the Israeli authorities' point of view permanent residence and consequently family reunification is not an inalienable right for the Palestinians.  Rather, permanent residence is considered a privilege granted in accordance with certain criteria set by the authorities themselves.  This policy is detrimental to the right of a family to permanent residence and reunification and creates serious humanitarian and economic problems for tens of thousands of Palestinian families.  These problems continue unabated.
 

THE CAMPAIGN.  Given the humanitarian nature of the issue of family reunification, and the large number of people it affects, Al-Haq decided in 1990 to initiate an international campaign by mobilizing public opinion through the media, human rights and other non-governmental institutions. The public pressure exerted will hopefully succeed in effecting a change in Israeli policy towards family reunification. Further, it is Al-Haq's view that by publicizing widely the issue of Palestinian family reunification, public attention will be drawn to one of the most important aspects of the Palestinian problem: the dispersion and dispossession of the Palestinian people from their lands and homes.
 

The campaign, being the first of its kind to be adopted by Al-Haq, also represents a new, more activist approach in the organization's work. Lessons learned from this campaign will undoubtedly affect Al-Haq's approach to human rights activism, and will possibly open the way to other campaigns on important human rights issues in the future.
 

For further information in English see Al-Haq's Occasional Paper No 8; "The Right to Unite", by C. Whittcome, 1990

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Al-Haq's "Women, Justice and Law" Campaign

A conference took place between 16-19 September 1994 arising out of the project entitled: Women, Justice and Law: Towards the Empowerment of Palestinian Women.  The conference brought together more than 500 women and men to discuss and adopt strategies for securing the rights of Palestinian women through law.  It marked the culmination of a yearlong campaign throughout the Gaza Strip and West Bank to raise awareness and promote wide discussion of women and the law.
 

The conference and the campaign were organized by a steering committee of women activists under the auspices of Al-Haq, designed to bring together and build upon campaign activities and to formulate clear and effective action plans to promote the rights of women in the areas of health, education, work and social welfare, civil and political life, personal status law, and protection against violence.  The campaign included a number of different activities ranging from presentations and public discussions, local workshops, producing and distributing educational material to articles in the local press.
 

The wide participation of over 200 women in the campaign and conference preparation and the rich input by way of grass-roots participation ensured that efforts to develop strategies for the empowerment of women through law were rooted in and responsive to the day-to-day realities that characterize Palestinian women's lives.  The results of the campaign were used to draw up the program plan for Al-Haq's following Women's Rights Project.
 

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For the purpose of arriving at a conclusive analysis of the impacts of the illegal destruction of houses on the Palestinian population, Al-Haq has thoroughly documented all the houses, which were demolished or sealed for "security reasons" during the period from January 1981 to the end of December 1991.  Al-Haq is also monitoring the demolition of houses by the Israeli Authorities for alleged contravention of building permit law.
 

For more information in English see following Al-Haq publications: Occasional Papers No 5 "Demolition and Sealing of Houses as a Punitive Measure in the Israeli Occupied West Bank", by E. Playfair, 1987; No. 10 "Missiles and Dynamite: The Israeli Military Forces' Destruction of Palestinian Homes with Anti-Tank-Missiles and High Powered Explosives" by T. Taylor, 1993; and No 11, "Thousand and one Homes: Israeli Demolition and sealing of Houses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories", by L.Welshman, 1993; and J. Quigley: "Legal Consequences of the Demolition of Houses by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza", 1995

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Campaign to End ID Card Confiscation

This campaign was initiated by Al-Haq and other Palestinian human rights groups in March 1999 to support their Israeli partners as they challenged the legality of Israeli ID card confiscation in the Israeli Supreme Court.  The campaign quickly developed monumentum and by August its membership grew to include 23 Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations and a number of international groups and supporters.
 

The background for this campaign is Israel's aggressive policy of reducing the Palestinian population and heritage in Jerusalem, thus changing facts on the ground in order to consolidate Israeli control over Jerusalem in sight of the final status talks.  Israel forced the status of "residency" on the Palestinian population in Jerusalem after the war in 1967 and the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem.  A status that transformed Palestinians into strangers in their hometown and made their residency rights dependent on Israeli good will. In December 1995 Israel introduced the "Center of Life" policy, forcing Palestinians to prove that they reside and work or attend school in Jerusalem in order to have their ID cards renewed. This enabled the increase of ID card confiscation by 600%, affecting an estimated number of more then 8000 individuals between 1996-98.
 

Though the Campaign resulted in the Supreme Court ruling that each case of ID cart confiscation has to be discussed separately, the situation on the ground did not change so far and thousands of Palestinian Jerusalemites are still threatened with having their ID cards confiscated and consequently to lose their right to live in their home town. Thus the efforts of the campaign to put an end to the Israeli policy of ID card confiscation continue.

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The restriction of academic freedom and education for Palestinians has been part of the Israeli occupation policy from the beginning, but was heavily intensified during the Intifada.  Education institutions and activities, teachers and students in the West Bank have been subject to a series of repressive measures, that limited the access to education for a whole generation and thus had serious long-term effects on the Palestinian population.

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By Joost Hiltermann, Human Rights Watch
 

It was on a crisp November day in 1984 that I first stepped into the small apartment on Ramallah’s main street that housed the offices of what was then known as Law in the Service of Man (a somewhat limping translation of the more universal Al-Qanoun min Ajal al-Insaan: Law in the Service of the? Human Being?).  The receptionist (who doubled as administrative assistant) sat in an entrance space immediately off a small glassed-in veranda.  The dining room served as meeting room-cum-library.  Two small bedrooms offered working space for researchers.  And the tiny bathroom accommodated copies of the organization’s few but accumulating publications, stacked neatly on thin metal shelves that I, in an unthinking moment, once managed to collapse on top of me.  (There must have been a small kitchen as well, but I do not remember it now).
 

A handful of staff resided there in the fall of 1984.  The organization’s founders, gainfully employed elsewhere, would stop by for meetings.  The three field investigators visited periodically to hand over and discuss their latest yield.  There were, if memory serves me, at most two or three computers.
 

I came to Al-Haq just at the time when it was primed for a major expansion, having got its books in order and, thanks to a handful of pioneering reports and actions, starting to receive the attention and, increasingly, accolades of key western institutions.  And it had the luck to arrive on the scene at what was from a funding perspective a particularly propitious time, the happy coincidence of the rapid growth of an international human rights movement and the equally stunning emergence of an indigenous institutional infrastructure in the Occupied Territories.  By the time the popular uprising broke out in late 1987, Al-Haq was able to deploy the strengths of one in the service of the other, and vice versa, becoming in the process an influential Palestinian voice at the height of a major human rights emergency.
 

The founders of LSM/Al-Haq, Raja Shehadeh, Jonathan Kuttab and Charles Shammas

 

Taking a nod from the international human rights movement that took off in earnest only after the 1975 Helsinki Accords, Al-Haq’s founders were keenly attuned to the need for devising new strategies to contest the ever-growing reach of a predatory occupying power and its highly mobile citizenry.  The institution they established alongside other institutions that began to come into their own in this period: the universities, the Arab Studies Society, the Arab Thought Forum, and others, as well as aforementioned grassroots movements became by its very objectives a part of what sociologist Salim Tamari has referred to as a strategy of informal resistance to the military occupation.  Planted squarely in the society that had given rise to it, Al-Haq offered a glimpse to its constituency of the alternative path that might be taken to divest itself of the occupation.  It began to provide an ever-growing audience with new linguistic tools and a concrete methodology to challenge specific actions by the governing authority.  These were presented in the form of the Know Your Rights series, one of Al-Haq’s most important undertakings during its first decade.  These booklets inculcated in those who read them the crucial notion that not only did they - Palestinians, victims, fighters, people - have fundamental rights, but they had a right to assert these rights, and the booklets showed them how they might begin to do so.
 

Even as Al-Haq was playing an educational role toward its home constituency, it reached out to the outside world both for a receptive audience and for protection, as the military government could never be trusted not to kick in the doors one day and shut the place down.  This, too, required a great educational effort, as a deep-seated prejudice against Palestinians dissuaded many activists in the United States and elsewhere from turning their attention to the Middle East and rendered Al-Haq’s objectives and methodology immediately suspect.  If the organization succeeded in making its case abroad, this was due less to its advocacy strategy, which for a long time was barely a strategy at all, than to its professionalism in documenting and reporting what even the most skeptical observer would have to admit were unconscionable violations of human rights.  And the Israelis offered a helping hand, of course, by engaging in public acts of collective punishment, like house demolitions.
 

The Palestinian institutions and grassroots organizations that proliferated in the 1980s were served by their semi-legal status (even if the military government denied them a license to operate formally, by applying for a license they had signaled their intent to function openly and carry out legal activities), the material and political support they received from governments and institutions abroad, and the fact that Israel had an inwardly democratic and open society that was broadly permissive of outspoken criticism of the outrages committed across the Green Line.  But it was especially because of Israel’s outward democratic posture that the military government found it very difficult to crack down on institutions like Al-Haq, assuming for a moment that such institutions presented any sort of real threat to the occupier’s hold over the territory and its population.  The Israeli state had a constant task to mollify its supporters in the U.S. and Europe, who saw little wrong with plucky groups like Al-Haq as long as such groups stayed away from advocating violence and terrorism.  The genius of the method fashioned by Al-Haq’s founders was that Al-Haq took Israel at its word (of being a democracy, as well as a self-declared reluctant, tolerant and benign occupier) and, playing fully by the rules of a democratic society, held it to its declared commitments, pressing it further and further as it retreated into a growing tangle of self-generated contradictions.  How could punishing a terrorist be said to compute with destroying the home in which that person’s family lived?
 

There is no doubt that the occupying power became its own worst enemy, its crude tactics exposed and exploited by Al-Haq’s sophisticated reporting.  Yet the strength of Israel was such that no amount of reporting could have brought an end to the military occupation.  It took a largely nonviolent popular uprising, massive repression marked by the extremely crude and brutal tactics of a Yitzhak Rabin, and the sudden interest of the mass media in the Palestinian reality to reverse what had seemed irreversible.  The leaders of the grassroots organizations at least, those not already in prison or exile metamorphosed into the leaders of the uprising.  And Al-Haq, its credibility established by years of accurate reporting and its voice amplified by the force of the mass movement, blasted onto the international scene.  Its magnum opus on the first year of the uprising, Punishing a Nation, became a standard reference work for human rights groups, journalists and policy makers alike.  Holly Burkhalter, an early admirer of Al-Haq who as advocacy director of Human Rights Watch oversaw the production and distribution of the U.S. edition of Punishing a Nation, today sees the significance of Al-Haq as twofold: There weren’t at that time that many groups in the South that were doing highly sophisticated human rights investigations, she says.  The movement, even in the West, was very young.  To have that kind of quality of documentation, especially from Palestinians, was very important in dispelling the prejudice that existed.  In the United States a Palestinian was an adjective modifying the noun terrorist.  Al-Haq’s work was essential in getting out the truth not only about human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, but about the Palestinians themselves.
 

That was then and this is now.  As the intifada turned inward and petered out, Al-Haq lost much of its audience and its steam, while it also began to pay the price of too rapid and uncontrolled a growth in the late 1980s.  The 1993 Oslo Accords and the arrival of the Palestinian Authority further threw the organization into confusion, and except for pursuing the brilliant innovation that was its human rights enforcement project, it was forced to spend the better part of the 1990s trying to regain its footing.  Today, as it marks its twentieth anniversary, Al-Haq is a transformed organization, a different beast altogether, set to mark a course in tune with the requirements of the new situation prevailing in Palestine.
 

To me Al-Haq will always be the Al-Haq that I knew intimately then, the Al-Haq that gave me my best friends, that taught me my passable Arabic and gave me insight and an entrée into Palestinian society, and most importantly that showed me the power of human rights.  My five years in Palestine for me were a rite of passage, my formative years, the threshold that separates the before from the after in my life.  Working for Al-Haq was frustrating at times the infuriating but indispensable legalese of its analysis; the primary institutional (elite) focus of its activism.  It often forced me to step outside and engage in extracurricular activities: writing articles for magazines in the U.S., Britain and the Netherlands, traveling throughout the West Bank to document house demolitions while delivering basic necessities to the newly homeless, and making friends among the people who were most affected by the daily depredations of the occupier

October 1999
 

Joost Hilterman is the author of Al-Haq’s following publications in English language:

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Al-Haq's Paralegal in Hebron Arrested, Served with Administrative Detention
 

On 10 March 1994, Sha'wan Jabarin, the paralegal in Al-Haq's Hebron office for legal services, was arrested and served with a six month administrative detention order.  After a meticulous search of his house that did not spare even picture frames, documents relating to Al-Haq's work were confiscated. Mr. Jabarin was not informed at the time of his apprehension of the reasons for his arrest.  He spent 40 days in detention without charge.  During his detention, Mr. Jabarin was interrogated by the Israeli authorities, primarily about his involvement in the writing of an Al-Haq report on the harassment of Palestinians by Israeli settlers.  In the absence of any charges Al-Haq had to conclude that Mr. Jabarin's arrest and detention was solely a punishment for his human rights activities. Mr. Jabarin was served with six month administrative detention, which was renewed three times, amounting to two years of detention, without any charges being brought against him.  Still, his release did not bring to end harassment and restrictions: till today, March 2000, the Israeli Authorities are preventing Mr. Jaberin from leaving the country, thus restricting his personal freedom of movement and his ability to represent Al-Haq on international conferences.

