The ministry mission statement is: Imagine No Malaria is an
extraordinary effort of the people of The United Methodist Church,
putting faith into action to end preventable deaths by malaria in
Africa, especially the death of a child or a mother.
As a life-saving ministry, Imagine No Malaria aims to raise $75 million
to empower the people of Africa to overcome malaria’s burden. Imagine No Malaria works in partnership with the United Nations Foundation and the Global Fund to reduce the number of deaths caused by Malaria in African countries.
Leadership
Bishop Thomas Bickerton
is the chairperson of the executive committee for Imagine No Malaria.
He stated, "Today there's a 3-year-old who's going to be bitten by a
tiny bug, and, in 48 hours, she is going to die. She's the reason I do
what I do. To make the world a healthy place for every child has
everything to do with what Mr. Wesley intended us to do."
Strategy
Imagine
No Malaria is a fundraising and advocacy campaign to support a
comprehensive, integrated anti-malaria strategy in Africa. This program
is focused on delivering four key components: prevention, treatment, education, and communications.
Prevention
Building on the success of Nothing But Nets, Imagine No Malaria is often thought of as Nets Plus. Insecticide-treated mosquito nets are still the best way to prevent malaria, however, other measures like draining standing water where the insects breed, trimming foliage and proper sanitation, are also critical to preventing malaria.
Treatment
The United Methodist Church has been working in Africa for more than 160 years.
The church has the infrastructure of more than 300 clinics and
hospitals in Africa to treat many patients. The Imagine No Malaria
campaign has the goal of getting medicines and diagnostic tests to those
hospitals and clinics.
Education
The
program provides training for local community health workers to educate
people on the symptoms and defenses against malaria, as well as
educating them about how to use their bed nets.
Communications
The program provides education on malaria and information through its vast radio network in Africa. The campaign also delivers solar powered and hand-crank radios to African women.
Raising Money
Imagine No Malaria is using current technology in its strive to achieve its $75 million fundraising goal. Donations can be made through text messages as well as in traditional ways.
The operational costs for Imagine No Malaria are covered by a grant,
awarded by the United Nations Foundation. This allows the effort to
ensure that 100% of funds raised are used to support for malaria
programs in Africa.
In 2014, The INM programme held a conference, in which they revealed that they were able to raise more than $40 million.
Advocacy
Imagine
No Malaria also includes an advocacy effort that calls for support by
urging elected officials in Congress to protect global health funds
(which includes international malaria aid) in the US budget. Recent
efforts include events in Washington DC, hosted by the General Board of Church and Society
and a mobile SMS (text) campaign asking individuals to text the word
SWAT to 27722 and sign a "petition to save lives." The petition is part
of a toolkit that will be used to persuade elected officials to reject
proposed cuts to malaria funding as proposed in the initial FY13 budget.
The
Imagine No Malaria campaign has seen success in many different areas in
Africa. In April 2010, in a coordinated effort with many different
religious faiths and institutions, 25,000 bed nets were distributed in Lubumbashi, DRC. In another effort, the program distributed 5,000 bed nets in Nyadire, Zimbabwe.
Ethnic democracy is a political system that combines a
structured ethnic dominance with democratic, political and civil rights
for all. Both the dominant ethnic group and the minority ethnic groups
have citizenship and are able to fully participate in the political
process. Ethnic democracy differs from ethnocracy
in that elements of it are more purely democratic. It provides the
non-core groups with more political participation, influence and
improvement of status than ethnocracy supposedly does. Nor is an ethnic democracy a Herrenvolk democracy which is by definition a democracy officially limited to the core ethnic nation only.
The term "ethnic democracy" was introduced by Professor Juan José Linz of Yale University in 1975, and subsequently by University of Haifa sociologist Professor Sammy Smooha in a book published in 1989, as a universalised model of the Israel case.
The model was used widely in subsequent decades; in 1993 for a
comparison of several countries, in 1997 for a comparison of Israel and
Northern Ireland, applied to Estonia and Latvia in 1996 and Slovakia in
2000.
Model definition
Smooha defines eight features that are the core elements of his model of an ethnic democracy:
Ethnic nationalism installs a single core ethnic nation in the state.
The state separates membership in the single core ethnic nation from citizenship.
The state is owned and ruled by the core ethnic nation.
The state mobilises the core ethnic nation.
Non-core groups are accorded incomplete individual and collective rights.
The state allows non-core groups to conduct parliamentary and extra-parliamentary struggle for change.
The state perceives non-core groups as a threat.
The state imposes some control on non-core groups.
Smooha also defines ten conditions that can lead to the establishment of an ethnic democracy:
The core ethnic nation constitutes a solid numerical majority.
The non-core population constitutes a significant minority.
The core ethnic nation has a commitment to democracy.
The core ethnic nation is an indigenous group.
The non-core groups are immigrant.
The non-core group is divided into more than one ethnic group.
The core ethnic nation has a sizeable, supportive Diaspora.
The homelands of the non-core groups are involved.
There is international involvement.
Transition from a non-democratic ethnic state has taken place.
Applicability of the model
The model has been applied by researchers to several countries, with various levels of fit.
Israel
The State of Israel is seen as a country that utilises the ethnic democracy model in its relations with the country's Arab minority, as Israel has combined viable democratic institutions with institutionalized ethnic dominance.
Latvia and Estonia
There is a spectrum of opinion among authors as to the classification of Latvia and Estonia, spanning from Liberal or Civic Democracy through Ethnic democracy to Ethnocracy. Will Kymlicka
regards Estonia as a civic democracy, stressing the peculiar status of
Russian-speakers, stemming from being at once partly transients, partly
immigrants and partly natives. British researcher Neil Melvin
concludes that Estonia is moving towards a genuinely pluralist
democratic society through its liberalization of citizenship and
actively drawing of leaders of the Russian settler communities into the
political process. James Hughes, in the United Nations Development Programme's Development and Transition, contends Latvia and Estonia are cases of ‘ethnic democracy’ where the state has been captured by the titular ethnic group and then used to promote ‘nationalising’ policies and alleged discrimination against Russophone minorities. (Development and Transition has also published papers disputing Hughes' contentions.) Israeli researchers Oren Yiftachel and As’ad Ghanem consider Estonia as an ethnocracy. Israeli sociologist Sammy Smooha, of the University of Haifa,
disagrees with Yiftachel, contending that the ethnocratic model
developed by Yiftachel does not fit the case of Latvia and Estonia; it
is not a settler society as its core ethnic group is indigenous, nor did
it expand territorially or have a diaspora intervening in its internal affairs as in the case of Israel for which Yiftachel originally developed his model.
