Beyond Occupation: Apartheid, Colonialism and International Law in the Occupied Palestinian Territories - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0745332358 ISBN 13: 9780745332352

Publisher: Pluto Press, 2012

Synopsis

Beyond Occupation looks at three contentious terms that regularly arise in contemporary arguments about Israel's practices towards Palestinians in the occupied territories - occupation, colonialism and apartheid - and considers whether their meanings in international law truly apply to Israel's policies. This analysis is timely and urgent - colonialism and apartheid are serious breaches of human rights law and apartheid is a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The contributors present conclusive evidence that Israel's administration of the Palestinian territories is consistent with colonialism and apartheid, as these regimes are defined in human rights law. Their analysis further shows that these practices are deliberate Israeli state policies, imposed on the Palestinian civilian population under military occupation. These findings raise serious implications for the legality and legitimacy of Israel's continuing occupation of the Palestinian territories and the responsibility of the entire international community to challenge practices considered contrary to fundamental values of the international legal order.

About this title

Review

A responsible re-evaluation of the legal relationship between Israel and the Palestinian territories under its control is long overdue. This compelling study, by reputable legal scholars, answers the international community's need for new analytical tools to understand a conflict that defies conventional legal categories. (George Bisharat, Professor of Law, University of California Hastings College of the Law)

An excellent and very full study that examines in great detail the legal concepts of colonialism and apartheid, and considers their implications in the context of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. (Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law, London School of Economics and Political Science)

Like many fellow South Africans, while visiting the occupied Palestinian territories I've been shocked to see Israel following or even exceeding the oppressive practices of the apartheid regime that we fought for decades. This study confirmed my worst impressions, and I believe its findings should receive urgent attention. (Ronnie Kasrils, former Minister of Intelligence Services, Republic of South Africa)

This study examines the increasingly frequent assertion that Israel is practicing apartheid in the Occupied Palestinian Territory within the normative framework of contemporary international law. Its conclusion, based on a careful analysis of law and practices in apartheid South Africa and in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, reveals a new and troubling dimension of a conflict that has long confronted the international community. (John Dugard, Professor of Law at Leiden University and former Special Rapporteur for the UN Human Rights Committee on the situation in occupied Palestinian territory)

About the Author

Virginia Tilley is Director of the Governance Programme at the University of the South Pacific, Fiji. She has researched and published on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 1980s and is the author of The One-State Solution (2005).

About this edition

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Publication date: 2012
• ISBN 10: 0745332358
• ISBN 13: 9780745332352
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 344
• Editor: Tilley Prof Virginia