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In the concluding remarks, Al-Haq stated that the issues discussed in the three cases were not new; for years Palestinians have suffered at the hands of Israeli state agents from willful killing, willful injury, obstruction of medical aid, the killing of children, failure to protect bystanders from harm, impermissible restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, attacks on persons associated with "wanted people", disrespect for manners, customs, and religious practices and many other abuses. Such abuses are violations of international law legalized by military orders and decrees which criminalize many political and civil rights.  The orders and decrees are enforced by military personnel, some disguised as Palestinians, who use vague and broad Open Fire Regulations while capturing or killing Palestinians who are simply practicing the rights guaranteed them under international law.

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Al Haq Investigates Town Planning

By Anthony Coon, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Environmental Planning, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

In late 1988 I had a phone call from Sir Colin Buchanan: an organization in the West bank called Al-Haq wanted to investigate Israeli policies of restricting and demolishing homes of Palestinians. Colin Buchanan, the foremost British town planner at the time had been going to do it, but he was nearly 80, the intifada had begun, and could I fit this into my timetable at the university?
 

I had been teaching town planning in Glasgow since 1976. Before that I had been in Colin Buchanan's consultancy, mainly in London, Istanbul and Kuwait. In Kuwait we drew up plans for development of city and state which, as shown in the aerial reconnaissance photos published during the gulf war, were largely carried out as we had planned. While there I worked with and got to know many Palestinians, and I often thought that the West Bank would be a fascinating place for a planner to visit: planning is an attempt to resolve conflict, so the use of land under a belligerent military occupation was surely the ultimate planning conundrum.

 

So began an association with al Haq and with Palestine, which I have found profoundly fulfilling. Al-Haq wanted an objective report to investigate the needs for Palestinian development, and the extent to which and the means by which these needs were being frustrated by Israeli policy. At least up to that time there had been a tendency for world opinion to believe the Israeli story that the previous plans and Jordanian law were being faithfully followed.
 

The book which resulted was enormously helped by the kindness and insights of Raja Shehadeh and the staff of Al Haq. I particularly remember the way the field workers smuggled me swiftly and cunningly around military check points and through the dark streets of the intifada to homes, town halls, sewage spillage from settlements onto Palestinian cultivation, the remains of bulldozed houses ... The other vital support (brought into the project by Raja) was Rami Abdul Hadi who had been drawing up town and village plans at the Center for Engineering and Planning nearby, and who was (and remains) unstinting in his advice and contacts.
 

Since then I have returned on a consultancy contract in Nablus, Hebron and Dair el Balla, and for the JLAC conference in November 1998. This year I have been re-examining on behalf of Amnesty international many of the issues which were of concern in the early 1990's, but particularly house

Anthony Coon

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The Legal Services Program at al-Haq provides local residents with the opportunity to discuss their legal problems with lawyers at no cost.  Where the problem involves human rights abuse and does not require recourse to a court, al-Haq seeks redress for the community or individual in question by intervening

directly with the appropriate authorities.  If, however, our efforts meet with failure or it appears that recourse to the courts is the only option, the person is advised to consult a lawyer.  Al-Haq does not represent individuals in court, nor does it cover legal expenses.  However, in cases of extreme violations, such as torture, killing and house demolition, al-Haq undertakes interventions to mobilize local and international support. Where it seems possible and necessary to fight certain patterns of human rights violations by creating legal precedents, Al-Haq also takes test cases to the Palestinian and Israeli High Courts. In this, as in the legal counseling in general, Al-Haq cooperates with other specialized human rights organizations. Thus in the year 1999 al-Haq’s Legal Services Unit received a total of 463 case, while referring many more to the Jerusalem Legal Aid Centre, LAW, Addameer, DWRC, Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, and other organizations. The breakdown of the cases for the year 1999 is as follows:

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- Selected Publications by Al-Haq -Punishing a Nation

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By Emma Playfair, Executive Director of Interights, The International Centre for the Protection f Human Righhts

On 22 to 25 January 1988, in the unlikely context of the first month of the Palestinian intifada, or popular uprising, Al-Haq held an international conference in East Jerusalem, convening some of the foremost world experts in the international laws of war and human rights. This was the first international conference of its kind to be organized within the Occupied Territories. Most of those attending were not supporters of the Palestinian cause but scholars who had, until then, had little contact with the Arab-Israeli conflict. They came to provide independent opinions on the international laws governing the conduct of an occupying power over the people and territories it controlled, and to review Israel’s administration of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem, against international law.
 

By 1987, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was entering its third decade, with little sign of an end. Over the previous five years, Al-Haq had established a solid reputation for its meticulous reporting of the human rights violations that formed part of the daily life of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. As well as intervening on individual violations - either directly or by seeking the intervention of others – it had published a series of reports on such practices as deportation, administrative detention, torture, demolition and sealing of houses and separation of families. These interventions and reports were based on extensive fieldwork and always supported by carefully researched legal arguments as to why these acts constituted violations of human rights or humanitarian law. The clarity and constraint of the reports was hard to contest and contributed to a shift in international public opinion that had generally subscribed to Israel's projected image as a benevolent occupier respectful of the laws of occupation.
 

While Al-Haq had to address such violations on a daily basis, it was all too aware of the longer term threat to Palestinian rights posed by the steady transformation of the land and infrastructure of the territories themselves, altering, sometimes irrevocably, their character and integrity. Israel was introducing changes to almost every element of Palestinian life – to the economic structure, the judicial system, local government, systems of transportation, water, electricity and, most of all, to ownership and use of land. While some such changes were undoubtedly necessary with the passage of time, many appeared to be aimed at ensuring dependency on Israel or access by Israel to Palestinian resources and markets, or at serving the interests of the Israeli population being settled illegally in the Territories, rather than at serving the long-term interests of the Palestinian people’s future after the end of the occupation.
 

It is an underlying tenet of the international law governing military occupation that occupation is an inherently temporary state and that the status quo should be observed, with only those changes which are necessary for the security of the occupying forces or in the best interests of the people, so that the ability of the territories ultimately to regain their independence is not jeopardized. Al-Haq carefully documented the changes made by Israel and argued that many could not be justified on the limited grounds allowed by international law. It demonstrated further that they had profound and adverse implications for the Palestinian governance of the territories after the end of the occupation, and for the ability of the Palestinian community to exercise the fundamental human right of self-determination. Israel argued, however, that it respected the rules of international law governing its occupation, or 'administration' as it preferred to call it, but that the occupation was sui generis by reason of its length amongst other things. It relied on this firstly to argue that the main body of law relating to belligerent occupation, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, was not applicable, and secondly to justify its own interpretations of the applicable laws, often at variance with earlier interpretations.
 

The difficulty faced by Al-Haq in countering this claim was that the terms of the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention are necessarily framed as general principles, in order to cover all forms of war. While certain provisions, such as those relating to destruction of property, deportation of peoples and treatment of prisoners, are quite clear, there are few details in the guidelines as to how the territories themselves should be governed. For this, authoritative interpretation was needed, based not only on those laws, but on the military manuals drawn up in previous wars, and on such legal precedents as the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials that followed the Second World War. Expertise was hard to find though, since the laws of war were at that time viewed as an obscure branch of the law.(1) Belligerent occupation in particular had generated little attention outside Israel since the end of the second world war, so that Israeli scholars, judges and officials, much of whose expertise was based on service within Israel's army or administration, dominated the field.
 

In the absence of independent scholarship on these issues, Al-Haq decided to seek the advice of leading scholars of the laws of war, international law and international human rights law to bring their expertise to bear on key issues relating to the administration of occupied territories. We recognized that for most this would require original research, since few had considered this issue before, but we counted on being able to stimulate the interest of academics to apply their learning to a concrete situation. We therefore designed a research project, to culminate in an international conference, through which international legal scholars, carefully selected for their independence, and in most cases without prior involvement in the conflict, would provide reasoned opinions on the current interpretations of the international laws of war and of human rights as they applied to Israel's occupation and treatment of the Occupied Territories. The legal opinions had to be based on the actual situation, but published sources on these issues are few so the international experts would be matched with local scholars and experts who would document and analyze the factual issues from within the Occupied Territories, often also requiring original research.
 

We deliberately avoided issues which normally attracted the attention of observers, in favor of the more subtle aspects of territorial, administrative and infrastructural transformation which were more complex to document and on which legal sources were few, given the rarity of long occupations. The treatment of natural resources, the power to appropriate and change usage of land, the taxation of the people, the reshaping of the legal system, the integration of the economy with that of the occupying power, the settlement of the occupier’s own population in the occupied territories, the separate administrative and legal structure applied to those settlers, and the application of the various sources of humanitarian law and human rights law governing the conduct of a belligerent occupier - these issues, which were steadily eroding the potential of the West Bank and Gaza to be self-sustaining, formed the object of our inquiry.
 

Identification of leading scholars involved extensive research and consultation, and then often careful persuasion. Some were cautious about involvement in what they perceived as a political minefield, and needed reassurance about Al-Haq's credentials, as to the serious nature of the initiative and that they were genuinely being asked to voice independent opinions. International participants included Gerhard von Glahn, author of the leading work on belligerent occupation, Adam Roberts, one of the foremost scholars of the laws of war, Antonio Cassese, later President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, John Dugard, an expert in human rights law from South Africa, and other eminent experts in public international law and human rights law.
 

On 9 December 1987, one month before the conference was to be held, the intifada broke out in Gaza. By the time the conference started, on 22 January 1988, the intifada had spread to all parts of the Occupied Territories. 41 Palestinians had been killed, almost half of them below the age of 18. Despite powerful press coverage of the rapid escalation of violence, none of the participants withdrew. They did, however, express concern at discussing apparently abstract questions of law while people died outside. It became quickly apparent though that the questions under discussion, however arcane, were at the heart of the intifada. It was precisely because of the actions Israel was taking in the name of the law – the expropriations of land, the annexing of Jerusalem, the absorption of the occupied territories into the occupier’s state – denying a future to the people, that years of pent-up frustration exploded into the intifada. Through meetings and visits, arranged between sessions, the participants were able to witness both the causes of the intifada and its violent repression by the Israeli authorities.
 

The project had three elements. The first was to clarify the framework of international law relating to belligerent occupation, particularly the application of the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Convention, and the applicability of human rights law in times of occupation. The second element was to examine particular aspects of administration of occupied territories, namely the form an administration should take, the right of association under occupation reflecting people’s ability to participate in the administration, taxation, and the powers and duties of an occupier in relation to land. The final aim of the project was to consider methods of enforcement of humanitarian and human rights law, both through law and by mobilizing public opinion and requiring action.
 

Participants rejected resoundingly Israel's contention that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply to its occupation. The inherently temporary nature of occupation was emphasized again and again, as was the illegality of any steps taken that irreversibly alter the character of the territories occupied, except within well-defined situations of necessity, or which seek to assert sovereignty or to pre-empt eventual withdrawal from the territories occupied. Far from confirming Israel's contention that the length of the occupation permitted it to override these provisions, participants agreed that the longer the occupation, the more important it was to hold firmly to the provisions and to interpret them restrictively. Participants also confirmed that human rights law applies, with certain exceptions, even under occupation, supplementing the provisions of humanitarian law. Both international and national participants criticized, to varying degrees, the Israeli High Court’s rulings and expressed disappointment at its role. Views differed on important points – for instance the extent to which the occupation itself is illegal (some felt that it was, while others felt that international law does not yet support this point), the weight that an occupier can attach to military necessity, and the legitimacy of a levée en masse, as an expression of will of the people.
 

Immediately after the conference, Al-Haq had necessarily to devote its attention very substantially to addressing the daily emergencies and gross violations occurring during the intifada, which continued to stretch its capacity to the limit for a number of years. While Al-Haq’s ‘Enforcement Project’, develop at the same time as the Conference, drew on and developed the arguments discussed at the conference, we were not otherwise able to devote the resources needed to develop a systematic challenge to those aspects of Israeli policy which the conference had shown to be clearly violative of international law, as planned. However, the publication of the papers by a respected legal publisher ensured that the findings of the conference reached a wide audience both within Palestine and Israel, and in the international legal community.
 

The conference exemplified Al-Haq’s approach, which was that of an activist organization, basing its work only on the rule of law and on internationally established standards of human rights and humanitarian law, employing the strictest professional and independent standards. Arising from Al-Haq’s frustration at the lack of available independent expertise, which hindered its ability to address serious violations of human rights, the project typically relied on Al-Haq’s fieldwork and brought to bear both international and local expertise to seek clarification of the crucial provisions of international law relating to a belligerent occupation.
 

A decade after the conference, its findings remain relevant not only to those seeking to address ongoing human rights violations in the Palestinian territories, but also to civilians caught in other situations of occupation or conflict. The published views of legal experts are an important source of international and customary law, so that the expert contributions to this conference will directly contribute to the development and interpretation of humanitarian law. We hope also that the conclusions of the international and local experts, documenting the effects of the illegal measures and clearly establishing the violations of international law, can be of use in negotiations towards an end to the Israeli occupation, which international law requires, and in the determination of restitution and compensation.

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- Selected Publications by Al-Haq -

Taxation in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza 1967-1989

 
 
 
 

- Selected Publications by Al-Haq -

The By-Pass Road Network in the West Bank

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Since many years Al-Haq is engaged in promoting human rights education in Palestine through providing legal information material - like the Arabic language series "Know Your Rights", conducting local workshops and using more unconventional means like theatre. In this Al-Haq cooperates with various other Palestinian organizations, for example, between 1994 and 1996 a joint campaign for human rights education was conducted with the Palestinian Human Rights Information Center and the Palestinian groups of Amnesty International, focusing especially on schools and popular education in the refugee camps and villages, but also addressing Palestinian decision makers.
 