However the notion that Estonia or Latvia are ethnic democracies has been rejected by some commentators.
On the one hand, the citizenship laws of these countries are not based
on ethnic criteria, treating citizens of Russian extract, including a
number of people who automatically became citizens because their
families have resided there since before 1940, with the same rights as
the ethnic majorities. Moreover, non-citizens enjoy social rights on a par with citizens. On the other hand, given the proportion of non-citizen minorities without certain political rights (7.5% in the case of Estonia),
Estonia and Latvia may not yet even qualify as ethnic democracies: in
Smooha's definition of ethnic democracy, minority groups should enjoy
full rights as citizens of the country.
Slovak
nationalism is grounded in ethnicity and language. "State-building and
nation-building in Slovakia are designed to install ethnic Slovaks as
the sole nation and to prevent any sign of binationalism. This objective
is made clear in the preamble of the Slovak constitution which begins
with the following words: “We, the Slovak nation, bearing in mind the
political and cultural heritage of our predecessors, the experience
gained through centuries of struggle for our national existence and
statehood…”
Under Egypt's Pharaoh Amasis (570–526 BC) a Greek mercantile colony was established at Naucratis, some 50 miles from the later Alexandria. Greeks also colonized Cyrenaica around the same time. There was also an attempt in 513 BC to establish a Greek colony between Cyrene and Carthage, which resulted in the combined local and Carthaginian expulsion two years later of the Greek colonists.
Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) founded Alexandria
during his conquest of Egypt. This became one of the major cities of
Hellenistic and Roman times, a trading and cultural centre as well as a
military headquarters and communications hub.
Phoenicians established a number of colonies along the coast of
North Africa. Some of these were founded relatively early. Utica, for
example, was founded c. 1100 BC. Carthage, which means New City, has a traditional foundation date of 814 BC. It was established in what is now Tunisia and became a major power in the Mediterranean
by the 4th century BC. The Carthaginians themselves sent out
expeditions to explore and establish colonies along Africa's Atlantic
coast. A surviving account of such is that of Hanno, which Harden who quotes it places at c. 425 BC.
Carthage encountered and struggled with the Romans. After the third and final war between them, the Third Punic War (150–146 BC), Rome completely destroyed Carthage. Scullard mentions plans by such as Gaius Gracchus in the late 2nd century BC, Julius Caesar and Augustus
in the mid- and late 1st century BC to establish a new Roman colony
near the same site. This was established and under Augustus served as
the capital city of African continent Roman province of Africa.
Gothic Vandals briefly established a kingdom there in the 5th century, which shortly thereafter fell to the Romans again, this time the Byzantines. The whole of Roman/Byzantine North Africa eventually fell to the Arabs in the 7th century.
Map of West Africa, ca. 1736, "explaining what belongs to England, Holland, Denmark, etc."
However the oldest European founded city on the
African continent is Cape Town, which was founded by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, as a halfway stop for passing European ships sailing to the east.
Early modern period
Early European expeditions by the Portuguese concentrated on colonising previously uninhabited islands such as the Cape Verde Islands and São Tomé Island, or establishing coastal forts as a base for trade.
Areas controlled by European colonial powers on the African continent in 1913, shown along with current national boundaries
Established empires, notably Britain, France and Portugal had already
claimed coastal areas but had not penetrated deeply in land. Europeans
controlled only one 10th of Africa, primarily along the Mediterranean
and in the deep South. An important early leader in penetrating inland
was King Leopold of Belgium, who operated the Congo as his own private domain until 1908. The 1885 Berlin Conference, initiated by Otto von Bismarck to establish international guidelines and avoiding violent disputes formalised the "New Imperialism".
This allowed the imperialists to move in land, with relatively few
disputes. The only serious threat of inter-Imperial violence came in the
Fashoda Incident
of 1898 between Britain and France; It was settled peacefully. Between
1870 and 1914 Europe added almost 9 million square miles
(23,000,000 km²)—one-fifth of the land area of the globe—to its overseas
colonial possessions.
Vincent Khapoya notes the great self-esteem some European states
felt at possessing territory larger than themselves. He adds the
significant contribution made by Africans to struggle among the Great
Powers. He states that one million people of African descent fought for
the Allies in World War I and two million in World War II.
Khapoya considers the colonisers' administrative styles. "The
French, the Portuguese, the Germans and the Belgians exercised a highly
centralised type of administration called 'direct rule.'"
The British sought to rule by identifying local power holders and
encouraging or forcing these to administer for the British Empire. This
was indirect rule.
France ruled from Paris, appointing chiefs individually without
considering traditional criteria, but rather loyalty to France. France
established two large colonial federations in Africa, French West Africa and French Equatorial Africa. France appointed officials, passed laws and had to approve any measures passed by colonial assemblies.
Local groups in German East Africa resisted German enforced labour and taxation. The Germans were almost driven out of the area in 1888.
A decade later the colony seemed conquered, though, "It had been a long
drawn-out struggle and inland administration centres were in reality
little more than a series of small military fortresses." In 1905, the
Germans were astonished by a widely supported uprising.
This resistance was at first successful. However, within a year, the
insurgency was suppressed by reinforcing troops armed with machine guns.
German attempts to seize control in Southwest Africa also produced
ardent resistance, which was very forcefully put down.
King Leopold II of Belgium called his vast private colony the Congo Free State.
His harsh treatment of the Africans sparked a strong international
protest and the European powers forced him to relinquish control to the
Belgian Parliament to take control.
Khapoya notes the significant attention colonial powers paid to
the economics of colonisation. This included: acquisition of land, often
enforced labour, introduction of cash crops, sometimes even to the
neglect of food crops, changing inter-African trading patterns of
pre-colonial times, introduction of labourers from India, etc. and the
continuation of Africa as a source of raw materials for European
industry. Colonial powers later focused on abolishing slavery, developing infrastructure, and improving health and education.
