Summary
The originating frame of Al-Haq’s founders — in their 1977-79 correspondence with the International Commission of Jurists the focus is the rule of law, not human rights — requiring a structural focus on cause and answering Israel’s own rule-of-law self-presentation (Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, PDF p.23, p.45-46).
Details
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The founders’ 1977 letter upholds “the principles of the rule of law” and the Universal Declaration, declares “no political affiliations”, and seeks means to publish, translate, lecture and report on the administration of justice (PDF p.45-46).
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Hajjar: “it was Israel’s enthusiasm for law and the ornate legalism of official discourse that catalysed and propelled the development of a local human rights movement, which served as the harbinger of legalistic resistance” (PDF p.23).
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The agenda extended inward at al-Haq to individual and societal relations, including workers’ and women’s rights in Palestinian society (PDF p.25-26).
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The ICJ’s version was a “new dynamic concept of the rule of law” developed mainly in the Global South and linked to the right to development (PDF p.26).
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The West Bank and the Rule of Law (1980) operationalised the frame: Jordanian law as reference on Israel’s own declared terms, testing Israel’s normative assertions against the facts of its conduct — “rightful resistance” — with the occupation itself named as placing “the greatest limitation on the rule of law” (Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, PDF p.65-66).
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The counter-claim is Cohn’s 1981 foreword: that in the history of military occupations the rule of law had “never been better served” than by Israel’s rights and remedies in the administered territories (PDF p.69).
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Kuttab and Shehadeh’s Military Order 947 analysis reads fifteen years of military legislation as deliberate policy — population control, determined Palestinian development, annexation’s economic benefits, and a dominant Jewish civilian presence (PDF p.74).
Related pages
Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, Al-Haq, Human Rights, International Commission of Jurists