Statement by Habitat International Coalition
Joseph Schechla, coordinator of Housing and Land Rights Network
28th Special Session of the UN Human Rights Council (90-second limit)
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Israel’s latest atrocity against the Palestinian people epitomizes an unbroken chain of human rights abuses, and likewise flouts other legal regimes devised to uphold the interstate system. But, these are mere symptoms of deeper breaches of a people’s inalienable right to self-determination that binds every State represented here under the Charter and the two Covenants.
Just after population transfer was prosecuted at Nuremberg and Tokyo, we witnessed that serious crime committed to establish the State of Israel, with its continuous denial and destruction of Palestinians’ habitat: land, housing and means of subsistence. Gaza’s peaceful Great Return March underscored that continuum, but also States’ failure to take effective measures toward remedy and reparation.
Were the interstate system to show any integrity, States would shoulder their shared individual, collective, domestic and extraterritorial obligations not to recognize, or cooperate with the illegal situation in Palestine. Meanwhile, it remains the central injustice in the region, inspiring demoralized others to copy such crimes under a false pretense of statehood. Amid the UN’s post-2015 promise to address root causes and pursue integrated solutions, we also call for an independent investigation of these murders of Palestinians claiming their human rights, and for convening the 4th Geneva Convention’s Parties, but this time, toward effective preventive and remedial measures.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Download UN Human Rights Commission resolution, “Violations of international law in the context of large-scale civilian protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” (Advance Edited Version), A/HRC/S-28/1.
A summary of the statements during the 28th Special Session debate can be found here and here.
More documentation relating to the Special Session is available on the Human Rights Council webpage.
Photo on front page: View of UN Human Rights 28th Special Session on 18 May 2018 during High Commissioner for Human Rights Zein bin Ra`ad al-Hussein’s address. Source: UN Photo/Elma Okic. Photo on this page: Telemonitor screen showing the outcome of the vote on draft resolution “Violations of international law in the context of large-scale civilian protests in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,” A/HRC/S-28/1. Source: HLRN.