Decolonisation
Vincent Khapoya notes the significant resistance of powers faced to
their domination in Africa. Technical superiority enabled conquest and
control. Pro-independence Africans recognised the value of European
education in dealing with Europeans in Africa. Some Africans established
their own churches. Africans also noticed the unequal evidence of
gratitude they received for their efforts to support Imperialist
countries during the world wars.
Vincent Khapoya also notes that while European imposed borders
did not correspond to traditional territories, such new territories
provided entities to focus efforts by movements for increased political
voice up to independence. Among local groups so concerned were
professionals such as lawyers and doctors, the petite bourgeoisie
(clerks, teachers, small merchants), urban workers, cash crop farmers,
peasant farmers, etc. Trade unions and other initially non-political
associations evolved into political movements.
Khapoya describes the differences in gaining independence by
British and French colonies. Britain sought to follow a process of
gradual transfer of power. The French policy of assimilation faced some
resentment, especially in North Africa. Shillington describes the granting of independence in March 1956 to Morocco and Tunisia to allow concentration on Algeria where there was a long (1954–62) and bloody armed struggle to achieve independence. Khapoya writes that when President de Gaulle in 1958 held a referendum in its African colonies on the issue, only Guinea voted for outright independence. Nevertheless, in 1959 France amended the constitution to allow other colonies this option.
As Shillington describes farmers in British East Africa were upset by attempts to take their land and to impose agricultural methods against their wishes and experience. In Tanganyika, Julius Nyerere exerted influence not only among Africans, united by the common Swahili language,
but also on some white leaders whose disproportionate voice under a
racially weighted constitution was significant. He became the leader of
an independent Tanganyika in 1961. In Kenya,
whites had evicted African tenant farmers in the 1930s; since the '40s
there has been conflict, which intensified in 1952. By 1955, Britain had
suppressed the revolt, and by 1960 Britain accepted the principle of
African majority rule. Kenya became independent three years later.
Shillington vividly portrays Belgium's initial opposition to
independence, the demands by some urban Africans, the 1957 & 1958
local elections meant to calm this dissatisfaction, the general unrest
that swept the colony, the rapid granting of independence and the civil
strife that ensued.
The main period of decolonisation
in Africa began after World War II. Growing independence movements,
indigenous political parties and trade unions coupled with pressure from
within the imperialist powers and from the United States and the Soviet Union ensured the decolonisation of the majority of the continent by 1980. While some areas, in particular, South Africa, & Namibia retain a large population of European descent, only the Spanish enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla and the islands of Réunion and Mayotte, the Canary Islands, and Madeira
remain under European control, the latter two of which were never part
of any African polity and have an overwhelmingly European population.
Theoretical frameworks
The
theory of colonialism addresses the problems and consequences of the
colonisation of a country, and there has been much research conducted
exploring these concepts.
Mahmood Mamdani
Mahmood Mamdani
Mahmood Mamdani wrote his book Citizen and Subject in 1996. The main point of his argument is that the colonial state in Africa took the form of a bifurcated state, “two forms of power under a single hegemonic authority”.
The colonial state in Africa was divided into two. One state for the
colonial European population and one state for the indigenous
population. The colonial power was mainly in urban towns and cities and
were served by elected governments. The indigenous power was found in
rural villages and were ruled by tribal authority, which seemed to be
more in keeping with their history and tradition. Mamdani mentions that
in urban areas, native institutions were not recognised. The natives,
who were portrayed as uncivilised by the Europeans, were excluded from the rights of citizenship.
The division of the colonial state created a racial segregation between
the European ‘citizen’ and African ‘subject’, and a division between
institutions of government.
The division Mamdani spoke about in Citizen and Subject is
still visible in African cities. The segregation he talks about was
based on race, but now is also based on wealth and class. Urban areas of
African cities are divided between rich areas and poor areas that do
not have services. This is best illustrated by Johnny Miller, who
created a project called Unequal Scenes to showcase the inequalities found in some urban African spaces. One city that Miller looks at is Nairobi in Kenya.
The photographs he provides highlights the housing inequality. The
suburb of Loresho is home to the rich that live in gated communities,
and to the poor that live in slum
communities. They are only separated by a concrete barrier. This
barrier represents a class segregation and the uneven distribution of
wealth.
Achille Mbembe
Achille Mbembe
Achille Mbembe is a Cameroonian
historian, political theorist, and philosopher who has written and
theorized extensively on life in the colony and postcolony. His 2000
book, On the Postcolony, critically examines postcolonial life in Africa and is a prolific work within the field of postcolonialism.
It is through this examination of the postcolony that Mbembe reveals
the modes through which power was exerted in colonial Africa. He reminds
the reader that colonial powers demanded use of African bodies in
particularly violent ways for the purpose of labor as well as the
shaping of subservient colonised identities.
Through a comparison of power in the colony and postcolony,
Mbembe demonstrates that violence in the colony was exerted on African
bodies largely for the purpose of labor and submission. European colonial powers sought natural resources
in African colonies and needed the requisite labor force to extract
them and simultaneously build the colonial city around these industries.
Because Europeans viewed native bodies as degenerate and in need of
taming, violence was necessary to create a submissive laborer.
Colonisers viewed this violence as necessary and good because it shaped the African into a productive worker.
They had the simultaneous goals of utilizing the raw labor and shaping
the identity and character of the African. By beating into the African a
docile nature, colonisers ultimately shaped and enforced the way
Africans could move through colonial spaces. The African’s day-to-day life then became a show of submission done through exercises like public works projects and military conscription.
Mbembe contrasts colonial violence with that of the postcolony.
Mbembe demonstrates that violence in the postcolony is cruder and more
generally for the purpose of demonstrating raw power. Expressions of
excess and exaggeration characterize this violence.
Mbembe’s theorization of violence in the colony illuminates the
unequal relationship between the coloniser and colonised and reminds us
of the violence inflicted on African bodies throughout the process of
colonisation. It cannot be understood nor should be taught without the
context of this violence.
