Summary
The Geneva-based jurists’ organization, established in 1952, whose West Bank affiliate from 1979 was Al-Haq as Law in the Service of Man, and whose rule-of-law focus framed the founders’ approach (Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, PDF p.30, p.39-40).
Details
- In the 1970s it was best known among lawyers for its focus on rule-of-law issues, with national sections mostly in Western Europe and a governing commission of prominent judges and lawyers; its secretariat moved into a broader range including social and economic rights and the right to development (PDF p.26, p.39-40).
- Its first report focusing on Israel/Palestine was in 1970; its Israeli National Section, headed by Justice Haim Cohn, protested the 1969 report The Middle East: War or Peace as “tendentious and misleading” (PDF p.39, p.47).
- Under secretaries-general Seán MacBride and Niall MacDermot it was transformed despite a 1967 scandal over secret CIA bankrolling through the American Fund for Free Jurists (PDF p.49).
- MacDermot pressed a reluctant Executive Committee to recognise Palestinian rights, after which the ICJ became “one of the few non-communist NGOs to criticise Israel”; the Committee approved the West Bank group as totally separate from the Israeli section while hoping it would meet and inform Cohn (PDF p.49-51).
Related pages
Al-Haq: A Global History of the First Palestinian Human Rights Organization, Al-Haq, Niall MacDermot, Seán MacBride, Haim Cohn