Summary
The privileges and immunities of foreigners, including consular jurisdiction and protection, as formerly enjoyed by capitulation or usage in the Ottoman Empire. In Report to the General Assembly (UNSCOP), article 8 paragraph 2 of the Mandate for Palestine provided that at the Mandate’s expiration those privileges and immunities would be immediately reestablished in Palestine in so far as they had not been previously renounced, applying in particular to Christians and to their religious establishments, schools, convents and hospitals (Ch. III paras. 11-12).
Details
- The report holds that “The reestablishment of capitulations in Palestine would ‘now be an anachronism, and the Powers concerned will probably agree that another solution must be found for the protection of foreigners and of their religious interests” (the stray apostrophe before “now” as printed) (Report to the General Assembly (UNSCOP), lines 1542-1544).
- Recommendation X, approved unanimously in Chapter V, recommends that States whose nationals have in the past enjoyed in Palestine the privileges and immunities of foreigners, including the benefits of consular jurisdiction and protection as formerly enjoyed by capitulation or usage in the Ottoman Empire, be invited by the United Nations to renounce any right to the reestablishment of such privileges and immunities in an independent Palestine. Its comment notes that article 8 of the Mandate did not abrogate consular jurisdiction and protection but merely left them in abeyance during the Mandate, so that on termination the States concerned would be in a position to claim reestablishment and might demand, as a condition of waiving the right, the maintenance of a satisfactory judicial system; and that, since independence will be achieved under United Nations auspices and subject to United Nations guarantees as a prior condition, there should be no need for any State to re-assert such a claim (Report to the General Assembly (UNSCOP), lines 1790-1802).
Related pages
Report to the General Assembly (UNSCOP), Mandate for Palestine, Holy Places