Stephanie Terreni Brown
Stephanie
Terreni Brown is an academic in the field of colonialism. In her 2014
paper she examines how sanitation and dirt is used in colonial
narratives through the example of Kampala in Uganda. Writing also about Abjection through sanitation planning in the city and how this plays a key role in this narrative of colonisation.
Brown describes Abjection as the process whereby one group others
or dehumanizes another. Those who are deemed Abject are often avoided
by others, and seen as inferior. Abjectivication is continually used as
a mechanism to dominate a group of people, and control them. In the
case of colonialism, she argues that it is used by the west to dominate
over and control the indigenous population of Africa.
Abjectivication through discourses of dirt and sanitation are
used to draw distinctions between the Western governing figures and the
local population. Dirt being seen as something out of place, whilst
cleanliness being attributed to the “in group”, the colonisers, and dirt
being paralleled with the indigenous people. The reactions of disgust
and displeasure to dirt and uncleanliness are often linked social norms
and the wider cultural context, shaping the way in which Africa is still
thought of today.
Brown discusses how the colonial authorities were only concerned
with constructing a working sewage system to cater for the colonials
themselves, and weren’t concerned with the Ugandan population. This
rhetoric of sanitation is important because it is seen as a key part of
modernity and being civilised, which the African population are
therefore seen as not being. This lack of sanitation and proper sewage
systems add to this discourse of the people of Africa and Africa itself
being savages and uncivilised, playing a central role in how the west
justified the case of the civilising process. Brown refers to this
process of abjectification using discourses of dirt as a physical and
material legacy of colonialism that is still very much present in
Kampala and other African cities today.
Critique
Critical
theory on the colonisation of Africa is largely unified in a
condemnation of imperial activities. Postcolonial theory has been
derived from this anti-colonial/anti-imperial concept and writers such
as Mbembe, Mamdani and Brown, and many more, have used it as a narrative
for their work on the colonisation of Africa.
‘Post colonialism can be described as a powerful
interdisciplinary mood in the social sciences and humanities that is
refocusing attention on the imperial/colonial past, and critically
revising understanding of the place of the west in the world.’
Postcolonial geographers are consistent with the notion that
colonialism, although maybe not in such clear-cut forms, is still
concurrent today. Both Mbembe, Mamdani and Brown’s theories have a
consistent theme of the indigenous Africans having been treated as
uncivilised, second class citizens and that in many former colonial
cities this has continued into the present day with a switch from race
to wealth divide.
Mbembe is one of the most prominent writers within the field and this has led to his work being reviewed by numerous academics. On the Postcolony has faced criticism from academics such as Meredith Terreta for focusing too much on specific African nations such as Cameroon.
Echoes of this criticism can also be found when looking at the work of
Mamdani with his theories questioned for generalising across an Africa
that, in reality, was colonised in very different ways, by fundamentally
different European imperial ideologies.
In contrast to Mbembe and Mamdani, Brown is a less prominent writer and
one whose work is yet to be reviewed by other academics meaning it is
currently harder to grasp what academic theoretical critiques could be
brought against her work.
There is an international consensus that some of the actions of
the states involved in the Arab–Israeli conflict violate international
law, but some of the involved states dispute this.
In the Six-Day War in 1967, Israel pre-empted what many Israeli leaders believed to be an imminent Arab attack and invaded and occupied territory that had itself been invaded and occupied by neighboring Egypt, Syria and Jordan in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. Following the peace treaties between Israel and Egypt and Israel and Jordan,
in which the states relinquished their claims to the Israeli-occupied
territory, the conflict today mostly revolves around the Palestinians.
The main points of dispute (also known as the "core issues" or "final status issues") are the following:
Unlike a treaty agreement, customary international law
is usually not written. Customs of a longstanding nature can be
codified by formal treaties. The Laws and Customs of War on Land (Hague Convention IV) of 18 October 1907 and the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 are examples of conventional laws that are declarations of customary law.
To prove that a certain rule is customary one has to show that it is
reflected in state practice and that there exists a conviction in the
international community that such practice is required as a matter of
law. In this context, "practice" relates to official state practice and
therefore includes formal statements by states. A contrary practice by
some states is possible because if this contrary practice is condemned
by the other states, or subsequently denied by the government itself,
the original rule is actually confirmed.
In accordance with article 13 of the UN Charter,
the General Assembly is obligated to initiate studies and to make
recommendations that encourage the progressive development of
international law and its codification.
Acting in that agreed-upon treaty capacity, the General Assembly
affirmed the principles of international law that were recognized by the
Charter of the Nuremberg Tribunal and directed that they should be codified. Many of those same principles were subsequently adopted for inclusion in draft treaties that were under development by the International Law Commission of the United Nations. They were also incorporated through the agreement of the High Contracting Parties into the Geneva Conventions of 1949. In 1993 the UN Security Council
"acting under Chapter VII of the Charter on the United Nations"
established an international tribunal and approved a Statute that had
been recommended in a report submitted by the UN Secretary-General. It concluded beyond doubt that the law applicable in armed conflict as embodied in the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949 and the Hague Convention (IV) of 18 October 1907 had become part of international customary law, and should be part of the subject matter jurisdiction of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In 1998, the United Nations Diplomatic Conference of Plenipotentiaries approved the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The offenses against unwritten customary international law were
amenable to prosecution by international tribunals, like the Nuremberg
Tribunal, long before they were codified and incorporated into the
subsequent treaties.
Conventions, resolutions and declarations
Many provisions of international law are based upon principles and
norms that were developed in the Americas during the 19th century. They
include the principle of uti possidetis of 1810 and the related Monroe Doctrine of 1823, regarding non-colonization and non-intervention. In 1890, the First International Conference of American States adopted a proscription against territorial conquest and agreed upon the non-recognition of all acquisitions made by force.
Those principles and regional understandings were recognized in Article 21 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.
The system of mandates contained in article 22 of the Covenant was
based in part upon those normative declarations and state practices. The
Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928, and the League of Nations approval of the Stimson Doctrine in 1931 were efforts designed to end the practice of coercive territorial revisionism through international law.
