 Are
Israel practices against the Palestinian People in breach of the
prohibition on Apartheid under International Law?
Cape
Town, 5-7 November 2011
District
Six Museum
Jury
Members:
Stéphane Hessel, Gisèle Halimi, Ronnie Kasrils,
Mairead Maguire, Michael Mansfield, Antonio Martin Pallin, Cynthia
McKinney, Aminata Traoré, Yasmin Sooka and Alice Walker.
Saturday
5 November – Day One
|
09.15
|
Doors
open.
|
|
10.00
|
Introduction:
Pierre
Galand and Stéphane Hessel.
|
|
10.30
|
Opening
Remarks: Archbishop
Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
|
Setting
the Legal Context:
The
Palestinian Right to Self-Determination
|
10.45
|
Raji
Sourani will
explain the content of the right, the nature of its denial in
the Palestinian context, and its relation to apartheid and
persecution.
|
Apartheid
Apartheid
in South Africa, and the Prohibition of Apartheid in International
Law
|
11.15
|
Max
du Plessis will
detail the treaty and customary international law status of the
prohibition on apartheid in international law.
|
11.45
Coffee Break
The
Law and Practice of Apartheid in South Africa and Palestine
|
12.15
|
John
Dugard will
give a reminder of how the apartheid regime operated in law and
policy in South Africa, and provide an overview of Israeli law
and policy with respect to the prohibition on apartheid.
|
Elements
of the Definition of Apartheid: Racial Groups under International
Law
|
12.45
|
David
Keane will
explain the broad construction given to the term ‘racial’
in the context of ‘racial discrimination’ in
International Law.
|
13.05
Lunch
|
14.35
|
Ingrid
Jaradat will
discuss Palestinian identity and Palestinians as a distinct
racial group for the purposes of the definition of apartheid.
|
|
Ran
Greenstein
will
discuss the extent to which the definition of apartheid can be
applied to the relations between the Israeli regime and its
Palestinian subjects.
|
Elements
of the Definition of Apartheid:
an
institutionalized regime of systematic domination
|
15.05
|
Joseph
Schechla
and Emily
Schaeffer
will go over discriminatory elements of the Israeli legal
system and the separate legal systems and courts for
Jewish-Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the occupied
territories.
|
Acts
of apartheid
|
15.45
|
(Speaker
TBC)
will discuss whether there is a case of deliberate imposition
on a racial group or groups of living conditions calculated to
cause its or their physical destruction in whole or in part.
|
16.00
Coffee Break
|
16.30
|
Winnie
Madikizela-Mandela and
Mahmoud Hassan
will give testimonies about extra-judicial killing, torture or
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and
arbitrary arrest and illegal imprisonment during Apartheid
South Africa, and in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and in
Israel.
|
Acts
of apartheid: Exploitation of labour of members of a racial group
or groups
|
17.00
|
Rafeef
Ziadah
will discuss this topic in relation to the facts that Israel
has raised barriers to Palestinian employment inside Israel
since the 1990s, and that Palestinian labour is now used
extensively only in the construction and services sectors of
Jewish-Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories whileZwelinzima
Vavi will
remind people of the conditions of employment under Apartheid
South Africa.
|
|
17.30
|
Closing
remarks
|
|
|
End
of Day One
Sunday
6 November – Day Two
|
09.30
|
Doors
open.
|
|
10.30
|
Opening
remarks.
|
Acts
of apartheid (continued)
|
10.45
|
Luciana
Coconi, Shawan Jabarin and
Lea Tsemel will
give
testimonies over the denial of the right to freedom of
movement, of residence, to leave and return to one’s
country, to a nationality, to work, to form recognised trade
unions, to education, to freedom of opinion and expression, and
to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.
|
11.30
Coffee Break
Acts
of apartheid: Measures designed to divide the population along
racial lines
|
12.00
|
Pumla
Gobodo-Madikizela, Jeff Halper and
Jamal Juma’a
will speak of the creation of separate reserves and ghettoes,
the prohibition of mixed marriages, and the expropriation of
landed property in Israel/Palestine as well as in former
Apartheid South Africa.
|
Acts
of apartheid: Persecution of organizations and persons, by
depriving them of fundamental rights and freedoms, because they
oppose apartheid
|
12.45
|
Haneen
Zoabi
and Shawqi
Issa
will testify about the arrest, imprisonment, travel bans and
the targeting of Palestinian parliamentarians, national
political leaders and human rights defenders, the closing down
of related organisations, and the current legislation being
enacted to punish those who initiate or promote boycott
measures for opposition to Israeli domination.
|
13.15
Lunch
Persecution
|
14.45
|
Rafaelle
Maison
will set out and explain the status of persecution as a crime
against humanity and Raji
Surani, Mohammed Khatib and
Jazi Abu Kaf
will present evidence pursuant to the above with regard to the
Gaza Strip, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the
Palestinian citizens of Israel.
|
16.10
Coffee Break
Presentation
by Israeli Government
|
16.40
|
Speaker
to be confirmed by the Israeli Government.
|
Third
Party Responsibility and Remedies
|
17.00
|
François
Dubuisson
will elaborate on the third party responsibility and remedies
if Israel were to be proved guilty of apartheid.
|
|
17.30
|
Closing
remarks.
|
|
17.45
|
Jury
Retires to Deliberate.
|
End
of Day Two
Monday
7 November – Day Three
Press
Conference
Cape
Town
The
Homecoming Centre
|
11.00
|
The
Jury of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will set out its
conclusions for the Third Session of the Tribunal at an
International press conference.
|
|
