Ref: 13.2004E

Al-Haq announces the publication of its position paper ‘The Geneva Accord: A Legal Commentary”. Welcomed by numerous government representatives, the Geneva Accord received wide media coverage and generated extensive debate at the local and international levels. This drew the attention of Al-Haq to the need for an analysis that examines the Accord from the standpoint of international law, rather than focusing on its political propositions

“The Geneva Accord: A Legal Commentary” focuses on legal and human rights implications of this Accord for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Al-Haq is particularly concerned that the provisions of this Accord violate fundamental principles of international human rights and humanitarian law. For example, the Geneva Accord does not mandate the evacuation of all settlements, as called for in numerous UN resolutions, and revokes the Palestinian individual and collective right to return as clearly manifested in UN General Assembly Resolution 194. Since the Geneva Accord is constructed in a way where all claims of the parties are ended, upon its signature it prevents any opportunity to obtain accountability for violations of international law. Lastly, the Geneva Accord states clearly that the provisions of the bilateral agreement supersede all previous UN resolutions related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and have superiority over the provisions of the UN Charter, which undermines the primacy of international law.

Al-Haq welcomes the international community’s interest and efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and to terminate the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. However it is Al-Haq’s conviction that international law should not just inform and facilitate the process of negotiating outstanding key issues, but must form part of the very foundation on which this process is based. The importance of this analysis comes at a point when Al-Haq continues to bear witness to more than one initiative at the local and international level to bring about a settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in a manner which fails to consider fundamental principles and standards of international human rights and humanitarian law, and which will contribute to a further deterioration of the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. In this regard, the Geneva Accord clearly ignores many of the lessons that should have been drawn from previous peace initiatives such as the Oslo Accord, and how they are bound to fail when they attempt to sideline international legal principles.

For the full text “The Geneva Accord: A Legal Commentary”, please click here. To view the full text Arabic version of this position paper, please click here.