After World War II, the principles of international law that upheld the territorial integrity of states were incorporated in the Charter of the United Nations, and subsequently reaffirmed in the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, the Organization of African Unity
charter respecting the integrity of inherited boundaries, and the 1975
CSCE Helsinki Final Act which contained a proscription that boundaries
could only be altered by consent. The Chapter on Fundamental Rights and Duties of States in the Charter of the Organization of American States provides that:
The
territory of a State is inviolable; it may not be the object, even
temporarily, of military occupation or of other measures of force taken
by another State, directly or indirectly, on any grounds whatever. No
territorial acquisitions or special advantages obtained either by force
or by other means of coercion shall be recognized.
Legal issues related to sovereignty
In their relations with other peoples and countries during the colonial era the Concert of Europe adopted a fundamental legal principle that the supreme legal authority, or sovereignty,
lay outside the indigenous nations. That legal principle resulted in
the creation of a large number of dependent states with restricted
sovereignty or colonial autonomy. Various terms were used to describe
different types of dependent states, such as condominium, mandate,
protectorate, colony, and vassal state. After World War II there was
strong international pressure to eliminate dependencies associated with
colonialism.
The vast majority of the world's sovereign states
resulted from the grant of independence to colonial peoples and
dependent territories. Prior to World War II many states were formed as a
result of wars that were resolved through peace treaties.
Some of these peace treaties were imposed on the losing side in a war;
others came about as a result of negotiations that followed wars, or
were entered into under the threat of war. In these cases, the
applicable law was bound in peace treaties among the states. The
practice of territorial aggrandizement was prohibited by the UN Charter,
a multilateral treaty, and the authoritative explanation of its legal
principles contained in UN General Assembly resolution 2625 (XXV) of 24
October 1970, Declaration of Principles of International Law Concerning
Friendly Relations and Co-operation Among States in Accordance with the
Charter of the United Nations.
The purpose of the United Nations is the prevention and removal of
threats to peace and the suppression of acts of aggression. The Charter
requires that members shall refrain from the threat of, or use of force.
According to communis opinio the obligations imposed by those
provisions of the Charter have become part of customary international
law and are binding on all States, whether they are members of the
United Nations or not.
Treaties and resolutions
The communities and Holy Places of Palestine have been under the
express protection of international law since the early 19th century.
For example, the International Court of Justice advisory opinion noted
that access to the Christian, Jewish and Islamic Holy Places had been
protected by various laws dating back to the early Ottoman Empire, with
the latest provisions having been incorporated into the UN Partition
Plan, article 13 of the League of Nations Mandate, and Article 62 of the
Treaty of Berlin of 13 July 1878.
The Treaty of Paris in 1814 called for a congress of the Great
Powers of Europe to settle the future boundaries of the continent.
Nearly every state in Europe was represented, and among other things a
prohibition on unilateral annexation was adopted. This bolstered the
concept of territorial integrity, which was enshrined in the Congress of
Vienna in 1815.
The 1856 Treaty of Paris declared that the Sublime Porte, the
government of the Ottoman Empire, had been admitted to participate in
the Public Law and System (Concert) of Europe.
The European system of public law governed territorial accessions and
the creation of new states. After the Russo-Turkish Wars in 1878, Russia
and the Ottoman Empire concluded the Treaty of San Stefano. Because it
modified the terms of the Treaty of Paris of 1856, the other signatories
called for a Congress to obtain its revision. The Treaty of Berlin of
1878 was the result. Montenegro, Serbia, and Romania were recognized as
new independent states and granted specific territory on condition that
religious, political, and property rights of minorities were guaranteed
on a nondiscriminatory basis. The delegates of the First Zionist Congress acknowledged these customary diplomatic precedents in the Basle Program. It stated that the aim of Zionism was the creation of a home for the Jewish people in Palestine, secured by public law.
During the course of the British mandate in Palestine, the British government
sought to reconcile the two claims in different ways. A number of
proposals and declarations were put forward, all of which were rejected
by one party or the other, and usually both. Again, two different
interpretations apply:
The Israeli perspective is that the United Kingdom only had the mandate to propose solutions in keeping with the resolutions adopted at the San Remo Conference,
not to amend them. In other words, that the relevant resolutions
adopted at the San Remo Conference are the public law that awarded the
Jewish people de jure sovereignty over Palestine.
The Arab perspective views British proposals as promises (subsequently broken) to the people of Palestine, see also the Hussein-McMahon Correspondence.
After World War II, the British government decided to abandon its mandate in Palestine. A United Nations Commission (UNSCOP) was assigned to recommend a solution to the conflict to the General Assembly. The recommendation was a partition plan that would result in an Arab and a Jewish state in the remaining mandate, and Jerusalem under UN rule, was approved by the General Assembly.
However, the resolution served partially as a basis for the Declaration of the Establishment of the State of Israel to take effect when Great Britain's mandate expired. Many states granted the State of Israel either de facto or de jure recognition. Israel was accepted as a sovereign member state in the United Nations and has diplomatic relations with many, but not all, sovereign states.
The legal consequence of subsequent events
Several events have affected the legal issues related to the conflict:
After the war in 1948, the mandate ended up being split between Israel, Egypt and Jordan. Israel and Jordan annexed all areas under their administration; Egypt maintained a military occupation of Gaza. The United Nations attempted to assert its authority over Jerusalem but the designated mediator, Count Bernadotte, was killed by the militant Zionist group Lehi
while pursuing his official duties, and the city ended up being split
between Israel and Jordan. Lehi had feared that Israel would agree to
Bernadotte's peace proposals, which they considered disastrous, unaware
that the provisional Israeli government had already rejected a proposal
by Bernadotte the day before.
Although there were numerous informal and backchannel communications
between Israel and Arab states through the years, all Arab states
refused to accept Israel's sovereignty until 1979, and most (excluding Jordan, Mauritania, and Egypt) persisted in rejecting Israel's desire to exist (see Khartoum Resolution) until the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative
that offers Israel peace and normal relations with all Arab countries
if Israel withdraws from all areas occupied in the 1967 war and "attain a
just solution" to the Palestinian refugee problem "to be agreed upon in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution 194".
Both as a result of the wars in 1948 and 1967, Arab residents of the
former Mandate were displaced and classified by the United Nations as "refugees".