 In 1999 Al-Haq and the popular theater group Sanabel, produced a play entitled "Ana Insan" (I am human). The play is based on provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and tackles political and social problems facing Palestinian society.  Among the issues addressed are early marriage and the "security belt" imposed by the Israeli Occupation Authorities which denies people freedom of movement, employment opportunity rights as well as their rights to worship and medical treatment. It also deals with abolishing discrimination between men and women and the right of women to be partners in the construction and development of society. Furthermore, the production addresses children's to education and mobility as well as the rights of disabled children to be provided sufficient care and to live a normal life.
 

Also as a part of its efforts to promote human rights education, Al-Haq is currently preparing a series of brochures on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that will be used in Palestinian schools.

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Al-Haq’s library is an extensive collection of books and periodicals relating to human rights and international law.  There are currently 3233 books and references cataloged according to the Library of Congress classification system in the Al-Haq library, of which 1706 are in Arabic and 1527 are in English.    Al-Haq’s library is the first public law library, specializing in human rights and international law, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The library contains Jordanian and Israeli laws, legislation from other Arab countries, Israeli military orders, and primary and secondary resources on international law and human rights; many of which are otherwise unavailable to the public in the area and region. Additionally, the library has a collection of books relating to the political, economic and social development, and history of the Middle East. It also has periodicals and journals regarding human rights from many different countries as well as strong relationships of exchange built up over the years with human rights institutions and libraries all over the world.
 

The library represents an important service to the community, specifically to academics, lawyers, lawmakers, and the populace at large, who use the library on a regular basis.  The library represents an important conduit of information for the Palestinian population.  The Al-Haq library is currently utilized by an average of 4-5 researchers on a daily basis, given the reputation that it has developed over the years and its specialization in human rights law.  The expansion and development of the Al-Haq library is one of the cornerstones to sustaining the organization.  The Al-Haq library represents an important part of the Al-Haq foundation and it is also integral to the continuation of the other Al-Haq programs.  In addition to the professional readers who utilize the Al-Haq resources, Al-Haq professional staff also rely quite heavily on the resources contained in the Al-Haq library to support the research they are undertaking and their local and international campaigning work.
 

It is a long-term goal of Al-Haq to provide greater access to Al-Haq’s library by extending its hours into the evening, as many researchers undertake their work after office hours.  Furthermore, as several of the universities in Palestine, such as Al-Quds University, An-Najah University and Al-Azhar University in Gaza, have expanded their curriculums to include international law it will also be beneficial to students to have extended hours when they can do research after classes.  Many of these students have already begun to undertake research at the Al-Haq library.  With a resource base of over 8000 resources, the current library space also is no longer adequate to house all of its documents.  Thus, Al-Haq also intends in the long term to move the library to a separate, larger facility (next door to the organization’s headquarters), in order to increase accessibility to the public.  Finally, it is a long-term goal of Al-Haq to develop a separate web-site for the library, which will also provide access to the Al-Haq library database to enable researchers to do research from a remote site.
 
 

- Selected Publications by Al-Haq -

Al-Haq’s Press Releases

One of Al-Haq’s most important tools of immediate intervention are its press releases. While drawing the local and international attention on urgent cases of human rights violations, these press releases also provide a legal analyses on these events and exposes – where given – the structure of systematic human rights violations behind them. Thus the collection of Al-Haq’s press releases became to mirror the development of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict during the last twenty years.
 

Palestinian girl, that was injured by a bullet while being in her home

Israeli soldiers breaking the door of a shop during an Intifada strike, Ramallah

Teargas can thrown into a home by Israeli soldiers, 1988

Destruction of property during a house raid

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By Dr. Lynn Welchman, Director of the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, SOAS, University of London
 

Years after the enforcement project started at Al-Haq, I was having a conversation with a prominent human rights lawyer about universal jurisdiction and the deterrent potential of prosecutions, against the background of the Rwanda and former Yugoslavia tribunals.  I brought up (as one does, especially if one has worked at Al-Haq) the issue of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and she looked at me and said ‘yes, you lot at Al-Haq were really ahead of your time.’  It was, I felt, a well-deserved tribute to the organization, its founders, and the people who worked there. The vision of Al-Haq was so fresh and innovative, in its time and context, that for years after its establishment you still found yourself having to explain it - and often defend it - both in Palestine and abroad.  This was also the case with the enforcement project, a project born and nurtured at Al-Haq which, despite developing into a difficult child, provided a source of innovative argument and advocacy that built on Al-Haq’s core strengths to take the challenge of enforcement out to those properly charged with it under the law.
 

The founder of the enforcement project was of course Charles Shammas, one of the original founders of Al-Haq.  It was Charles who recruited me to Al-Haq in Ramallah in the early months of 1983 when, after a rather unnerving interview, I found myself seated for the first time ever behind a computer (very large and complete with all sorts of suspiciously whirring noises) working on the database project.  These were very early days: Al-Haq had at that time no telephone (we would run up Main Street to Raja Shehadah’s office if we needed to use one) and not very good wiring: the computer in particular was sensitive to electricity dips and I remember several occasions realizing someone was about to enter the bathroom and yelling “don’t turn the light on...” just too late to save my day.  Also imprinted in my memory is the first time the computer faced me (and my life) with those two most chilling of words: FATAL ERROR.  It still makes me shudder.
 

By the time the enforcement project got up and running, Al-Haq had moved into the ‘new office’ across the road and expanded its staff and its mandate considerably.  Preliminary work during 1987 showed a market (as Charles would, inevitably, term it, to the consternation of some of our colleagues) for the arguments and from then on, against the background of the intifada, ‘the enforcement team’ pursued the arguments for international protection on the basis of third party states’ legal obligations.  These arguments proceeded from the fundamental premise that all High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War have a direct duty under law towards the protected population of occupied territories.  This is through the inclusion in article 1 common to all four Geneva Conventions of the “inter-state” duty to ensure not only that a state’s own agents and institutions respect the terms of the Conventions, but also that other state signatories respect them in all circumstances. This duty distinguishes the position of the international community of states from the position it generally seeks to adopt vis-à-vis human rights violations that occur within the sovereign territory of another state (with certain exceptions).  This duty to “respect and to ensure respect for” the Convention is developed in Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which creates an obligation to prosecute individuals of any nationality responsible for  committing grave breaches of the Convention (that is to say, war crimes, listed in Article 147).  In 1977, the duty was further developed in Article 89 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions by mandating HCPs to act individually and jointly in cases of serious violations of the Convention or the Protocol, in cooperation with the United Nations and in conformity with the UN Charter.
 

The members of Al-Haq’s enforcement team were mandated by the organization to dedicate their work time to developing these and related legal arguments, articulating the thinking behind them, including the link between durable conflict resolution and the prohibition under the law of predatory and annexationist conduct and related violations on the part of an Occupying Power, and identifying and exploring ways and means available to powerful third party states to discharge this obligation as effectively as possible.  It was the difference between having states assert their ‘right’ to comment on Israel’s behavior in the Occupied Territories, and having them move towards statements and actions that acknowledged a legal duty to uphold the protections of international humanitarian law in the face of the refusal of successive Israel governments to recognize the de jure applicability of the Convention and to behave accordingly.
 

Enforcement work took members of the team to Brussels and Strasbourg to meet with MEPs and members of the European Commission, producing painstakingly detailed briefings on the law and the instruments controlled by European states and the then Community through which they might fulfil their obligations.  In national contexts in Europe the team worked with domestic non-governmental organizations and parliamentarians to bring the arguments to the attention of their governments, with national symposia organized in London 1989, Dublin 1990, The Hague 1991 and London again 1992. The team worked with lawyers, academics, activists, international human rights organizations, development agencies, civil servants and politicians. Marc Stephen’s paper, published in 1989 as Enforcement of International Law in the Israeli-occupied Territories, provided us with an initial legal briefing; otherwise most of our writing was done in the form of targeted briefings and interventions to and often for particular third parties and in specific contexts. At home, the project became increasingly integrated into Al-Haq’s main program, including contributing the final chapters to each of the second and third annual reports on human rights violations during the uprising (Nation under Siege and Protection Denied).  Enforcement arguments were incorporated into the body of Al-Haq’s interventions, press releases and group briefings.
 

In pursuit of legal remedies, the enforcement team looked at setting up ‘grave breaches files’ and sought advice from European lawyers as to what would be needed to activate the domestic legislation incorporating the grave breaches provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.   The grave breaches of the Convention identified as such in the terms of the law itself (article 147) include unlawful deportation, willful killing, unlawful confinement, torture or inhuman treatment, and other crimes being carried out routinely by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian population at that time.  Although quite a bit of interest was raised in the subject, it became clear (and remains so, despite recent developments and the growing consensus around the exercise of universal jurisdiction) that the legal remedies provided for under international humanitarian law -- in terms of third-state prosecutions for grave breaches -- were effectively not available for use in the protection of an occupied population unless you had real political will on your side from the state in which the evidence was going to be produced.  Even getting the right sort of evidence was going to be difficult for an  NGO; but it was important to take the prospect of legal remedy seriously.
 

Another instrument on which the project concentrated was the EU’s preferential relations with Israel, on the basis that so long as Israel remained in systematic and grave violation of its existing commitments to the member states of the EU (as fellow High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention) there were serious obstacles to the EU considering the extension of further preferential terms to its relations with Israel.  This particular aspect of the work has new dimensions in the debate on the ratification in various EU member states of the EU-Israel Association Agreement with its ‘human rights conditionality’ clause in article 2.
 

Much of the enforcement team’s effort went into developing legal argument and seeking to have key actors acknowledge the implications of third party state obligations under international humanitarian law. This meant making the law and complex legal arguments meaningful to politicians and other non-lawyers, without engaging ourselves in politics.  It meant getting and keeping busy people’s attention on the strength of nothing but the rigor, integrity and innovative energy of the arguments.  In all this the ‘enforcement team’ - which included many ‘Al-Haqqers’ down the years - was grounded in and supported by the energy of the organization itself, with Al-Haq’s core work providing the basis on which every argument was founded, and Al-Haq’s vision setting the objectives.
 

There were landmarks along the way, including the Dublin Declaration of 1990, when the European Council for the first time referred to the article 1 obligation in a policy declaration on the Middle East; Security Council Resolution 681 of the same year, when the Council directly called for action in accordance with article 1 and endorsed the idea of convening a meeting of High Contracting Parties to discuss what measures might be taken under the Convention.  The idea of a conference was of course re-visited this summer.  Low points the same year, just by way of illustration, included the resolute refusal (continued till today) of powerful third parties to use the term “grave breach” when referring to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian population ‘protected’ by the Convention.  Just as, years later, the US was to hedge during crucial months on the use of the word ‘genocide’ in relation to the massacres being carried out in Rwanda, so the legal implications of ‘grave breaches’ were constrained to the UN resolutions regarding Iraq’s conduct in Kuwait at this same time in 1990.
 

Like Al-Haq itself, and perhaps human rights workers everywhere, the enforcement project took a determinedly anti-cynical stand in the face of what were - and are - admittedly rather compelling challenges: its whole effort was premised on the possibility of getting influential third party states to move - incrementally and in ways that would serve as precedent - towards law-based enforcement of the protections enshrined in international humanitarian law, as a part of their foreign policy.  The point was to take the law at its word, to take its guarantors at their word, and to call them on it.  Without being grandiose, the whole of humanity, and sooner rather than later, has an interest in knowing that humanitarian law can and will work to protect those who have effectively no other protection.  That argument still has to be made, particularly to powerful states (specifically the EU and USA) whose record of stunning selectivity in matters of international law enforcement, combined with the weight of their power and influence, serves to undermine their own claims of universality of values, to the detriment of the struggle to promote and protect human rights around the world.
 

In Palestine, the fact that international humanitarian law has been so emphatically left out of the successive Israel-PLO agreements in the various agreements making up the Oslo Accords has presented particular obstacles to law-based action by key third party states. Since 1993, the continuation of the peace process itself -- on almost any terms, it seems -- has been the overriding political priority; and since Israel has presented any attempt to introduce the law into the equation as interference with a properly bilateral process, backed up in this by the US, the arguments for law-based enforcement action have been even harder to make than before. This summer, the debate on whether or not a conference of High Contracting Parties should be convened, as demanded by the General Assembly, to consider measures to enforce the Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory rekindled the chronic argument on whether the political imperative of supporting the Palestinian-Israeli peace process can be reconciled with the imperative to uphold the rule of law.  The result was, for the law, and arguably for the peace process also, not a felicitous one.
 

Whether, when the ‘final settlement’ is formulated, its terms will show recognition of and deference to the regulatory framework of international humanitarian law; whether that same framework and other principles of international law will be recognized as properly governing matters of redress and reparation; in short whether, in the end, the law will finally come to the protection of the rights of the Palestinian population, albeit after the fact for many of them -- these are pressing and imminent enforcement-related questions that challenge Al-Haq and other human rights organizations today.  They will moreover stand as precedent for what the law can and cannot be made to do for those dependent upon its protection, both in Palestine and elsewhere.  These are pressing times for enforcement work.
 

 

- International Protection and International Diplomacy: Policy Choices for Third Party States in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. A case study of the TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron), 1995

-Thousand and One Homes: Israeli Demolition and Sealing of Houses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; Occasional Papers No 11, 1993
 

Teargas can left behind after an attack of Israeli settlers from Kiryat Arba’ on residents of the Deisheh refugee camp

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Al-Haq and its Societal Programs: The Women's Rights Program

By Randa Seniora

"Go do something with your partner Amnesty International regarding arbitrary arrests, torture and ill treatment of Palestinian prisoners by the Israeli military occupation, and leave women's problems to be resolved privately and discretely by the extended Family".
 

