Summary
Al-Haq’s project, led by Charles Shammas, on third states’ rights and duties under common Article 1 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to “ensure respect” for the Convention — formally established in autumn 1988, terminated by al-Haq’s board in June 1992, and continued from 1993 at MATTIN as the Centre for International Human Rights Enforcement (Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, PDF p.152-153, p.159, p.162).
Details
- Shammas worked most closely on third-party states’ contractual obligations, particularly EU states; the enforcement approach took institutional form in 1988 and departed al-Haq amid controversy in 1992 (PDF p.83-84).
- The 1987 “Twenty Years of Occupation” context already named the Enforcement Project on third states’ obligation “to ensure respect” for the Fourth Geneva Convention (PDF p.27).
- Al-Haq’s Draft Program Objectives for 1987: “imperative for al-Haq to seek to activate alternative mechanisms of enforcement and accountability within the international community of law” by addressing members of the system who proclaim adherence to human rights and humanitarian law “with the intention of enforcing on them their obligation to investigate and intervene against violations, and to participate in enforcement” (PDF p.152).
- Its memorandum to the European Community claimed al-Haq addressed it “in its capacity as part of the protected population recognised by the Convention, and on behalf of that population. We present it as a Palestinian petitioner with standing under the Convention” and argued renewing preferential trading privileges amid Israel’s continuing serious violations “would be an act of acquiescence to Israeli lawlessness”, seeking an Israeli compliance undertaking as a condition precedent to ratification of the EEC trade agreement (PDF p.153).
- The first direct “Appeal to State Signatories to the IV Geneva Convention” was issued as a press release (al-Haq’s tenth ever) five days into the first intifada, calling on states “to intervene urgently with the Israeli authorities to halt the killing and wounding of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank and Gaza” (PDF p.152).
- Formally established in autumn 1988 with a full-time worker based in London (Welchman) going between Europe and Ramallah (PDF p.153).
- In 1989 it delivered interventions through East Jerusalem consulates after Nahhalin and the Beit Sahour “tax raids” — the first protesting “the failure of State Signatories to the Fourth Geneva Convention to provide any effective measure of international protection to the Palestinian population of the Occupied Territories” and the first to draw specific attention to grave breaches; consuls-general of seven European states were turned back at a roadblock from Beit Sahour (PDF p.153-154).
- Four “enforcement symposia” were held with legal and political actors; its advocacy was distinguished by its focus on IHL and third-party states’ law-based rights and responsibilities (PDF p.154).
- Shammas: “largely untutored in the workings of international law, the Project’s approach was based on logical necessity: we needed the law to work, and logically it had to work: we had to work out how”; with the ICRC the project was recognized as “a kind of very operational provocateur in terms of questions of doctrine” (PDF p.155).
- The June 1990 al-Haq/PHRIC “Representation to State Signatories of the Fourth Geneva Convention”, with the supplement “The Need for International Protection”, is described as the most indicative statement of al-Haq’s enforcement thinking in the period; universal jurisdiction over grave breaches was an early focus, being the only enforcement measure state parties are obliged to take (PDF p.157-158).
- By the 1993 Declaration of Principles the project’s institutional home had moved from al-Haq to the office of MATTIN as the Centre for International Human Rights Enforcement (CIHRE); by the late 1990s the work had developed into MATTIN’s core program, in an increasingly technocratic focus on “passive enforcement”, including the state duty of nonrecognition articulated as part of the Article 1 obligation (PDF p.159).
- Internally it was al-Haq’s most controversial project: staffers recalled it as new, unclear, badly communicated, “parachuted in”, highly complex, esoteric, “a very strange project for us” and scary; it was seen as “particular to Charles”, expensive, and did not integrate into the organization as a whole (PDF p.161-162).
- In June 1992 the board that succeeded the founders decided to terminate the project by the end of the year, giving “the high financial cost of the project” and “the administrative complications arising mainly from Charles’ double role as a board member and project coordinator”; a staff vote organized by Fateh Azzam was for keeping it, but only by a very narrow margin, and Shammas and Welchman left al-Haq (PDF p.162).
- In 1998 al-Haq formed a working group for enforcement of the Fourth Geneva Convention with four other NGOs, and in its 1999 Newsletter laid claim: “al-Haq pioneered the movement to raise the issue of Israel’s refusal to apply the Fourth Geneva Convention at the level of the international community” (PDF p.163).
Where sources disagree
- The doctrinal objection recorded by Welchman — whether working for IHL implementation conflicts with working to end the occupation, by reviving Israel’s image as a benign occupier — against the project’s answer that IHL does not “preserve” a situation of occupation, but does regulate it, and prohibits the occupying power from acquiring advantage from the land or resources (Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, PDF p.159-160).
- Rabbani understood the project as occasioning a “gradual politicization” in al-Haq, while some al-Haqqers worried the enforcement approach might undermine the political battle to end the occupation and realize self-determination (PDF p.160).
Related pages
Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, Al-Haq, Charles Shammas, MATTIN, International Committee of the Red Cross, Universal jurisdiction