In approximately the same time frame, most Jews in Arab states fled or were forced to leave, with most of them absorbed by Israel.
United Nations Security Council issued resolution 242 that set the framework for a resolution through "land for peace".
In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty,
Israel returning Sinai in return for peace, agreeing on international
borders between the two states, but leaving the disposition of Gaza for
peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians.
In 1988, the PLO declared "the establishment of the State of Palestine in the land of Palestine with its capital at Jerusalem." Jordan relinquished its claims to the West Bank.
In 1993, the PLO and Israel signed a declaration of principles that included mutual recognition and the ultimate goal of establishing self rule for the Palestinian people.
No other Arab state has granted legal recognition of Israel's
sovereignty. A formal state of war still exists between Israel and
several Arab states, though armistice agreements govern interaction between the states.
Several attempts at finalizing the terms for a peace agreement
between Israel and the PLO have failed. In 2006 the Palestinians elected
Hamas into power, a party that does not recognize Israel as legitimate.
Legal issues related to the wars
Sovereign states
have the right to defend themselves against overt external aggression,
in the form of an invasion or other attack. A number of states assert
that this principle extends to the right to launch military actions to
reduce a threat, protect vital interests, or pre-empt a possible attack
or emerging threat.
Wars between Israel and Arab states
Security Council resolution 242, emphasized "the inadmissibility of
the acquisition of territory by war," setting the stage for controversy
on the legal status of areas captured in 1967, and in 1948.
There are two interpretations of this matter:
The Israeli position is that:
The wars in 1956 and 1967
were waged by Israel to ensure the state's survival. As most
hostilities were initiated by the Arab side, Israel had to fight and win
these wars in order to ensure the state's sovereignty and safety.
Territories captured in the course of those wars are therefore
legitimately under Israeli administration for both security reasons and
to deter hostile states from belligerence.
In the absence of peace treaties between all the parties at war,
Israel has under all circumstances the right to maintain control of the
captured territories. Their ultimate disposition should be a result of
peace treaties, and not a condition for them. Even so, Israel asserts
that:
The 1956 war was caused by a pattern of Egyptian belligerence against Israel, culminating with the nationalization of the Suez Canal and the blockage of the canal for Israeli traffic in violation of the Convention of Constantinople and other relevant treaties, in their view a clear casus belli (i.e., an act justifying war)
The 1967 war was similarly caused by the closing of the Straits of Tiran,
the rejection of UN forces in the Sinai desert, and the redeployment of
Egyptian forces. Jordan and Syria entered the war in spite of Israeli
efforts to keep these frontiers peaceful.
The 1973 war was a surprise attack against Israel by Syria and Egypt.
The Arab position is that:
The 1956 war came after an Israeli attack on the Gaza strip
killing 25 Egyptian soldiers, and was a result of a conspiracy between
France, the United Kingdom and Israel in violation of Egypt's
sovereignty. Egypt claimed several legal justifications for refusing
Israel use of the Suez Canal, including the right of self-defence.
The war in 1967 was an unprovoked act of aggression aimed at
expanding the boundaries of Israel, and the territories captured during
this war are illegally occupied and this occupation must end.
As noted above, Israel, Egypt, and Jordan have resolved this impasse
and have recognized international borders between these states. The
dispute has now shifted to the conflict between the Palestinians and Israel.
Legal issues related to occupation
The Geneva Conventions and other international tractates recognize
that land a) conquered in the course of a war; and b) the disposition of
which is unresolved through subsequent peace treaties is "occupied" and
subject to international laws of war and international humanitarian law.
This includes special protection of individuals in those territories,
limitations on the use of land in those territories, and access by
international relief agencies.
Jerusalem
Recognizing the controversial nature of sovereignty over Jerusalem,
UNSCOP recommended that the city be placed under United Nations
administration in the partition plan. This was approved by the General
Assembly in November 1947, accepted by the Jews and rejected by the
Arabs. However, the 1948–1949 war resulted in Israel occupying the
western portion of the city. Israel made Jerusalem its capital in 1950,
establishing governmental offices in areas it controlled. Soon afterward
in 1950, Jordan annexed the eastern part along with the remainder of
the West Bank.
After the 1967 war, Israel put the parts of Jerusalem that had
been captured during the war under its jurisdiction and civilian
administration, establishing new municipal borders. Arguing that this
did not amount to annexation at the time, subsequent legal actions have
been interpreted as consistent with an annexation.
On July 30, 1980, the Knesset
passed a basic law making "Jerusalem, complete and united…the capital
of Israel." Since then Israel has extended the municipal boundaries
several times.
International bodies such as the United Nations have condemned Israel's Basic Law concerning Jerusalem as a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention
and therefore hold that the establishment of the city as Israel's
capital is against international law. Consequently, countries have
established embassies to Israel's government outside of Jerusalem. Similarly, missions to the Palestinian National Authority are at the insistence of Israel's government located outside of Jerusalem.
Israel has filed strenuous protests against this policy, asserting that:
There is no basis in international law for denying Israel's
establishing its capital in Jerusalem, because there is no binding
treaty that makes the city a Corpus separatum.
The 1980 Basic Law is not a legal innovation and only affirms Israel's long-standing position on Jerusalem.
Israel has the sovereign right to establish its capital at the most meaningful place for its people, and its claim is unique.
Objections to Jerusalem as Israel's capital are political in nature, and not legal.
In its 2004 advisory opinion on the legality of the Israeli West Bank barrier, the International Court of Justice concluded that the lands captured by Israel in the 1967 war, including East Jerusalem, are occupied territory.