This was the immediate response of a pioneering women's figure heading a charitable women's organization as I introduced to her the newly initiated Women's Human Rights Program at Al-Haq in 1987.  In her opinion, and in the opinion of many others within the Palestinian society at the time, the work of human rights organizations should only be focussed on human rights violations committed by the Israeli military occupation.  Human rights meant to them "political rights" but not "economic, social and cultural rights."  Such rights in their opinion should only be raised in the context of the Israeli violations of these rights.  Societal human rights violations committed against women and other marginalized groups within the family and the society were not seen as a priority and were kept at the very end of the Palestinian national and human rights agenda.
 

 

Al-Haq, Law in the Service of Man, the first Palestinian human rights institution, began its days in April 1979 when a group of West Bank Palestinians established it to uphold the principles of the Rule of Law and to defend Palestinians human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  It became officially registered in 1980.  Shortly thereafter, it became the West Bank affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists in Geneva.   For a period of at least 10 years, Al-Haq was the sole affiliate of the ICJ-Geneva in the Occupied Territories.  This affiliation was particularly important during the upheaval of the intifada.  ICJ-Geneva stood steadfastly behind Al-Haq offering it protection as a human rights institution in the Occupied Territories during which time staff members were occasionally harassed or even arrested by the Israeli authorities.  This relationship fostered over a twenty-year period has strengthened the work of Al-Haq at the local level and has had considerable effect upon its work.  At the same time, this affiliation has assisted in spreading information related to the defense of human rights in the Occupied Territories internationally and raising awareness at the level of the ICJ regarding the rule of law.  This has been particularly important in helping the ICJ identify its priorities in the OPT.
 

In the more recent years, Adama Dieng, Secretary-General of the ICJ, has contributed significantly to strengthening Al-Haq as a human rights institution.
 

The relationship between Al-Haq and the ICJ is a very active one. The ICJ has co-ordinated with Al-Haq several missions that examined the legal structure of the Occupied Territories and the judicial system. The outcomes and findings of these missions were very essential for Al-Haq’s work, and are referred to by many local and international organisations. Also, the ICJ responded positively to Al-Haq’s repeated requests to arrange for jurists with outstanding experience to observe trials of special significance to Palestinians in Israeli courts. The ICJ has also intervened with the Israeli authorities on many essential issues, on the basis of information from and at the request of Al-Haq.
 

The ICJ has also provided an essential facilitating role for Al-Haq in the UN system. Through the ICJ, Al-Haq could access the UN Commission on Human Rights, in addition to many of the other specialised bodies of the UN. The activities of Al-Haq in the UN have been in total co-ordination with the ICJ, which helped in many cases to advance mutual agendas. The Vienna World Conference on Human Rights and the appointment of a Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories are relevant examples.
 

Since the establishment of the PNA, Al-Haq has closely been involved in supporting the development of an independent Palestinian Judiciary.   In relation to this, Al-Haq in 1993 in cooperation with the ICJ held a seminar entitled “Towards an Independent Palestinian Judiciary’.  This took place at the end of a two-week fact-finding mission conducted by the ICJ and its Center for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers concerning the situation of civil courts in the Occupied Territories.  The purpose of the mission was to pinpoint the problems and obstacles facing the judicial system as a whole, in light of the accepted principles of the rule of law.  Following this mission the findings of it were set out in a book entitled The Civilian Judicial System in the West Bank and Gaza: Present and Future, as well as recommendations following the seminar. These recommendations specifically outlined suggestions on the requirements of legal and judicial functions that would help lead towards an independent Palestinian judiciary.
 

A second mission, similar to the one carried out in 1993, was carried out by the ICJ and its Center for the Independence of Judges and Lawyers from January 15-25, 2000.  This mission specifically was aimed at reviewing the independence of the Palestinian Judiciary and the legal profession in Palestine and the role of the Palestinian authorities.  It also examined the role of the international financial institutions with regards to questions related to the functioning of the judiciary and Israeli infringements of the administration of justice in the Occupied Territories.  The recommendations that resulted from this mission built upon the initial recommendations that the ICJ made during its first mission in 1993.  The role of the mission was also to examine whether the previous recommendations were carried out in the six-year period interim.   In addition, during this mission, Al-Haq in conjunction with the two other Palestinian human rights institutions affiliated with the ICJ, the Palestinian Center for Human Rights and LAW, held two workshops in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip regarding ‘The Role of the Judiciary in Civil Society’.
 

It is with great pleasure that we begin a new period in Al-Haq’s history, building on our past relationships and entering into new ones.  In January 2000, the United Nations Committee on Non-Governmental Organizations recommended Al-Haq for Special Consultative Status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council.  This is truly an achievement for Al-Haq as a human rights institution not only in Palestine but also in the Arab world.  We take this responsibility seriously in continuing to persevere in our ultimate aim: the strengthening of the Rule of Law and the defense of Palestinians’ human rights as an important aspect of reinforcing international recognition of the rights of all peoples to self-determination.
 
 

Workshop ‘The Role of the Judiciary in Civil Society’, Ramallah 25.2.2000

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Mr. Shehadeh, you have been one of the founders of Al-Haq, which achievements did you strive for by establishing such an organization?
 

Before the establishment of Al-Haq there was no local organization carrying out human rights work.  Al- Haq was the first organization to do this kind of work.
 

We also strove to create a committed organization that was politically independent. This too was a first since many of the active non-governmental organizations working in the occupied territories were politically affiliated and serving one or the other of the political organizations.
 

We also had the conscious objective of creating a truly democratic organization. One that was fully owned and run by its staff.
 

The spirit of voluntarism was also very important. The founding members and several of the staff volunteered their services free of charge. They strove for no other benefits other than the satisfaction to see the success of their work. There was a unique and profound commitment on the part of those involved in the creation and development of Al-Haq.
 

This is as far as the type of organization which the founding members tried to establish. As to the kind of work done by the organization, the organization tried from the beginning to fill the enormous gap in the absence of documentation of human rights violations committed by the Israeli occupation. The advocacy on behalf of the victims of human rights violations was always a primary objective as was the promotion of the rule of law. The organization also established the first public legal and human rights library in the West Bank.
 

Do you think Al-Haq had an influence on other organizations of that kind in the region?
 

The fact, that such an outspoken and active organization as Al-Haq was possible in the occupied territories had, I believe, a strong influence on the neighboring countries. They looked up to Al-Haq both because of the fact that it was able to operate at all. But they also studied carefully how it was organized. Some of the innovative ideas generated by A- Haq extended also to the legal approach it was taking to various matters it dealt with. The enforcement project, for example, produced important literature which had influence within and outside the region.
 

It is important to remember that prior to the creation of Al-Haq the Israeli Position on the nature and conduct of the occupation was the only one heard in the world. Al-Haq was able through the approach and kind of work it did to gain credibility and become an alternative voice which eventually made a complete shift in the perception of the world about the nature of the Israeli occupation.
 

Al-Haq always tried to enforce the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention concerning the West Bank and Gaza. Do you think it succeeded in that issue?
 

The position that Al-Haq took from the beginning was that the Fourth Geneva Convention is applicable and it used it along with the Hague Regulation as standards against which to assess the human rights situation. In this the organization had made many allies. Only a political process could have succeeded in getting Israel to concede that the Fourth Geneva Convention Applied. This was beyond the powers of the organization. But the fact that Israel refused this did not deter the organization from insisting on its principle position and forging ahead with its work.
 

Which impact did the beginning of the peace process have on the work of Al-Haq?
 

It is my belief that the organization missed an important opportunity, which the beginning of the peace process provided for the following reasons:
 

First there was the best opportunity to use the strong interest generated by the political developments to promote the positions Al-Haq had been advocating for years, and, second, because the organization should have used its good standing and substantial network of friends and allies in the international human rights movement to have more of an impact on the course and outcome of the negotiations.
 

Rather than attempt to study the new situation and see what new opportunities it provided, the organization was paralyzed by the political considerations of what political position it should take towards the negotiations. This was a very grave failure which went against the ethos and tradition of the organization.
 

As a result only lip service was paid to human rights and the accords that came out of the negotiations did not have a human rights component to them.
 

How do you see the present role of a human rights organization such as Al-Haq?
 

The present situation differs in many fundamental ways from the past. I have been an outsider to the human rights work since 1991 when I left Al-Haq. From my previous involvement I realize that only an insider is privy to all the factors and conditions that must be taken into consideration in developing a strategy for human rights work. It is difficult and perhaps not prudent for me as an outsider to pontificate on these matters. What I can say is that the important feature of the present situation is its transitional nature. Perhaps this should influence to a large degree the kind of work that the organization does. Transitional situations can provide an opportunity for establishing and fortifying traditions as well as institutions which may become much more difficult to achieve once the situation settles into a permanent political structure.
 

Do you think people’s attitudes towards human rights have changed within the last twenty years?
 

The best evidence that there has been a change in people’s attitude is the fact that when Al-Haq began no one could understand what human rights work meant. There was a lot of suspicion surrounding the work and its motivation. Challenge and suspicion remain. There will always be those who reject human rights work, but they are now in the minority.

How does the fact that the PA came into power influence Al-Haq’s work?
 

The emphasis in Al-Haq’s work has always been the legal aspects. The PA tends to neglect the legal aspects. There is a lot of work for Al-Haq to do in developing the rule of law and acting as a watchdog to ensure that the legal developments are consistent with the human right principles. There is much work for the organization to do and much ingenuity is needed to determine where the line should be drawn between human rights work and political work.
 

At the beginning you mentioned that Al-Haq was also established as a new-idea organization quoting participation of its members and its democratic structure. Should the way the organization is structured change after this transitional period? Could a membership model comply with our needs?
 

The initial structure the organization took was related to what it aimed to achieve. There was no recognition of human rights as a profession. The organization wanted to develop human rights activists rather than employees in a human rights organization. This objective has now been achieved. The structure of the organization should develop in line with the organization’s objectives.
 

Whether the organization should become a membership organization is related to whether it wants to become a pressure group which will have impact as a movement that draws strength from its membership. But if Al-Haq wants to continue to be an organization that provides very specialized work, it may not need to change into a membership organization. It should also be borne in mind that a membership organization is more susceptible to political pressure.
 
 

Lots of our work has been done in the field of woman's rights, especially through our publications. We still have not installed a woman's rights unit but we are helping other organization out in that field. So do you think that Al-Haq has contributed to the issue of woman's rights?
 

In the past there was a strong women’s right movement. Al-Haq’s role was to provide it with legal advice and promote the legal aspect of the work of the movement. I believe that much has been achieved in this regard. The legal considerations are fully incorporated in the activities of the women’s movements. Many specialized women’s rights organizations have been established which are very effective.

Al-Haq used international podiums, UN-mechanisms, international campaigns and conferences as a way of promoting and defending human rights. Do you think this is a role that Al-Haq should continue to have under the PA?
 

Al-Haq must have strategy of how to help Palestine move ahead in the future as far as human rights are concerned. In future it could help Palestine as a state join the various human rights convention and afterwards help ensure that they are implemented.
 

Retaining the connection with the international bodies remains an important function for Al-Haq. You are part of the world. In former times we used these fora and institutions to advocate human rights positions. Now you have to make the necessary adjustments and continue to interact with the Human rights movement worldwide for the service of the organization’s present objectives.
 

Israeli police arresting boy during a demonstration in Jerusalem, 1989

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- Selected publications by Al-Haq -

 

Hopes that the practice of torture would end with the peace process were frustrated. The use of torture continued, in spite of the fact, that Israel is a Party signatory to the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT) since 1991. As recently as September 1999 and only after a long and determined campaign by human rights organizations, including Al-Haq, the Israeli High Court of Justice finally decided, that torture is indeed illegal in Israel. However, the High court decision did not rule out the possibility to legitimize the use of torture through new legislation. Thus, at the moment, four bill have been introduced to the Knesset – two with the aim to pass a law that would officially allow torture for so called security reasons, while the other two promote the implementation of a total ban on torture in Israeli legislation. The issue has yet to be decided by the Knesset. Meanwhile, the practice of torture against Palestinian detainees in Israeli interrogation centers was not brought to an end by the High Court decision, but new excuses were found for it: for example hand cuffing in painful positions is now explained to be necessary to protect interrogators from presumably aggressive and dangerous detainees.
 

In addition, the occurrence of torture against Palestinians in custody of the Palestinian Security Apparatus gives further need to Al-Haq and other human rights organizations to continue working on the subject of torture.

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STOP SEPARATING PALESTINIAN FAMILIES!

 

In the areas occupied since 1967, the Israeli authorities proceeded to implement a series of policies and measures, which resulted in the loss of the right of residency for Palestinians of the Occupied Territories.  From the Israeli authorities' point of view permanent residence and consequently family reunification is not an inalienable right for the Palestinians.  Rather, permanent residence is considered a privilege granted in accordance with certain criteria set by the authorities themselves.  This policy is detrimental to the right of a family to permanent residence and reunification and creates serious humanitarian and economic problems for tens of thousands of Palestinian families.  These problems continue unabated.
 

THE CAMPAIGN.  Given the humanitarian nature of the issue of family reunification, and the large number of people it affects, Al-Haq decided in 1990 to initiate an international campaign by mobilizing public opinion through the media, human rights and other non-governmental institutions. The public pressure exerted will hopefully succeed in effecting a change in Israeli policy towards family reunification. Further, it is Al-Haq's view that by publicizing widely the issue of Palestinian family reunification, public attention will be drawn to one of the most important aspects of the Palestinian problem: the dispersion and dispossession of the Palestinian people from their lands and homes.
 

The campaign, being the first of its kind to be adopted by Al-Haq, also represents a new, more activist approach in the organization's work. Lessons learned from this campaign will undoubtedly affect Al-Haq's approach to human rights activism, and will possibly open the way to other campaigns on important human rights issues in the future.
 

