UN expert says Israel’s planned
Jordan Valley annexation is illegal, puts at risk two-state solution
GENEVA (12 September 2019) – A UN
human rights expert has denounced comments by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu that
he would order the annexation of the Jordan Valley if re-elected prime
minister, saying such action would represent a flagrant challenge to the modern
rules-based international order.
“To assert the right to annex in
the 21st century is to attempt to re-enter a world that no longer exists,” said
Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the
Palestinian territory occupied since 1967.
“Annexation is strictly prohibited
under international law under any circumstances, let alone for political or
electoral considerations.
“Now, with this announcement, the
patina of a temporary occupation has surely come to an end. Israel, the
occupying power, has demonstrated no willingness to either fulfill its
international obligations or to accept the many United Nations resolutions
commanding it to stop its illegal settlement enterprise and to end its 52-year
old occupation.”
Annexation was outlawed by the
international community in 1945, with the adoption of the Charter of the United
Nations.
The Jordan Valley makes up 30 percent
of the occupied West Bank, and is home more than 65,000 Palestinians who live
there alongside 11,000 Israeli settlers.
“By annexing these areas, Israel
will further confine Palestinians to live in small, fragmented and disconnected
cantons while others will continue to live under Israeli military rule,” Lynk
said. “The annexation, if realized, will effectively end the illusion of a
meaningful two-state solution, and will instead further entrench a one state
reality of separate and vastly unequal legal systems, political rights and
social opportunities.”
The Special Rapporteur called on
the international community to go beyond simply issuing a verbal rebuke of the
annexation announcement. “Criticism devoid of consequences can no longer be
justified with respect to this conflict. This prolonged occupation will not die
of old age. Only by employing meaningful counter-measures to this illegal
occupation will there be any chance of reversing this promise of annexation,
and ultimately ending the occupation itself,” he said.
ENDS
Mr. Michael Lynk was designated by
the UN Human Rights Council in 2016 as the Special Rapporteur on the situation
of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967. The mandate
was originally established in 1993 by the then UN Commission on Human Rights.
Professor Lynk is Associate Professor of Law at Western University in London,
Ontario, where he teaches labour law, constitutional law and human rights law.
Before becoming an academic, he practiced labour law and refugee law for a
decade in Ottawa and Toronto. He also worked for the United Nations on human
rights and refugee issues in Jerusalem.
The Special Rapporteurs are part of
what is known as the Special Procedures of the Human Rights Council. Special
Procedures, the largest body of independent experts in the UN Human Rights
system, is the general name of the Council’s independent fact-finding and
monitoring mechanisms that address either specific country situations or
thematic issues in all parts of the world. Special Procedures experts work on a
voluntary basis; they are not UN staff and do not receive a salary for their
work. They are independent from any government or organization and serve in
their individual capacity.
UN Human Rights, Country Page:Occupied Palestinian Territory and Israel
For more information and media
requests, please contact Abigail Eshel (+41 (0) 22 917 4148) aeshel@ohchr.org
For media inquiries related to
other UN independent experts please contact
Jeremy Laurence, UN Human Rights –
Media Unit (+41 22 917 9383
jlaurence@ohchr.org
Follow news related to the UN’s
independent human rights experts on Twitter @UN_SPExperts.
Concerned about the world we live in?
Then STAND UP for someone’s rights today.
#Standup4humanrights and visit the web page at
http://www.standup4humanrights.org
Nema komentara:
Objavi komentar