By Dr. Khalid Ariqat

    All along 9 days and second by second everybody was eagerly following what was going on in Wye Plantation; waiting for an agreement that would achieve some gains that have been listed before in other signed agreements. One to recall is the “Washington Declaration” in 1993, which states the principle “ Land For Peace “ based on UN resolutions 242 and 338 as the legal foundation. These resolutions specify the land within the perspective of the military occupation and the granting of the Palestinian people a chance to build up its independent political body and create natural relations with its neighboring countries based on mutual respect and good neighborhood.

    Wye Plantation agreement has come as an assurance to the peace process by all the parties who have signed it and yet an enhancement to the legal understanding for all the bodies who have signed. These parties are considered to have an abstract personality in International Law, which enables them to be legal personalities who can enter into legal relations with all the personalities of International Law. At this stance, the real confirmation on the personality of the Palestinian party arises in its manifestation of an abstract personality that has the perspective of a legal personality, which can make commitments and gain rights from carrying out relations with other personalities of International Law. These relations are legal and competent relations that embody the legal criterion for the different parts that are involved. Moreover, this is a newly gained support that is to be added to the legitimacy of the Palestinian party in proving its abstract personality alongside with other countries who have sovereignty. In this regard, Wye Plantation comes as an enhancing step for the previous ones, which contributed to laying the criteria of the Palestinian party’s abstract personality and also to adding to its international legitimacy. Thus enabling it, the Palestinian party to enter into international relations as a step towards the establishment of the national Palestinian sovereignty over all the lands that should be under the Palestinian control according to the peace treaty. Furthermore, this step comes to complete all the required criteria for the embodiment of the Palestinian State, which was declared by the national council in 1988. Worth emphasizing is that both the sovereignty and control criteria over the freed lands are the most important ones along with the rest of the required criteria to declare and embody a state.

Thus a state can:

0. Establish natural relations;
1. Achieve mutual recognition;
2. Enter into international treaties and conventions;
3. Establish good neighborhood;

    All these capabilities exists among natural members of the international community only, who have an abstract personality that is capable of commitment, gaining rights, entering into relations with others and independently practicing its commitments and rights and getting legal results for these practices.

    Consequently, Wye Plantation agreement contributes a lot to make a significant change in the state’s recognition from a so called “ de facto “ recognition, which is exposed to end as long as it does not have all the criteria to achieve full recognition, into a “de jura” recognition, which is unlike the “de facto” recognition means a final and permanent recognition that holds all the legal criteria that is required to compose a full abstract personality.