For further information in English see Al-Haq's Occasional Paper No 8; "The Right to Unite", by C. Whittcome, 1990

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Al-Haq's "Women, Justice and Law" Campaign

A conference took place between 16-19 September 1994 arising out of the project entitled: Women, Justice and Law: Towards the Empowerment of Palestinian Women.  The conference brought together more than 500 women and men to discuss and adopt strategies for securing the rights of Palestinian women through law.  It marked the culmination of a yearlong campaign throughout the Gaza Strip and West Bank to raise awareness and promote wide discussion of women and the law.
 

The conference and the campaign were organized by a steering committee of women activists under the auspices of Al-Haq, designed to bring together and build upon campaign activities and to formulate clear and effective action plans to promote the rights of women in the areas of health, education, work and social welfare, civil and political life, personal status law, and protection against violence.  The campaign included a number of different activities ranging from presentations and public discussions, local workshops, producing and distributing educational material to articles in the local press.
 

The wide participation of over 200 women in the campaign and conference preparation and the rich input by way of grass-roots participation ensured that efforts to develop strategies for the empowerment of women through law were rooted in and responsive to the day-to-day realities that characterize Palestinian women's lives.  The results of the campaign were used to draw up the program plan for Al-Haq's following Women's Rights Project.
 

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For the purpose of arriving at a conclusive analysis of the impacts of the illegal destruction of houses on the Palestinian population, Al-Haq has thoroughly documented all the houses, which were demolished or sealed for "security reasons" during the period from January 1981 to the end of December 1991.  Al-Haq is also monitoring the demolition of houses by the Israeli Authorities for alleged contravention of building permit law.
 

For more information in English see following Al-Haq publications: Occasional Papers No 5 "Demolition and Sealing of Houses as a Punitive Measure in the Israeli Occupied West Bank", by E. Playfair, 1987; No. 10 "Missiles and Dynamite: The Israeli Military Forces' Destruction of Palestinian Homes with Anti-Tank-Missiles and High Powered Explosives" by T. Taylor, 1993; and No 11, "Thousand and one Homes: Israeli Demolition and sealing of Houses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories", by L.Welshman, 1993; and J. Quigley: "Legal Consequences of the Demolition of Houses by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza", 1995

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Campaign to End ID Card Confiscation

This campaign was initiated by Al-Haq and other Palestinian human rights groups in March 1999 to support their Israeli partners as they challenged the legality of Israeli ID card confiscation in the Israeli Supreme Court.  The campaign quickly developed monumentum and by August its membership grew to include 23 Palestinian and Israeli human rights organizations and a number of international groups and supporters.
 

The background for this campaign is Israel's aggressive policy of reducing the Palestinian population and heritage in Jerusalem, thus changing facts on the ground in order to consolidate Israeli control over Jerusalem in sight of the final status talks.  Israel forced the status of "residency" on the Palestinian population in Jerusalem after the war in 1967 and the illegal annexation of East Jerusalem.  A status that transformed Palestinians into strangers in their hometown and made their residency rights dependent on Israeli good will. In December 1995 Israel introduced the "Center of Life" policy, forcing Palestinians to prove that they reside and work or attend school in Jerusalem in order to have their ID cards renewed. This enabled the increase of ID card confiscation by 600%, affecting an estimated number of more then 8000 individuals between 1996-98.
 

Though the Campaign resulted in the Supreme Court ruling that each case of ID cart confiscation has to be discussed separately, the situation on the ground did not change so far and thousands of Palestinian Jerusalemites are still threatened with having their ID cards confiscated and consequently to lose their right to live in their home town. Thus the efforts of the campaign to put an end to the Israeli policy of ID card confiscation continue.

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The restriction of academic freedom and education for Palestinians has been part of the Israeli occupation policy from the beginning, but was heavily intensified during the Intifada.  Education institutions and activities, teachers and students in the West Bank have been subject to a series of repressive measures, that limited the access to education for a whole generation and thus had serious long-term effects on the Palestinian population.

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By Joost Hiltermann, Human Rights Watch
 

It was on a crisp November day in 1984 that I first stepped into the small apartment on Ramallah’s main street that housed the offices of what was then known as Law in the Service of Man (a somewhat limping translation of the more universal Al-Qanoun min Ajal al-Insaan: Law in the Service of the? Human Being?).  The receptionist (who doubled as administrative assistant) sat in an entrance space immediately off a small glassed-in veranda.  The dining room served as meeting room-cum-library.  Two small bedrooms offered working space for researchers.  And the tiny bathroom accommodated copies of the organization’s few but accumulating publications, stacked neatly on thin metal shelves that I, in an unthinking moment, once managed to collapse on top of me.  (There must have been a small kitchen as well, but I do not remember it now).
 

A handful of staff resided there in the fall of 1984.  The organization’s founders, gainfully employed elsewhere, would stop by for meetings.  The three field investigators visited periodically to hand over and discuss their latest yield.  There were, if memory serves me, at most two or three computers.
 

I came to Al-Haq just at the time when it was primed for a major expansion, having got its books in order and, thanks to a handful of pioneering reports and actions, starting to receive the attention and, increasingly, accolades of key western institutions.  And it had the luck to arrive on the scene at what was from a funding perspective a particularly propitious time, the happy coincidence of the rapid growth of an international human rights movement and the equally stunning emergence of an indigenous institutional infrastructure in the Occupied Territories.  By the time the popular uprising broke out in late 1987, Al-Haq was able to deploy the strengths of one in the service of the other, and vice versa, becoming in the process an influential Palestinian voice at the height of a major human rights emergency.
 

The founders of LSM/Al-Haq, Raja Shehadeh, Jonathan Kuttab and Charles Shammas

 

Taking a nod from the international human rights movement that took off in earnest only after the 1975 Helsinki Accords, Al-Haq’s founders were keenly attuned to the need for devising new strategies to contest the ever-growing reach of a predatory occupying power and its highly mobile citizenry.  The institution they established alongside other institutions that began to come into their own in this period: the universities, the Arab Studies Society, the Arab Thought Forum, and others, as well as aforementioned grassroots movements became by its very objectives a part of what sociologist Salim Tamari has referred to as a strategy of informal resistance to the military occupation.  Planted squarely in the society that had given rise to it, Al-Haq offered a glimpse to its constituency of the alternative path that might be taken to divest itself of the occupation.  It began to provide an ever-growing audience with new linguistic tools and a concrete methodology to challenge specific actions by the governing authority.  These were presented in the form of the Know Your Rights series, one of Al-Haq’s most important undertakings during its first decade.  These booklets inculcated in those who read them the crucial notion that not only did they - Palestinians, victims, fighters, people - have fundamental rights, but they had a right to assert these rights, and the booklets showed them how they might begin to do so.
 

Even as Al-Haq was playing an educational role toward its home constituency, it reached out to the outside world both for a receptive audience and for protection, as the military government could never be trusted not to kick in the doors one day and shut the place down.  This, too, required a great educational effort, as a deep-seated prejudice against Palestinians dissuaded many activists in the United States and elsewhere from turning their attention to the Middle East and rendered Al-Haq’s objectives and methodology immediately suspect.  If the organization succeeded in making its case abroad, this was due less to its advocacy strategy, which for a long time was barely a strategy at all, than to its professionalism in documenting and reporting what even the most skeptical observer would have to admit were unconscionable violations of human rights.  And the Israelis offered a helping hand, of course, by engaging in public acts of collective punishment, like house demolitions.
 

The Palestinian institutions and grassroots organizations that proliferated in the 1980s were served by their semi-legal status (even if the military government denied them a license to operate formally, by applying for a license they had signaled their intent to function openly and carry out legal activities), the material and political support they received from governments and institutions abroad, and the fact that Israel had an inwardly democratic and open society that was broadly permissive of outspoken criticism of the outrages committed across the Green Line.  But it was especially because of Israel’s outward democratic posture that the military government found it very difficult to crack down on institutions like Al-Haq, assuming for a moment that such institutions presented any sort of real threat to the occupier’s hold over the territory and its population.  The Israeli state had a constant task to mollify its supporters in the U.S. and Europe, who saw little wrong with plucky groups like Al-Haq as long as such groups stayed away from advocating violence and terrorism.  The genius of the method fashioned by Al-Haq’s founders was that Al-Haq took Israel at its word (of being a democracy, as well as a self-declared reluctant, tolerant and benign occupier) and, playing fully by the rules of a democratic society, held it to its declared commitments, pressing it further and further as it retreated into a growing tangle of self-generated contradictions.  How could punishing a terrorist be said to compute with destroying the home in which that person’s family lived?
 

There is no doubt that the occupying power became its own worst enemy, its crude tactics exposed and exploited by Al-Haq’s sophisticated reporting.  Yet the strength of Israel was such that no amount of reporting could have brought an end to the military occupation.  It took a largely nonviolent popular uprising, massive repression marked by the extremely crude and brutal tactics of a Yitzhak Rabin, and the sudden interest of the mass media in the Palestinian reality to reverse what had seemed irreversible.  The leaders of the grassroots organizations at least, those not already in prison or exile metamorphosed into the leaders of the uprising.  And Al-Haq, its credibility established by years of accurate reporting and its voice amplified by the force of the mass movement, blasted onto the international scene.  Its magnum opus on the first year of the uprising, Punishing a Nation, became a standard reference work for human rights groups, journalists and policy makers alike.  Holly Burkhalter, an early admirer of Al-Haq who as advocacy director of Human Rights Watch oversaw the production and distribution of the U.S. edition of Punishing a Nation, today sees the significance of Al-Haq as twofold: There weren’t at that time that many groups in the South that were doing highly sophisticated human rights investigations, she says.  The movement, even in the West, was very young.  To have that kind of quality of documentation, especially from Palestinians, was very important in dispelling the prejudice that existed.  In the United States a Palestinian was an adjective modifying the noun terrorist.  Al-Haq’s work was essential in getting out the truth not only about human rights violations in the Occupied Territories, but about the Palestinians themselves.
 

That was then and this is now.  As the intifada turned inward and petered out, Al-Haq lost much of its audience and its steam, while it also began to pay the price of too rapid and uncontrolled a growth in the late 1980s.  The 1993 Oslo Accords and the arrival of the Palestinian Authority further threw the organization into confusion, and except for pursuing the brilliant innovation that was its human rights enforcement project, it was forced to spend the better part of the 1990s trying to regain its footing.  Today, as it marks its twentieth anniversary, Al-Haq is a transformed organization, a different beast altogether, set to mark a course in tune with the requirements of the new situation prevailing in Palestine.
 

To me Al-Haq will always be the Al-Haq that I knew intimately then, the Al-Haq that gave me my best friends, that taught me my passable Arabic and gave me insight and an entrée into Palestinian society, and most importantly that showed me the power of human rights.  My five years in Palestine for me were a rite of passage, my formative years, the threshold that separates the before from the after in my life.  Working for Al-Haq was frustrating at times the infuriating but indispensable legalese of its analysis; the primary institutional (elite) focus of its activism.  It often forced me to step outside and engage in extracurricular activities: writing articles for magazines in the U.S., Britain and the Netherlands, traveling throughout the West Bank to document house demolitions while delivering basic necessities to the newly homeless, and making friends among the people who were most affected by the daily depredations of the occupier

October 1999
 

Joost Hilterman is the author of Al-Haq’s following publications in English language:

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Al-Haq's Paralegal in Hebron Arrested, Served with Administrative Detention
 

On 10 March 1994, Sha'wan Jabarin, the paralegal in Al-Haq's Hebron office for legal services, was arrested and served with a six month administrative detention order.  After a meticulous search of his house that did not spare even picture frames, documents relating to Al-Haq's work were confiscated. Mr. Jabarin was not informed at the time of his apprehension of the reasons for his arrest.  He spent 40 days in detention without charge.  During his detention, Mr. Jabarin was interrogated by the Israeli authorities, primarily about his involvement in the writing of an Al-Haq report on the harassment of Palestinians by Israeli settlers.  In the absence of any charges Al-Haq had to conclude that Mr. Jabarin's arrest and detention was solely a punishment for his human rights activities. Mr. Jabarin was served with six month administrative detention, which was renewed three times, amounting to two years of detention, without any charges being brought against him.  Still, his release did not bring to end harassment and restrictions: till today, March 2000, the Israeli Authorities are preventing Mr. Jaberin from leaving the country, thus restricting his personal freedom of movement and his ability to represent Al-Haq on international conferences.

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In the concluding remarks, Al-Haq stated that the issues discussed in the three cases were not new; for years Palestinians have suffered at the hands of Israeli state agents from willful killing, willful injury, obstruction of medical aid, the killing of children, failure to protect bystanders from harm, impermissible restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, attacks on persons associated with "wanted people", disrespect for manners, customs, and religious practices and many other abuses. Such abuses are violations of international law legalized by military orders and decrees which criminalize many political and civil rights.  The orders and decrees are enforced by military personnel, some disguised as Palestinians, who use vague and broad Open Fire Regulations while capturing or killing Palestinians who are simply practicing the rights guaranteed them under international law.

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Al Haq Investigates Town Planning

By Anthony Coon, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Environmental Planning, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

In late 1988 I had a phone call from Sir Colin Buchanan: an organization in the West bank called Al-Haq wanted to investigate Israeli policies of restricting and demolishing homes of Palestinians. Colin Buchanan, the foremost British town planner at the time had been going to do it, but he was nearly 80, the intifada had begun, and could I fit this into my timetable at the university?
 

I had been teaching town planning in Glasgow since 1976. Before that I had been in Colin Buchanan's consultancy, mainly in London, Istanbul and Kuwait. In Kuwait we drew up plans for development of city and state which, as shown in the aerial reconnaissance photos published during the gulf war, were largely carried out as we had planned. While there I worked with and got to know many Palestinians, and I often thought that the West Bank would be a fascinating place for a planner to visit: planning is an attempt to resolve conflict, so the use of land under a belligerent military occupation was surely the ultimate planning conundrum.

