Brussels, 25/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - The Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which was founded by notable European, Palestinian and Jewish figures, including the Israeli Nurit Peled and also Ken Coates, who chaired the Tribunal until his death in June of this year, will hold its next session in South Africa on 5-6 November. The issue for discussion is: “Whether Israel's treatment of the Palestinian people fits the international legal definitions of the crime of apartheid”. The decision to hold the session in District Six, Cape Town, the site of a brutal apartheid-era forced removal, is likely to raise controversy. The Russell Tribunal has no legal status but acts as a court of the people, a Tribunal of conscience, faced with injustices and violations of international law. The jury which will set out the case against Israel and, indirectly, the EU will be made up of Pierre Galand, former Belgian senator, Stéphane Hessel, a Nazi concentration camp survivor who helped draft the Universal Declaration on Human Rights and who wrote the famous book Indignez-vous, and Alice Walker, an American poet and human rights campaigner. This session will be the third, following those held in Barcelona in March 2010 and London in November of last year.
The Barcelona session was devoted specifically to the indictment of the EU and its direct responsibility in the continuation of the conflict. The EU declined the invitation to appear. Commission President José Manuel Barroso wrote a letter to the Tribunal in which he merely drew attention to the conclusions of the Council of Ministers. Current MEPs Véronique De Keyser and Raul Romeva, and former MEPs Luisa Morgantini and Francis Wurtz took part, however.
The Tribunal regretted that the EU and its member states “have proved reticent in presenting their arguments concerning the issues that are addressed at this first session”. It concluded, after setting out the complaints against Israel, that, even if the EU and its member states are not the direct authors of the conduct, they nonetheless infringe international law, either by not taking the measures the conduct of Israel requires them to take or by contributing directly or indirectly to this conduct.
After setting out the facts in detail and noting the legal obligations incumbent on the EU, the Tribunal draws attention to “passive and active forms of assistance by the European Union and its member states for violations of international law by Israel”. These include “exports of weapons and components of weapons …; exports of produce from settlements in occupied territories to the European Union; participation by the settlements in European research programmes; failure of the European Union to complain about the destruction by Israel of infrastructure in Gaza during the Cast Lead operation; failure of the European Union to demand Israeli compliance with clauses concerning respect for human rights contained in the various association agreements concluded by the European Union with Israel; the decision by the European Union to upgrade its relations with Israel under the Euro-Mediterranean Partnership Agreement; tolerance by the European Union and its member states of certain economic relations between European companies and Israel involving commercial projects in the occupied territories, such as the management of the Tovlan landfill site in the Jordan valley and the construction of a tramline in East Jerusalem”; and also the participation of some European states in surveillance operations off Gaza to prevent arms trafficking.
In its conclusions the Russell Tribunal highlighted “breaches by the European Union and its member states of certain specific rules of international law”, “of certain general rules of international law” and “failure by the European Union and its member states to take measures against the violations of international law committed by Israel”. The second session in London in November 2010, which examined international corporate complicity in human rights violations pointed the finger of blame directly at the European Union for its use of a security company believed to be active in the Israeli settlements. (F.B./transl.rt)