Settlement in territories
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention states,
Individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of
protected persons from occupied territory to the territory of the
Occupying Power or to that of any other country, occupied or not, are
prohibited, regardless of their motive.
and states in paragraph 6,
The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
Arguments supporting the position that establishing, funding, or
allowing settlements in the territories is a violation of international
law are,
The International Committee of the Red Cross' commentaries to the Geneva Conventions
state that Article 49, paragraph 6, "is intended to prevent a practice
adopted during the Second World War by certain Powers, which transferred
portions of their own population to occupied territory for political
and racial reasons or in order, as they claimed, to colonize those
territories." It further notes "that in this paragraph the meaning of
the words 'transfer' and 'deport' is rather different from that in which
they are used in the other paragraphs of Article 49 since they do not
refer to the movement of protected persons but to that of nationals of
the occupying Power". The Committee has on several occasions described
the establishment of Israeli settlements in the occupied territories as a
violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
the International Court of Justice, in paragraph 120 of its advisory opinion
on the "Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the
Occupied Palestinian Territory", asserts that: "That provision [article
49(6)] prohibits not only deportations or forced transfers of population
such as those carried out during the Second World War, but also any
measures taken by an occupying Power in order to organize or encourage
transfers of parts of its own population into the occupied territory"
and "concludes that the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of
international law". The dissenting judge Thomas Buergenthal
agreed that "this provision applies to the Israeli settlements in the
West Bank and that their existence violates Article 49, paragraph 6".
Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the International Criminal CourtRome Statute
defines "[t]he transfer, directly or indirectly, by the Occupying Power
of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies"
as a war crime. Israel did initially sign the statute, but later declared its intention not to ratify it.
The Security Council has in Resolution 446
determined: "that the policy and practices of Israel in establishing
settlements in the Palestinian and other Arab territories occupied since
1967 have no legal validity".
Arguments supporting the position that settlement in the territories does not violate international law are,
Israel ministry of foreign affairs argues "As the West Bank and
Gaza Strip were not under the legitimate and recognized sovereignty of
any state prior to the Six Day War, they should not be considered
occupied territories."
Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention is limited to transfers
or deportations into or out of Occupied Territories which are
'forcible'.
Article 49 "cannot be viewed as prohibiting the voluntary return of
individuals to the towns and villages from which they, or their
ancestors, had been ousted" from living, e.g., in Gush Etzion, Jerusalem, or Hebron before 1948.
The Palestinians, as part of the Oslo Accords ,
agreed that the issue of settlements in the territories shall fall
under the jurisdiction of final status negotiations (Article V, Section
3).
Jews have a legal right to settle the areas according to the Mandate
for Palestine (specifically Article 6 of the mandate concerning Jewish
settlements) and to such documents as the Faisal Weizmann Agreement. The British Mandate (granted by the League of Nations) specifically encouraged "close settlement by Jews on the land."
Legal issues related to the Israeli West Bank barrier
Israel has completed long stretches of barriers within the West Bank,
separating Israel proper, Israeli settlements and large parts of the
Palestinian territories from Palestinian cities and population centers.
Those who question the legality of the barrier make the following arguments:
At various locations, the selected route of the barrier required the
demolition of homes and the expulsion of the residents of those homes,
in violation of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The barrier and Israel's series of checkpoints have made life nearly impossible for residents of the West Bank, constituting collective punishment. Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention categorize collective punishment in occupied territories as a war crime.
At various locations, the selected route of the barrier required the
demolition of Palestinian property, in violation of article 53 of the
Fourth Geneva Conventions.
The barrier is an attempt to establish de facto borders
between Israel and a future Palestinian state, in effect annexing large
parts of West Bank and all of East Jerusalem, in violation of numerous
United Nations Security Council Resolutions.
The barrier attempts to separate Palestinians from their means of
livelihood and from interaction with others and it, therefore, qualifies
as apartheid. Apartheid is illegal as per the 2002 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court and is considered a crime against humanity (see also: Israel and the apartheid analogy).
The barrier is constructed inside of the West Bank, making it completely in violation of international law.
The barrier differs from all other protective barriers built by any
other state (such as the Berlin Wall, or the US-Mexico border) in that
it is not constructed on the border between states but rather crosses
the occupied territories in numerous locations, and with
existing/expanding settlements, divides the occupied territories into 4
or 5 cantons.
Israel defends the security barrier by arguing that:
The barrier and its route are solely security measures that will have no bearing on future peace negotiations.
The land is not subject to the Geneva Conventions.
The Geneva Conventions explicitly allows structures to be built for purposes of self-defense.
The Israeli Supreme Court is reviewing the route on a continuous basis and has forced it to change.
StandWithUs, a pro-Israel advocacy organization, defends the security fence by pointing out:
Israel did not begin building the fence until 2003 when terrorism reached unprecedented levels.
Since construction of the fence began in 2003, the number of completed terrorist attacks has dropped by more than 90%.
97% of the barrier is a chain-link fence similar to those along the
United States's border; only 3% (10 miles) is a concrete wall, built to
prevent sniper shooting prevalent in certain areas.
Only 5%–8% of the West Bank and less than 1% of Palestinians will end up on the Israeli side of the fence.
Palestinians can bring their specific grievances about the barrier to Israel's Supreme Court, which in several cases has ruled that the fence must be re-routed.
In 2004, the United Nations passed a number of resolutions and the International Court of Justice
issued a ruling where judges ruled 14–1 that the portions of the
Israeli West Bank barrier that are located within occupied Palestinian
territories are illegal under international law.
Prior to the ruling, Israel had made the claim that the ICJ lacked
standing to rule on the legality of the barrier, which the court
unanimously rejected. On July 20, 2004, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution demanding that Israel obey the ICJ ruling. 150 nations voted in favor of the resolution, 7 voted against, and 10 abstained.
The construction by Israel, the occupying power, of a wall in the
Occupied Territories departing from the armistice line of 1949 is
illegal under relevant provisions of international law and must be
ceased and reversed.
The United Kingdom, Germany, Bulgaria, and Cameroon
abstained from the vote. The justification given by the U.S. for the
veto was that the resolution did not condemn terrorist attacks made by
Palestinian groups. The United States, however, has been condemned by some countries for its support of the barrier.
One week later, on October 21, a similar (though non-binding)
resolution (ES-10/13) was passed by the UN General Assembly 144–4 with
12 abstentions. The resolution said the barrier was "in contradiction to
international law", and demanded that Israel "stop and reverse" its
construction. Israel called the resolution a "farce".
In December 2003, the United Nations General Assembly passed a
resolution requesting the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to make a
non-binding advisory opinion on the "legal consequences arising" from the construction of the barrier.