 

So began an association with al Haq and with Palestine, which I have found profoundly fulfilling. Al-Haq wanted an objective report to investigate the needs for Palestinian development, and the extent to which and the means by which these needs were being frustrated by Israeli policy. At least up to that time there had been a tendency for world opinion to believe the Israeli story that the previous plans and Jordanian law were being faithfully followed.
 

The book which resulted was enormously helped by the kindness and insights of Raja Shehadeh and the staff of Al Haq. I particularly remember the way the field workers smuggled me swiftly and cunningly around military check points and through the dark streets of the intifada to homes, town halls, sewage spillage from settlements onto Palestinian cultivation, the remains of bulldozed houses ... The other vital support (brought into the project by Raja) was Rami Abdul Hadi who had been drawing up town and village plans at the Center for Engineering and Planning nearby, and who was (and remains) unstinting in his advice and contacts.
 

Since then I have returned on a consultancy contract in Nablus, Hebron and Dair el Balla, and for the JLAC conference in November 1998. This year I have been re-examining on behalf of Amnesty international many of the issues which were of concern in the early 1990's, but particularly house

Anthony Coon

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The Legal Services Program at al-Haq provides local residents with the opportunity to discuss their legal problems with lawyers at no cost.  Where the problem involves human rights abuse and does not require recourse to a court, al-Haq seeks redress for the community or individual in question by intervening directly with the appropriate authorities.  If, however, our efforts meet with failure or it appears that recourse to the courts is the only option, the person is advised to consult a lawyer.  Al-Haq does not represent individuals in court, nor does it cover legal expenses.  However, in cases of extreme violations, such as torture, killing and house demolition, al-Haq undertakes interventions to mobilize local and international support. Where it seems possible and necessary to fight certain patterns of human rights violations by creating legal precedents, Al-Haq also takes test cases to the Palestinian and Israeli High Courts. In this, as in the legal counseling in general, Al-Haq cooperates with other specialized human rights organizations. Thus in the year 1999 al-Haq’s Legal Services Unit received a total of 463 case, while referring many more to the Jerusalem Legal Aid Centre, LAW, Addameer, DWRC, Women’s Centre for Legal Aid and Counseling, and other organizations. The breakdown of the cases for the year 1999 is as follows:

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- Selected Publications by Al-Haq -Punishing a Nation

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By Emma Playfair, Executive Director of Interights, The International Centre for the Protection f Human Righhts

On 22 to 25 January 1988, in the unlikely context of the first month of the Palestinian intifada, or popular uprising, Al-Haq held an international conference in East Jerusalem, convening some of the foremost world experts in the international laws of war and human rights. This was the first international conference of its kind to be organized within the Occupied Territories. Most of those attending were not supporters of the Palestinian cause but scholars who had, until then, had little contact with the Arab-Israeli conflict. They came to provide independent opinions on the international laws governing the conduct of an occupying power over the people and territories it controlled, and to review Israel’s administration of the West Bank and Gaza, including East Jerusalem, against international law.
 

By 1987, Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was entering its third decade, with little sign of an end. Over the previous five years, Al-Haq had established a solid reputation for its meticulous reporting of the human rights violations that formed part of the daily life of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. As well as intervening on individual violations - either directly or by seeking the intervention of others – it had published a series of reports on such practices as deportation, administrative detention, torture, demolition and sealing of houses and separation of families. These interventions and reports were based on extensive fieldwork and always supported by carefully researched legal arguments as to why these acts constituted violations of human rights or humanitarian law. The clarity and constraint of the reports was hard to contest and contributed to a shift in international public opinion that had generally subscribed to Israel's projected image as a benevolent occupier respectful of the laws of occupation.
 

While Al-Haq had to address such violations on a daily basis, it was all too aware of the longer term threat to Palestinian rights posed by the steady transformation of the land and infrastructure of the territories themselves, altering, sometimes irrevocably, their character and integrity. Israel was introducing changes to almost every element of Palestinian life – to the economic structure, the judicial system, local government, systems of transportation, water, electricity and, most of all, to ownership and use of land. While some such changes were undoubtedly necessary with the passage of time, many appeared to be aimed at ensuring dependency on Israel or access by Israel to Palestinian resources and markets, or at serving the interests of the Israeli population being settled illegally in the Territories, rather than at serving the long-term interests of the Palestinian people’s future after the end of the occupation.
 

It is an underlying tenet of the international law governing military occupation that occupation is an inherently temporary state and that the status quo should be observed, with only those changes which are necessary for the security of the occupying forces or in the best interests of the people, so that the ability of the territories ultimately to regain their independence is not jeopardized. Al-Haq carefully documented the changes made by Israel and argued that many could not be justified on the limited grounds allowed by international law. It demonstrated further that they had profound and adverse implications for the Palestinian governance of the territories after the end of the occupation, and for the ability of the Palestinian community to exercise the fundamental human right of self-determination. Israel argued, however, that it respected the rules of international law governing its occupation, or 'administration' as it preferred to call it, but that the occupation was sui generis by reason of its length amongst other things. It relied on this firstly to argue that the main body of law relating to belligerent occupation, the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, was not applicable, and secondly to justify its own interpretations of the applicable laws, often at variance with earlier interpretations.
 

The difficulty faced by Al-Haq in countering this claim was that the terms of the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention are necessarily framed as general principles, in order to cover all forms of war. While certain provisions, such as those relating to destruction of property, deportation of peoples and treatment of prisoners, are quite clear, there are few details in the guidelines as to how the territories themselves should be governed. For this, authoritative interpretation was needed, based not only on those laws, but on the military manuals drawn up in previous wars, and on such legal precedents as the Nuremberg and Tokyo trials that followed the Second World War. Expertise was hard to find though, since the laws of war were at that time viewed as an obscure branch of the law.(1) Belligerent occupation in particular had generated little attention outside Israel since the end of the second world war, so that Israeli scholars, judges and officials, much of whose expertise was based on service within Israel's army or administration, dominated the field.
 

In the absence of independent scholarship on these issues, Al-Haq decided to seek the advice of leading scholars of the laws of war, international law and international human rights law to bring their expertise to bear on key issues relating to the administration of occupied territories. We recognized that for most this would require original research, since few had considered this issue before, but we counted on being able to stimulate the interest of academics to apply their learning to a concrete situation. We therefore designed a research project, to culminate in an international conference, through which international legal scholars, carefully selected for their independence, and in most cases without prior involvement in the conflict, would provide reasoned opinions on the current interpretations of the international laws of war and of human rights as they applied to Israel's occupation and treatment of the Occupied Territories. The legal opinions had to be based on the actual situation, but published sources on these issues are few so the international experts would be matched with local scholars and experts who would document and analyze the factual issues from within the Occupied Territories, often also requiring original research.
 

We deliberately avoided issues which normally attracted the attention of observers, in favor of the more subtle aspects of territorial, administrative and infrastructural transformation which were more complex to document and on which legal sources were few, given the rarity of long occupations. The treatment of natural resources, the power to appropriate and change usage of land, the taxation of the people, the reshaping of the legal system, the integration of the economy with that of the occupying power, the settlement of the occupier’s own population in the occupied territories, the separate administrative and legal structure applied to those settlers, and the application of the various sources of humanitarian law and human rights law governing the conduct of a belligerent occupier - these issues, which were steadily eroding the potential of the West Bank and Gaza to be self-sustaining, formed the object of our inquiry.
 

Identification of leading scholars involved extensive research and consultation, and then often careful persuasion. Some were cautious about involvement in what they perceived as a political minefield, and needed reassurance about Al-Haq's credentials, as to the serious nature of the initiative and that they were genuinely being asked to voice independent opinions. International participants included Gerhard von Glahn, author of the leading work on belligerent occupation, Adam Roberts, one of the foremost scholars of the laws of war, Antonio Cassese, later President of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, John Dugard, an expert in human rights law from South Africa, and other eminent experts in public international law and human rights law.
 

On 9 December 1987, one month before the conference was to be held, the intifada broke out in Gaza. By the time the conference started, on 22 January 1988, the intifada had spread to all parts of the Occupied Territories. 41 Palestinians had been killed, almost half of them below the age of 18. Despite powerful press coverage of the rapid escalation of violence, none of the participants withdrew. They did, however, express concern at discussing apparently abstract questions of law while people died outside. It became quickly apparent though that the questions under discussion, however arcane, were at the heart of the intifada. It was precisely because of the actions Israel was taking in the name of the law – the expropriations of land, the annexing of Jerusalem, the absorption of the occupied territories into the occupier’s state – denying a future to the people, that years of pent-up frustration exploded into the intifada. Through meetings and visits, arranged between sessions, the participants were able to witness both the causes of the intifada and its violent repression by the Israeli authorities.
 

The project had three elements. The first was to clarify the framework of international law relating to belligerent occupation, particularly the application of the Hague Regulations and the Geneva Convention, and the applicability of human rights law in times of occupation. The second element was to examine particular aspects of administration of occupied territories, namely the form an administration should take, the right of association under occupation reflecting people’s ability to participate in the administration, taxation, and the powers and duties of an occupier in relation to land. The final aim of the project was to consider methods of enforcement of humanitarian and human rights law, both through law and by mobilizing public opinion and requiring action.
 

Participants rejected resoundingly Israel's contention that the Fourth Geneva Convention does not apply to its occupation. The inherently temporary nature of occupation was emphasized again and again, as was the illegality of any steps taken that irreversibly alter the character of the territories occupied, except within well-defined situations of necessity, or which seek to assert sovereignty or to pre-empt eventual withdrawal from the territories occupied. Far from confirming Israel's contention that the length of the occupation permitted it to override these provisions, participants agreed that the longer the occupation, the more important it was to hold firmly to the provisions and to interpret them restrictively. Participants also confirmed that human rights law applies, with certain exceptions, even under occupation, supplementing the provisions of humanitarian law. Both international and national participants criticized, to varying degrees, the Israeli High Court’s rulings and expressed disappointment at its role. Views differed on important points – for instance the extent to which the occupation itself is illegal (some felt that it was, while others felt that international law does not yet support this point), the weight that an occupier can attach to military necessity, and the legitimacy of a levée en masse, as an expression of will of the people.
 

Immediately after the conference, Al-Haq had necessarily to devote its attention very substantially to addressing the daily emergencies and gross violations occurring during the intifada, which continued to stretch its capacity to the limit for a number of years. While Al-Haq’s ‘Enforcement Project’, develop at the same time as the Conference, drew on and developed the arguments discussed at the conference, we were not otherwise able to devote the resources needed to develop a systematic challenge to those aspects of Israeli policy which the conference had shown to be clearly violative of international law, as planned. However, the publication of the papers by a respected legal publisher ensured that the findings of the conference reached a wide audience both within Palestine and Israel, and in the international legal community.
 

The conference exemplified Al-Haq’s approach, which was that of an activist organization, basing its work only on the rule of law and on internationally established standards of human rights and humanitarian law, employing the strictest professional and independent standards. Arising from Al-Haq’s frustration at the lack of available independent expertise, which hindered its ability to address serious violations of human rights, the project typically relied on Al-Haq’s fieldwork and brought to bear both international and local expertise to seek clarification of the crucial provisions of international law relating to a belligerent occupation.
 

A decade after the conference, its findings remain relevant not only to those seeking to address ongoing human rights violations in the Palestinian territories, but also to civilians caught in other situations of occupation or conflict. The published views of legal experts are an important source of international and customary law, so that the expert contributions to this conference will directly contribute to the development and interpretation of humanitarian law. We hope also that the conclusions of the international and local experts, documenting the effects of the illegal measures and clearly establishing the violations of international law, can be of use in negotiations towards an end to the Israeli occupation, which international law requires, and in the determination of restitution and compensation.

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- Selected Publications by Al-Haq -

Taxation in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza 1967-1989

 

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- Selected Publications by Al-Haq -

The By-Pass Road Network in the West Bank

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Since many years Al-Haq is engaged in promoting human rights education in Palestine through providing legal information material - like the Arabic language series "Know Your Rights", conducting local workshops and using more unconventional means like theatre. In this Al-Haq cooperates with various other Palestinian organizations, for example, between 1994 and 1996 a joint campaign for human rights education was conducted with the Palestinian Human Rights Information Center and the Palestinian groups of Amnesty International, focusing especially on schools and popular education in the refugee camps and villages, but also addressing Palestinian decision makers.
 

 In 1999 Al-Haq and the popular theater group Sanabel, produced a play entitled "Ana Insan" (I am human). The play is based on provisions of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and tackles political and social problems facing Palestinian society.  Among the issues addressed are early marriage and the "security belt" imposed by the Israeli Occupation Authorities which denies people freedom of movement, employment opportunity rights as well as their rights to worship and medical treatment. It also deals with abolishing discrimination between men and women and the right of women to be partners in the construction and development of society. Furthermore, the production addresses children's to education and mobility as well as the rights of disabled children to be provided sufficient care and to live a normal life.
 

Also as a part of its efforts to promote human rights education, Al-Haq is currently preparing a series of brochures on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights that will be used in Palestinian schools.

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Al-Haq’s library is an extensive collection of books and periodicals relating to human rights and international law.  There are currently 3233 books and references cataloged according to the Library of Congress classification system in the Al-Haq library, of which 1706 are in Arabic and 1527 are in English.    Al-Haq’s library is the first public law library, specializing in human rights and international law, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The library contains Jordanian and Israeli laws, legislation from other Arab countries, Israeli military orders, and primary and secondary resources on international law and human rights; many of which are otherwise unavailable to the public in the area and region. Additionally, the library has a collection of books relating to the political, economic and social development, and history of the Middle East. It also has periodicals and journals regarding human rights from many different countries as well as strong relationships of exchange built up over the years with human rights institutions and libraries all over the world.
 

