UN Rights Expert Says Israeli Settlement Enterprise Violation of Intl. Law

“The Israeli settlement enterprise – consisting of 240 settlements and 650,000 settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank – is a flagrant violation of international law, as per UN Security Council resolution 2334, adopted in December 2016. The settlements are also a presumptive war crime under the 1998 Rome Statute,” Michael Lynk, the UN Special Rapporteur on situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory, said in an exclusive interview with Tasnim.

Michael Lynk is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law, Western University, in London, Ontario. He joined the Faculty in 1999, and has taught courses in labour, human rights, disability, constitutional and administrative law. He served as Associate Dean of the Faculty between 2008-11.

The following is the full text of the interview.

Tasnim: In a recent address to the General Assembly's human rights committee, you called for an international ban on all products made in Israeli settlements as a step to end Israel's 52-year illegal occupation. You said the international community has a responsibility and a legal obligation to compel Israel to completely end its occupation and remove barriers to self-determination for the Palestinians. Why did you raise this issue?

Lynk: The international community has a collective legal responsibility to work together to bring situations of human rights violations to a complete end. Any legal system – domestic or international – must be able to require those who violate laws to be reprimanded through countermeasures and sanctions. This is accountability, which lies at the heart of our commitment to the rule of law.

The Israeli settlement enterprise – consisting of 240 settlements and 650,000 settlers in East Jerusalem and the West Bank – is a flagrant violation of international law, as per UN Security Council resolution 2334, adopted in December 2016. The settlements are also a presumptive war crime under the 1998 Rome Statute. Under international law (2001 Article on Responsibility of States, articles 40 and 41), states have a legal duty not to aid or assist in violations of core rights under international law, which would include the prohibition of civilian settlements in occupied territory.

Accordingly, allowing the goods and services produced in the Israeli settlements to be exported to the markets of other countries is a breach of this legal duty. By permitting this, those countries which open their markets to these products are assisting in the economic sustainability of the settlements, and thereby furthering the inherent violations of human rights caused by the settlements (including the denial of the right of self-determination).

The Israeli settlements are the engine of the prolonged occupation. Importing settlement products entrenches the occupation. Ending settlement trade would be an important step towards isolating the settlement economy, and sending a clear signal that the international community intends to put the law and the multiple UN resolutions into action. 

Tasnim: In your address, you also called the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza a “human-made catastrophe" and "an injustice that should be near the top of the world's agenda to end." Please let us know more about the humanitarian situation in the coastal enclave.

Lynk: The severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza would properly be labelled a tragedy if we were talking about a natural catastrophe and the ensuing scale of human suffering. But we’re not. We are instead speaking about a human-made catastrophe – the 12-year-old Israeli air, sea and land blockade of Gaza – and this is not a tragedy but an injustice that should be near the top of the world’s agenda to end. As the two most recent UN Secretary-Generals have noted, this blockade of Gaza is a form of collective punishment, which is expressly prohibited under Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The economic situation in Gaza continues to move from dire to acute to unimaginable. According to the July 2019 report on Palestine issued by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, four out of five employees in Gaza work for less than the minimum wage, the share of Gaza’s productive sectors has fallen from 28% to 13% of GDP between 1994 and 2018, the share of manufacturing has dropped by half, to 8%, and its per capita real GDP is now less than half of that in the West Bank. All of this follows three devastating wars on Gaza over the past decade and, more recently, serious cuts in the humanitarian aid destined for Gaza, including aid earmarked to UNRWA. Today, over half of Gaza’s population is food insecure, and the unemployment rate is over 50%, with 70% of Gazans under 30 years old without work. The health care system is collapsing, the available water is largely undrinkable and access to electrical power is intermitted and unreliable.

One cannot talk about the plight of Gaza without drawing attention to the ongoing deaths and maiming of Palestinian demonstrators by live Israeli fire at the Gaza frontier. Since March 2018, over 200 Palestinians – largely unarmed – have been killed by sniper fire, and more than 33,000 wounded. The Commission of Inquiry, which reported to the Human Rights Council this past March, found that virtually all of the demonstrators killed by Israeli soldiers were shot in violation of their right to life, and in breach of the principle of distinction under international humanitarian law. Yet, Israel has demonstrated virtually no accountability to address these actions, despite calls by the international community, by the 2019 Commission of Inquiry and by civil society for independent and transparent investigations by Israel into these serious human rights violations.

Tasnim: You also referred to four reports commissioned by the Geneva-based Human Rights Council that found serious rights violations by Israel, including during the 2008-2009 and 2014 Gaza conflicts, protests at the Gaza-Israel border, and in Israeli settlement building. Please explain.

Lynk: My October 2019 report focused on the issue of impunity and the lack of accountability as an integral component of the Israeli occupation. These issues of impunity and accountability have been addressed by four major human rights reports commissioned by the Human Rights Council over the last decade. The constant theme throughout these reports has been the serious violations of human rights and humanitarian laws by Israel, the necessity to ensure Israeli accountability and the prevailing culture of exceptionalism.

•  The Report into the 2008-09 Gaza conflict stated that: “justice and respect for the rule of law are the indispensable basis for peace. The prolonged situation of impunity has created a justice crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory that warrants action.”

•  The 2013 Report into the implications of the Israeli settlements called upon Israel “to ensure full accountability for all violations…and to put an end to the policy of impunity.”

•  The Report into the 2014 Gaza conflict expressed concerned that: “impunity prevails across the board for violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law allegedly committed by Israeli forces…Israel must break with its recent lamentable track record in holding wrongdoers accountable…”

•  And the 2019 Report into the Gaza protests found that: “To date, the Government of Israel has consistently failed to meaningfully investigate and prosecute commanders and soldiers for crimes and violations…Scarce accountability measures arising out of Operations Cast Lead (2008-09) and Protective Edge (2014)…cast doubt over the State’s willingness to scrutinize the actions of military and civilian leadership….”

In my oral statement to the 3rd Committee of the UN General Assembly, I then stated: “Are these important reports, emanating from the world’s leading human rights body, all of them rich in evidence with respect to the profound breaches of our common humanitarian and human rights values, and all of them pointing again and again to impunity and exceptionalism, simply to sit on the shelves of our collective memory? Are they destined to live only in the footnotes of the next report cataloguing the next human rights catastrophe that we didn’t prevent because we didn’t heed the demands for accountability so clearly laid out for us in the previous reports?”