The hearings began in February 2004. The Palestinian Authority
is not a member of the court but was allowed to make a submission by
virtue of being a UN observer and a co-sponsor of the General Assembly
resolution. In January 2004, the court also authorized the League of Arab States and the Organisation of the Islamic Conference to make submissions.
Israel initially announced that it would cooperate with the
court, while noting that advisory rulings of the ICJ are not binding.
Israel later made a written submission to the court rejecting the
authority of the court to rule on the case, but announced (on February
12, 2004) that it would not appear at the court to make oral
submissions.
On January 30, 2004, Israel announced officially it did not
recognize ICJ authority to rule over the barrier issue. Israel also
dispatched a 120-page document, elaborating on the security needs to
build the "terror prevention fence" and purporting to demonstrate the
atrocities committed by Palestinian terrorists.
The document also included a judicial part with legal accounts
supporting Israel's claim that the issue of the barrier is political and
not in the ICJ authority.
On 23, 24, and 25 February 2004 the hearings before the International Court of Justice took place in the Peace Palace at the Hague.
Ruling of the ICJ
Graffiti on the barrier, reading "Illegal."
On July 9, 2004, the International Court of Justice issued its
opinion against the barrier, calling for it to be removed and the Arab
residents to be compensated for any damage done. The Court advised that
the United Nations General Assembly, which had asked for the ruling, and
the Security Council should act on the issue.
Israel is obligated to stop construction of the wall, including around East Jerusalem and to dismantle the structure, and to repeal all legislative and regulatory acts relating to the wall.
Israel is obligated to "make reparation for all damages caused" by the wall, including around East Jerusalem”.
All states are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal wall
and "not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation", and
to "ensure compliance by Israel with international humanitarian law" in accordance with the Fourth Geneva Convention relating to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War 1949, while "respecting the United Nations Charter and international law, as embodied in that convention”".
The opinion was passed 14-1 by the court judges, except for the 4th decision which was passed 13–2.
Thomas Buergenthal,
the American judge, was the sole dissenting member of the 15 judges on
this ICJ panel. In his declaration, he stated that there was much in the
court's opinion with which he agreed but that the court should have
declined to hear the case since it did not have before it "relevant
facts bearing directly on issues of Israel's legitimate right of
self-defense". He stated that his dissenting opinion "should not be seen
as reflecting my view that the construction of the wall by Israel on
the Occupied Palestinian Territory does not raise serious questions as a
matter of international law." On the point of portions of the wall that
were being built beyond the green line, which Israel stated were to
defend settlements, Buergenthal stated:
Paragraph 6 of Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva
Convention also does not admit exceptions on grounds of military or
security exigencies. It provides that "the Occupying Power shall not
deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the
territory it occupies". I agree that this provision applies to the
Israeli settlements in the West Bank and that their existence violates
Article 49, paragraph 6. It follows that the segments of the wall being
built by Israel to protect the settlements are ipso facto
in violation of international humanitarian law. Moreover, given the
demonstrable great hardship to which the affected Palestinian population
is being subjected in and around the enclaves created by those segments
of the wall, seriously doubt that the wall would here satisfy the
proportionality requirement to qualify as a legitimate measure of
self-defence.
Reaction to the ICJ
The opinion was accepted by the United Nations General Assembly, on July 20, 2004, it passed a resolution demanding that Israel obey the ICJ ruling. Israel, the US, Australia, the Federated States of Micronesia, the Marshall Islands, and Palau voted against the resolution, 10 nations abstained, and 150 nations voted in favor.
Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat said: "This is an excellent
decision. This is a victory for the Palestinian people and for all the
free peoples of the world."
Israel rejected the ICJ ruling and emphasized the barrier's self-defense aspect,
and stressed that Israel will continue to build the barrier. The United
States also rejected the ruling, declaring that the issue was of
political rather than legal nature. Colin Powell
stated that barrier was effective against terror, and noted that the
ICJ ruling was not binding, but insisted that Israel not use the barrier
to predetermine permanent borders.
Numerous human rights organizations welcomed the ICJ ruling. Amnesty International said that Israel should immediately cease constructing the barrier. The governments of Israel's neighbors Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, and Egypt also welcomed the ruling.
On July 13, 2004, the US House of Representatives passed
Resolution HR 713 deploring "the misuse of the International Court of
Justice (ICJ)... for the narrow political purpose of advancing the
Palestinian position on matters Palestinian authorities have said should
be the subject of negotiations between the parties." The Resolution further stated that twenty-three countries, including every member of the G8 and several other European states, had "submitted objections on various grounds against the ICJ hearing the case."
... a person who is outside his/her country of nationality or
habitual residence; has a well-founded fear of persecution because of
his/her race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social
group or political opinion; and is unable or unwilling to avail
himself/herself of the protection of that country, or to return there,
for fear of persecution. The convention is administered by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
Under UNRWA's operational definition, Palestine refugees are
persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine between June 1946
and May 1948, who lost both their homes and means of livelihood as a
result of the 1948 Arab–Israeli conflict. UNRWA's services are available
to all those living in its area of operations who meet this definition,
who are registered with the Agency and who need assistance. UNRWA's
definition of a refugee also covers the descendants of persons who
became refugees in 1948.
Since the definition used by UNRWA was originally made on an
operational basis rather than dictated by specific international law,
obligations and rights related to Palestinian refugees under
international law are a matter of some debate. The debate centers on
questions such as: whether the status of refugees can properly be passed
through inheritance to individuals who have never lived in the vacated
areas, and whether individuals who have repatriated in other countries
can legally claim refugee status.
Palestinian refugees were excluded from the 1951 Convention due
to the clause that "This Convention shall not apply to persons who are
at present receiving from organs or agencies of the United Nations other
than the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees protection or
assistance." As interpreted
by UNHCR, this caused some anomalies, since UNRWA admits some persons
as refugees that are not automatically admitted by the Convention, and,
conversely, some of the legal protections given to refugees by the
Convention were not available to most Palestinians. In 2002, UNHCR
adopted a revised interpretation that fills some of these gaps. The
BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights
published a critical analysis of UNHCR revised interpretation of the
1951 Refugee Convention.
