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“Human Rights Violations
Resulting from the Oslo Process: Part One,”
Summary: 12 January 2000—Ever since Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization signed the Declaration of Principles in September 1993—the first of several agreements in the Oslo process—Palestinians have suffered systematic human rights abuses, especially of their economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR). (“Oslo” and “Oslo process” are used interchangeably here to refer to all the agreements and activities implemented since September 1993.) Indeed, Palestinians have experienced a downward spiral of poverty and hardship directly linked to policy decisions made by Israel, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) and international donors within the Oslo process. Yet the international community, led by the United States and Europe, continues to provide unqualified and uncritical support while ignoring Oslo’s negative impact on the daily lives of Palestinians. The resulting paradox of increased human rights abuses and decreased international concern highlights the need for a new approach to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Legal Framework of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, unanimously adopted by the UN General Assembly in 1948, is the founding document of modern human rights law. The Universal Declaration affirms the unity of all human rights in guaranteeing both ESCR (i.e., an adequate standard of living, housing, work, education, food and health) and civil and political rights (i.e., life, physical integrity, free speech and belief, due process of law and political participation). Over the past 50 years, ESCR have been elaborated in a wide range of international treaties, laws and principles. These include the 1966 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (the Covenant), the major international treaties protecting the human rights of vulnerable groups, such as the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and various treaties of the International Labor Organization. ESCR have also been recognized in national constitutions and by regional organizations such as the European Union. By ratifying these various treaties and incorporating the principles into domestic law, states such as Israel are obligated to respect the full range of ESCR. But even actors who have not ratified international human rights treaties are bound to respect “customary law” principles that have gained widespread acceptance in the international community. The Universal Declaration is generally considered to be part of customary law, and thereby is binding on all states as well as on non-state actors, such as international donors. Duties and Violations: Assessing violations of ESCR is a complex undertaking, but there are three types of policies that are always prohibited. First are policies that deprive people of a basic level of subsistence necessary to live in dignity—the principle of minimum core content. Failure to satisfy basic human needs is an immediate and absolute violation of ESCR that can never be excused by a country’s level of development. Second are measures that lead to a decline in people’s access to ESCR—the principle of non-regression. The UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights has declared that states may not adopt regressive measures that harm ESCR through, for example, “a general decline in living and housing conditions directly attributable to policy and legislative decisions by States parties.” Third are policies that discriminate in access to economic and social goods—the principle of non-discrimination. The Covenant flatly prohibits any discrimination in access to food, health care, housing, work or education. The international law of ESCR provides a legal, political and moral framework to challenge policies that perpetuate poverty and inequality. Just as governments are accountable under human rights law for denying political freedom, so too are they accountable for denying food or health care. The impoverishment of the Palestinian people is a good case in point. For the past six years, Palestinians have suffered declining living standards resulting from deliberate policy decisions taken by governments and agencies within the Oslo framework. Addressing this issue as a violation of basic human rights rather than as a mere development failure moves the economic crisis to the center of the debate and highlights the need for immediate action. But to challenge these policies as human rights violations, it is first necessary to analyze the respective legal responsibilities of each of the major parties to the Oslo process—Israel, the PNA and international donors. ESCR Violations by Israel under Oslo: The Oslo process legitimizes continued Israeli jurisdiction over almost 90 percent of the West Bank and control over the critical factors affecting Palestinian human rights and development—borders, land and water, external trade, foreign affairs, and refugees. Through this control, Israeli policies largely dictate the extent to which Palestinians can enjoy human rights and economic development. The record thus far is abysmal. As a state party to international human rights treaties, including the Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, Israel is obligated to respect all human rights of all people within its effective control and jurisdiction. In recent years, Israel has appeared before a number of UN human rights committees claiming that it no longer bears responsibility for human rights violations in Palestinian territories because, under Oslo, control was transferred to the PNA. This argument has been soundly rejected each time. In November 1998, for example, the UN Committee on ESCR found that many Israeli practices, including closure, house demolitions, and various discriminatory practices, violated Palestinians’ human rights. Closure: Since 1993, Israel has enforced a permanent general closure of Gaza and the West Bank, prohibiting the free movement of people and goods through a restrictive permit system and effectively suffocating the Palestinian economy. This policy has cut Gaza off from the West Bank despite Israel’s agreement under Oslo to view these areas as “a single territorial unit, whose integrity will be preserved during the interim phase.” In addition, Israel has periodically tightened the general closure by imposing comprehensive closure, which imprisons Palestinians in a patchwork of isolated enclaves. The World Bank estimates direct Palestinian losses (wages and trade) due to closure at almost five million dollars per day. This explains why Palestinian real per capita gross domestic product has declined by 20 percent in the past six years, despite over three billion dollars in foreign aid. Palestinians now suffer from higher unemployment, greater incidence of poverty, and worse access to health and education than they did before 1993. Land Seizure and Other Violations: Israel’s ongoing seizure of Palestinians’ land and resources for settlements and military purposes constitutes another source of human rights violations. The settler population, which reached 280,000 by 1993 after 27 years of military occupation, has now increased to over 400,000. Jewish-only areas now encircle most Palestinian population centers, cutting off contiguous towns and markets from each other. At the same time, Israel has destroyed thousands of Palestinian homes in Jerusalem and the West Bank on the pretext that their owners failed to obtain the proper building permits. In a further act of discrimination, Jewish settlers are allowed to consume five times as much water as their Palestinian neighbors, posing enormous obstacles to Palestinian development. All these Israeli practices—closure, restrictions on movement of people and goods, seizure of land and resources, house demolitions—violate the economic, social and cultural rights of Palestinians.
Roger Normand is Policy Director of the Center
for Economic and Social Rights in New York City. This brief is based on
a forthcoming CESR publication entitled Applying Economic and Social
Rights in Palestine, Palestine Paper Series 3. The above text may be
used without permission but with proper attribution to the author and
to the Palestine Center. This brief does not necessarily
reflect the views of Palestine Center or The Jerusalem Fund. |
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