The library represents an important service to the community, specifically to academics, lawyers, lawmakers, and the populace at large, who use the library on a regular basis.  The library represents an important conduit of information for the Palestinian population.  The Al-Haq library is currently utilized by an average of 4-5 researchers on a daily basis, given the reputation that it has developed over the years and its specialization in human rights law.  The expansion and development of the Al-Haq library is one of the cornerstones to sustaining the organization.  The Al-Haq library represents an important part of the Al-Haq foundation and it is also integral to the continuation of the other Al-Haq programs.  In addition to the professional readers who utilize the Al-Haq resources, Al-Haq professional staff also rely quite heavily on the resources contained in the Al-Haq library to support the research they are undertaking and their local and international campaigning work.
 

It is a long-term goal of Al-Haq to provide greater access to Al-Haq’s library by extending its hours into the evening, as many researchers undertake their work after office hours.  Furthermore, as several of the universities in Palestine, such as Al-Quds University, An-Najah University and Al-Azhar University in Gaza, have expanded their curriculums to include international law it will also be beneficial to students to have extended hours when they can do research after classes.  Many of these students have already begun to undertake research at the Al-Haq library.  With a resource base of over 8000 resources, the current library space also is no longer adequate to house all of its documents.  Thus, Al-Haq also intends in the long term to move the library to a separate, larger facility (next door to the organization’s headquarters), in order to increase accessibility to the public.  Finally, it is a long-term goal of Al-Haq to develop a separate web-site for the library, which will also provide access to the Al-Haq library database to enable researchers to do research from a remote site.
 
 

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- Selected Publications by Al-Haq -

Al-Haq’s Press Releases

One of Al-Haq’s most important tools of immediate intervention are its press releases. While drawing the local and international attention on urgent cases of human rights violations, these press releases also provide a legal analyses on these events and exposes – where given – the structure of systematic human rights violations behind them. Thus the collection of Al-Haq’s press releases became to mirror the development of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict during the last twenty years.
 

Palestinian girl, that was injured by a bullet while being in her home

Israeli soldiers breaking the door of a shop during an Intifada strike, Ramallah

Teargas can thrown into a home by Israeli soldiers, 1988

Destruction of property during a house raid

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By Dr. Lynn Welchman, Director of the Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law, SOAS, University of London
 

Years after the enforcement project started at Al-Haq, I was having a conversation with a prominent human rights lawyer about universal jurisdiction and the deterrent potential of prosecutions, against the background of the Rwanda and former Yugoslavia tribunals.  I brought up (as one does, especially if one has worked at Al-Haq) the issue of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions and she looked at me and said ‘yes, you lot at Al-Haq were really ahead of your time.’  It was, I felt, a well-deserved tribute to the organization, its founders, and the people who worked there. The vision of Al-Haq was so fresh and innovative, in its time and context, that for years after its establishment you still found yourself having to explain it - and often defend it - both in Palestine and abroad.  This was also the case with the enforcement project, a project born and nurtured at Al-Haq which, despite developing into a difficult child, provided a source of innovative argument and advocacy that built on Al-Haq’s core strengths to take the challenge of enforcement out to those properly charged with it under the law.
 

The founder of the enforcement project was of course Charles Shammas, one of the original founders of Al-Haq.  It was Charles who recruited me to Al-Haq in Ramallah in the early months of 1983 when, after a rather unnerving interview, I found myself seated for the first time ever behind a computer (very large and complete with all sorts of suspiciously whirring noises) working on the database project.  These were very early days: Al-Haq had at that time no telephone (we would run up Main Street to Raja Shehadah’s office if we needed to use one) and not very good wiring: the computer in particular was sensitive to electricity dips and I remember several occasions realizing someone was about to enter the bathroom and yelling “don’t turn the light on...” just too late to save my day.  Also imprinted in my memory is the first time the computer faced me (and my life) with those two most chilling of words: FATAL ERROR.  It still makes me shudder.
 

By the time the enforcement project got up and running, Al-Haq had moved into the ‘new office’ across the road and expanded its staff and its mandate considerably.  Preliminary work during 1987 showed a market (as Charles would, inevitably, term it, to the consternation of some of our colleagues) for the arguments and from then on, against the background of the intifada, ‘the enforcement team’ pursued the arguments for international protection on the basis of third party states’ legal obligations.  These arguments proceeded from the fundamental premise that all High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War have a direct duty under law towards the protected population of occupied territories.  This is through the inclusion in article 1 common to all four Geneva Conventions of the “inter-state” duty to ensure not only that a state’s own agents and institutions respect the terms of the Conventions, but also that other state signatories respect them in all circumstances. This duty distinguishes the position of the international community of states from the position it generally seeks to adopt vis-à-vis human rights violations that occur within the sovereign territory of another state (with certain exceptions).  This duty to “respect and to ensure respect for” the Convention is developed in Article 146 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which creates an obligation to prosecute individuals of any nationality responsible for  committing grave breaches of the Convention (that is to say, war crimes, listed in Article 147).  In 1977, the duty was further developed in Article 89 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions by mandating HCPs to act individually and jointly in cases of serious violations of the Convention or the Protocol, in cooperation with the United Nations and in conformity with the UN Charter.
 

The members of Al-Haq’s enforcement team were mandated by the organization to dedicate their work time to developing these and related legal arguments, articulating the thinking behind them, including the link between durable conflict resolution and the prohibition under the law of predatory and annexationist conduct and related violations on the part of an Occupying Power, and identifying and exploring ways and means available to powerful third party states to discharge this obligation as effectively as possible.  It was the difference between having states assert their ‘right’ to comment on Israel’s behavior in the Occupied Territories, and having them move towards statements and actions that acknowledged a legal duty to uphold the protections of international humanitarian law in the face of the refusal of successive Israel governments to recognize the de jure applicability of the Convention and to behave accordingly.
 

Enforcement work took members of the team to Brussels and Strasbourg to meet with MEPs and members of the European Commission, producing painstakingly detailed briefings on the law and the instruments controlled by European states and the then Community through which they might fulfil their obligations.  In national contexts in Europe the team worked with domestic non-governmental organizations and parliamentarians to bring the arguments to the attention of their governments, with national symposia organized in London 1989, Dublin 1990, The Hague 1991 and London again 1992. The team worked with lawyers, academics, activists, international human rights organizations, development agencies, civil servants and politicians. Marc Stephen’s paper, published in 1989 as Enforcement of International Law in the Israeli-occupied Territories, provided us with an initial legal briefing; otherwise most of our writing was done in the form of targeted briefings and interventions to and often for particular third parties and in specific contexts. At home, the project became increasingly integrated into Al-Haq’s main program, including contributing the final chapters to each of the second and third annual reports on human rights violations during the uprising (Nation under Siege and Protection Denied).  Enforcement arguments were incorporated into the body of Al-Haq’s interventions, press releases and group briefings.
 

In pursuit of legal remedies, the enforcement team looked at setting up ‘grave breaches files’ and sought advice from European lawyers as to what would be needed to activate the domestic legislation incorporating the grave breaches provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention.   The grave breaches of the Convention identified as such in the terms of the law itself (article 147) include unlawful deportation, willful killing, unlawful confinement, torture or inhuman treatment, and other crimes being carried out routinely by the Israeli occupation forces against the Palestinian population at that time.  Although quite a bit of interest was raised in the subject, it became clear (and remains so, despite recent developments and the growing consensus around the exercise of universal jurisdiction) that the legal remedies provided for under international humanitarian law -- in terms of third-state prosecutions for grave breaches -- were effectively not available for use in the protection of an occupied population unless you had real political will on your side from the state in which the evidence was going to be produced.  Even getting the right sort of evidence was going to be difficult for an  NGO; but it was important to take the prospect of legal remedy seriously.
 

Another instrument on which the project concentrated was the EU’s preferential relations with Israel, on the basis that so long as Israel remained in systematic and grave violation of its existing commitments to the member states of the EU (as fellow High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention) there were serious obstacles to the EU considering the extension of further preferential terms to its relations with Israel.  This particular aspect of the work has new dimensions in the debate on the ratification in various EU member states of the EU-Israel Association Agreement with its ‘human rights conditionality’ clause in article 2.
 

Much of the enforcement team’s effort went into developing legal argument and seeking to have key actors acknowledge the implications of third party state obligations under international humanitarian law. This meant making the law and complex legal arguments meaningful to politicians and other non-lawyers, without engaging ourselves in politics.  It meant getting and keeping busy people’s attention on the strength of nothing but the rigor, integrity and innovative energy of the arguments.  In all this the ‘enforcement team’ - which included many ‘Al-Haqqers’ down the years - was grounded in and supported by the energy of the organization itself, with Al-Haq’s core work providing the basis on which every argument was founded, and Al-Haq’s vision setting the objectives.
 

There were landmarks along the way, including the Dublin Declaration of 1990, when the European Council for the first time referred to the article 1 obligation in a policy declaration on the Middle East; Security Council Resolution 681 of the same year, when the Council directly called for action in accordance with article 1 and endorsed the idea of convening a meeting of High Contracting Parties to discuss what measures might be taken under the Convention.  The idea of a conference was of course re-visited this summer.  Low points the same year, just by way of illustration, included the resolute refusal (continued till today) of powerful third parties to use the term “grave breach” when referring to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian population ‘protected’ by the Convention.  Just as, years later, the US was to hedge during crucial months on the use of the word ‘genocide’ in relation to the massacres being carried out in Rwanda, so the legal implications of ‘grave breaches’ were constrained to the UN resolutions regarding Iraq’s conduct in Kuwait at this same time in 1990.
 

Like Al-Haq itself, and perhaps human rights workers everywhere, the enforcement project took a determinedly anti-cynical stand in the face of what were - and are - admittedly rather compelling challenges: its whole effort was premised on the possibility of getting influential third party states to move - incrementally and in ways that would serve as precedent - towards law-based enforcement of the protections enshrined in international humanitarian law, as a part of their foreign policy.  The point was to take the law at its word, to take its guarantors at their word, and to call them on it.  Without being grandiose, the whole of humanity, and sooner rather than later, has an interest in knowing that humanitarian law can and will work to protect those who have effectively no other protection.  That argument still has to be made, particularly to powerful states (specifically the EU and USA) whose record of stunning selectivity in matters of international law enforcement, combined with the weight of their power and influence, serves to undermine their own claims of universality of values, to the detriment of the struggle to promote and protect human rights around the world.
 

In Palestine, the fact that international humanitarian law has been so emphatically left out of the successive Israel-PLO agreements in the various agreements making up the Oslo Accords has presented particular obstacles to law-based action by key third party states. Since 1993, the continuation of the peace process itself -- on almost any terms, it seems -- has been the overriding political priority; and since Israel has presented any attempt to introduce the law into the equation as interference with a properly bilateral process, backed up in this by the US, the arguments for law-based enforcement action have been even harder to make than before. This summer, the debate on whether or not a conference of High Contracting Parties should be convened, as demanded by the General Assembly, to consider measures to enforce the Convention in the Occupied Palestinian Territory rekindled the chronic argument on whether the political imperative of supporting the Palestinian-Israeli peace process can be reconciled with the imperative to uphold the rule of law.  The result was, for the law, and arguably for the peace process also, not a felicitous one.
 

Whether, when the ‘final settlement’ is formulated, its terms will show recognition of and deference to the regulatory framework of international humanitarian law; whether that same framework and other principles of international law will be recognized as properly governing matters of redress and reparation; in short whether, in the end, the law will finally come to the protection of the rights of the Palestinian population, albeit after the fact for many of them -- these are pressing and imminent enforcement-related questions that challenge Al-Haq and other human rights organizations today.  They will moreover stand as precedent for what the law can and cannot be made to do for those dependent upon its protection, both in Palestine and elsewhere.  These are pressing times for enforcement work.
 

 

- International Protection and International Diplomacy: Policy Choices for Third Party States in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. A case study of the TIPH (Temporary International Presence in Hebron), 1995

-Thousand and One Homes: Israeli Demolition and Sealing of Houses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories; Occasional Papers No 11, 1993
 

Teargas can left behind after an attack of Israeli settlers from Kiryat Arba’ on residents of the Deisheh refugee camp

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Al-Haq and its Societal Programs: The Women's Rights Program

By Randa Seniora

"Go do something with your partner Amnesty International regarding arbitrary arrests, torture and ill treatment of Palestinian prisoners by the Israeli military occupation, and leave women's problems to be resolved privately and discretely by the extended Family".
 

This was the immediate response of a pioneering women's figure heading a charitable women's organization as I introduced to her the newly initiated Women's Human Rights Program at Al-Haq in 1987.  In her opinion, and in the opinion of many others within the Palestinian society at the time, the work of human rights organizations should only be focussed on human rights violations committed by the Israeli military occupation.  Human rights meant to them "political rights" but not "economic, social and cultural rights."  Such rights in their opinion should only be raised in the context of the Israeli violations of these rights.  Societal human rights violations committed against women and other marginalized groups within the family and the society were not seen as a priority and were kept at the very end of the Palestinian national and human rights agenda.

 When I joined Al-Haq in August 1987 as the coordinator of the Women's Rights Program, I was given free hand to develop the project as I saw
most suitable. No clear vision was still there: in no more than few words, I was told that "women's rights were human rights", and therefore "its
due time to integrate women's rights into human rights and see them as an integral part of human rights." It was obvious that the organization
was motivated by its strong commitment to the idea of human rights and its conviction of the interrelated and invisible relationship between
civil, political rights and economic social and cultural rights. But there was no clear vision as to how to transfer such an idea from theory into
practice; much has been left for future brainstorming within the organization and the initiative of the coordinator. 

Prior to that, there were two other societal programs started by Al-Haq; "The Labor Rights Program” initiated in 1985 and the "Rights to
Development Program" initiated in 1986. All programs were structurally within the Research Unit of the Center. Despite that, coordinators of all
three programs although researchers themselves, had to strive for their projects within the unit and with other units of the organization. Being
under occupation meant that despite the significance of the issues raised, and despite realizing the impact of social on the political and visa
versa, monitoring and working on Israeli violations of Palestinian rights was given priority over any other work. This was even more so during
the Palestinian Intifada in December 1987. It was not until a couple of years later that we realized that the Intifada was a matter of everyday life
within the Palestinian society, and that we needed to focus on some problematic human rights issues that are not necessarily related to Israeli
violations of human rights. 

From the early nineties, Al-Haq's societal programs have witnessed a significant turning point. Much more attention was given to societal
problems. With regard to the Women's Rights Program, much more emphasis was given to violations of women's rights within the family and
society. Different projects were initiated. Some merely focussed on issues related to women within the Palestinian society, such as training and
legal literacy programs to highlight sexual discrimination in existing law' especially Family Status Law. While other projects focussed on the
impact of Israeli violations of human rights on women; such as the impact of Israeli policies related to family reunification, house demolition and
other violations of human rights on the lives of Palestinian women. Others were issues related to gender based violence; the impact of the
Intifada on the exacerbation of this problem within the Palestinian family. 

The early nineties have generally witnessed an important development within the Palestinian society. 
Both women's organizations and specialized professional women's centers started to address legal and social problems related to women. The
societal problems related to clear discrimination in existing laws and practice within the society meant that problems of marriage, divorce,
custody of children, the enforcement of the veil on women and violence cannot go unnoticed. Different professional organizations initiated
projects to address these issues. Al-Haq started to function within a Palestinian environment much more sensitive to women's human rights
issues.
The peak was the 1994 "Women, Justice and Law: Towards the Empowerment of Palestinian Women". The project aimed at initiating social
discussion within the Palestinian society on the legal and social status of Palestinian women. Although initiated by Al-Haq, the project was
carried out in collaboration with different women's organizations. Numerous workshops and discussions were undertaken in different places in
the West Bank and Gaza. The work culminated by an international conference held in September 1994, and plans of action were developed. 
Later such plans of action were adopted and implemented by other women's human rights organizations such as the Women's Center for Legal
Aid and Counseling. The political transformations within the Palestinian society after Oslo, and the transfer of some powers to the Palestinian
Authority, and the election of a Palestinian Legislative Council in 1996, has opened new options for Palestinian women. Today we see Al-Haq
and other human rights and women's rights organizations lobbying for legislation and policies based on equality, non-discrimination and
respect for women's human rights. 

Working with Al-Haq on the Women's Rights Program for over ten years has meant a lot to me. Al-Haq was the initiator of the idea of human
rights within the Palestinian society and in this sense was in and by itself a school for many of us who are currently active in the field of human
rights within the Palestinian society. It is there at Al-Haq where I started with a job but ended with a life-long commitment to the idea of human
rights. 

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AL-HAQ’S LIST OF PUBLICATIONS 1999 – A Selection 
The Israeli settlements in Light of International Humanitarian Law. By Nasser Alrayess. Al-Haq 1999 Arabic 
Analysis of Palestinian Civil Service Law 1998. By Dr. Adnan Amer. Al-Haq 1999. Arabic 
In light of the Israeli Draft law on Denying Compensation to Palestinians: Accountability of the Israeli Occupier for Violations of Palestinians
Rights. By Mustafa Mar’i and Munir Pujara. Al-Haq 1998. English 
Plunder, Destruction and Despoliation.. An Analysis of Israeli’s Violations of the International Law of Cultural Property in the Occupied West
Bank and Gaza Strip. By Joanna Oyediran. Al-Haq 1997. English 
The Right to Housing in the Gaza Strip. A Joint Study With The Gaza-Based Palestinians Center for Human Rights. By Issam Younis. Al-Haq &
PCHR 1997. Arabic 
The By-Pass Road Network in the West Bank. An Analysis of the Effects of the By-Pass Road Network on the Palestinian Territories. By
Samira Shah. Al-Haq 1997. English 
Notes on the Proposed Labor Law in Palestine. By Mervat Rishmawi. Al-Haq 1997. Arabic
Israeli Legislation and Procedures Regarding Residency in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By Rizeq Shuquir. Al-Haq 1997. Arabic
The Right to Freedom of Asembly: An Analysis of the Position of the Palestinian National Authority. By Mustafa Mar’i., Al-Haq 1997. English 
Equality Rights of Palestinian Female Workers. By Mervat Rishmawi. Al-Haq 1997. Arabic 
The Proposed International Criminal Court: A True Mechanism to Implement Universal Criminal Justice? By Riziq Shuqeir. Al-Haq 1997. Arabic 
Human Rights and Sustainable Human Development in Palestine. By Marvat Rishmawi. Published Jointly in 1997 by Al-Haq and the
Sustainable Human Development Project in Palestine. Arabic 
Reconstruction of the Events of Late September 1996 in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Al-Haq 1997. Arabic\English 
Report on the 1996 Palestinian Elections. A joint report by Al-Haq, the London-based Article 19 and the Geneva-based International
Commission of Jurists. 1997. English 
Human Rights in the Proposed Palestinian Basic Law During the Interim Period. Al-Haq 1996. Arabic 
Women With Special Needs: Towards Equal Rights and Equal Opportunities. By Angela Gaff, Intissar Qawas and Amineh Odeh. Al-Haq 1996.
Arabic 
Jerusalem: Its Legal Status and the Possibility of a Durable Settlement . By Riziq Shuqair. Al-Haq 1996. Arabic\English 
Torture for Security: The Systematic Torture and Ill-Treatment of Palestinians by Israel. By Melissa Phillips. Al-Haq 1995. English. 
Legal Consequences of the Demolition of Houses by Israel in the West Bank and Gaza. By Professor John Quigley. Al-Haq 1995. Arabic 
The Human Rights of Persons with Disabilities. By Angela Gaff. Al-Haq 1994 Arabic 
The Applicability of Human Rights Law to Occupied Territories: The case of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By Linda Bevis. Al-Haq 1994.
English 
A Human Rights Assessment of the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements for Palestinians. Al-Haq 1994.
Arabic\English 
An Ailing System. Israeli Militery Government Health Insurance in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. By Linda Bevis and Zuhair Sabbagh.
Al-Haq 1993 Arabic \ English 
Thousand and One Homes: Israeli Demolition and Sealing of Houses in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. A By Lynn Welchman. Al-Haq
1993. English. 
Missiles and Dynamite: The Israeli Military Forces’ Destruction of Palestinian Homes with Anti-Tank Missiles and High-Powered Explosives.
By Tom Taylor. Al-Haq 1993. Arabic \ English 
An Illusion of Legality: A Legal Analysis of Israel’s Mass Deportation of Palestinian on 1st Dec. 1992. By Angela Gaff. Al-Haq 1993. Arabic 
International Law and the Administration of Occupied Territories: Two Decades of Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Proceeding of
a Conference Organized by Al-Haq, edited by Emma Playfair. Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1992. English 
Town Planning Under Military Occupation : An Examination of the law and Practice of Town Planning in the Occupied West Bank. Prepared for
Al-Haq by Professor Anthony Coon. Al-Haq 1992. English 
Victims of Torture Speak Out. Testimonies of Thirteen Palestinian Victims of Torture. Edited by Riziq Shuqair. Al-Haq 1992. Arabic / English 
Protection Denied: Continuing Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, 1990. Al-Haq 1991. English 
Taxation in the Occupied West Bank 1967-1989. By Marc Stephens. Al-Haq 1990. English 
The Right to Unit. The family Reunification Question in the Occupied Palestinian Territories: Law and Practice. By Candy Whittome. Al-Haq
1990 English 
A Nation under Siege: Al-Haq Annual Report on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories 1989. Al-Haq 1990. English 
Enforcement of International Law in the Israeli-Occupied Territories. By Marc Stephens. Al-Haq 1989 English 
Punishing a Nation: Human Rights Violations During the Palestinian Uprising, December 1987 - December 1988. Al-Haq 1988. English 
Occupier’s Law: Israel and West Bank. Prepared for Al-Haq by Raja Shehadeh Revised Edition. Institute of Palestine Studies, 1988. Arabic 
Demolition and Sealing of Houses as a Punitive Measure in the Israeli Occupied West Bank. By Emma Playfair. Al-Haq 1987 English 
Planning in Whose Interest? Land Use Planning as a Strategy for Judaization. By Mona Rishmawi. No.4. Al-Haq 1986 English 
Palestinian Women: Their Historical Experience and Situation. By Mona Rishmawi. Al-Haq 1986. Arabic 
Israel’s Deportation Policy in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza. By Joost Hiltermann. Al-Haq 1986. English 


Al-Haq would like to thank all those people who contributed to its work over the first 20 years
Lina Abdallah, Reem Abd al-Hadi, Lora Abrahams, Gamal Abouali, Yusef Abu al-Jidyan, Nawal Abu Hadid, Raqiyya Abu Qatish, Lamis
al-Alami, Mohammad Ayoub, Nizar Ayoub, Omar Ayoub, Fateh Azzam, Iyad al-Barghouti, Khaled Batrawi, Kaima Bennoune, Linda Bevis,
Kathy Cook, Suhail Daibes, Hussain Daifallah, Samer Dajani, Arwa Dana, Judie Dick, Virgil Falloon, Angela Gaff, Maherin Gangat, George
Giacaman, Iyad al-Haddad, Osama Halabi, Sumaya Hamdan, Nabeel Handal, Pauline Hanna, Afaf Harb, Naila Hasbout, Nadine Hasassian,
Francis Hasso, Roger Heacock, Raqiya Hilal, Timothy Hillier, Joost Hiltermann, Paul Hunt, Nina Ismail, Tawfiq Jabarin, Ali Jarbawi, Nadia Jabri,
Ahmad Jaradat, Zahi Jaradat, Najwa Jardali, Abdul-Karim Kanaan, Toni Khashram, Asma Khader, Lima Khayyo, Eileen Kuttab, Moustafa Mar’i,
Amid Masri, Ann McMillan, Sami Mshasha, Amr Musa, Akram Nakhleh, Mohammad Namara, Shereen Naser, Joanna Oyediran, Amina Oudeh,
Osama Oudeh, Samiyya Oudeh, Melissa Phillips, Emma Playfair, Mounir Pujara, Hanan Qatan, Souha Qatan, Intisar Qouass, Mouin Rabbani,
Mirvat Rishmawi, Mona Rishmawi, William Roshman, Izz-Eddine al-Ruzzi, Zuhair Sabbagh, Khalid Safi, Lamia Samamkeh, Jaqueline Shahinian,
Khamis Shalabi, Charles Shammas, Ghazi Shashtari, Aziz Shehadeh, Fuad Shehadeh, Raja Shehadeh, Rami Shehadeh, Riziq Shuqair, Randa
Sinyora, Marc Stevens, Sarah Sullivan, Sharon Sullivan, Akram Tamimi, Inger Tangborn, Lisa Taraki, Tom Taylor, Raba'a Wadi, Lynn
Welchman, Joanna Wells, Candy Whittome, Issam Younes, Ibtisam Zaqout 
Heidi Niggemann, Steve Kosokoff, Mark Pfletschinge, Lina Zalatimo, Suehila el-Kateb.
Al-Haq would like to apologize for those names which may be missing on this list. 
Present Board of  Trusties
Said Zeidani (Chair)
Ala' al-Bakri
Lily Faidi
Jonathan Kuttab
Camille Mansour
Dalal Salameh
Nidal Taha
Amin Thalji

Present Staff
Mohammad Abu Harthieh (Dir.)
Muhammad Abdrabboh
Nasser Abu Khdeir
Daoud Dirawi
Shawan Jabarin

Amneh Mabad
Rafeef Mujahid
Lina Mustaklem
Nasser al-Raiis
Khader Rantisi
Ellen Saliba
Fayed Snaf
Emily Edson(Vol)

Ornella Di Loreto(Vol.)


Al-Haq’s Funders: 
Australian Embassy 
CEBEMO
Chistian Aid
Church of Brethren
Church of Sweden Aid
Consulat General De France
Danchurch Aid
EEC
Evangelische Zentralstelle fuer Entwicklungshilfe E.V. (EZE)
Finish Representative Office
Ford Foundation
ICCO
ICJ
ICJ Swedish Section
Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust LT
Lawyer Committee for Human Rights
Norwegian Law Students
Norwegian Representative Office
NOVIB
Rhododendron Trust
SIDA
Sidcot School
Swiss Development Cooperation
United Church Board for World Ministries
United Church of Canada, Division of World Outreach

Al-Haq’s Funders in 1999 and 2000
British Council 
British Consulate General
Canada Fund
Royal Danish Representative Office
Ford Foundation
Friedrich Ebert Stiftung
ICJ / Center of Independent Lawyers
ICJ / Swedish Section
Institute of International Education
Landmine Monitor
Mission and Worldservice of the Reformed Churches in the Netherlands
National Council of Churches
Norwegian People’s Aid
Oxfam – Great Britain
Representative office of Norway \ Ministry of foreign Affairs Norway
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland
United Church Board for World Ministries
UNAIS
Windows destroyed by Israeli soldiers
School raided by Israeli soldiers during the Intifada