Gaza at the ICC: Denial of Palestinians’ Right to Return under International Criminal Law

In this seminar, the speakers will address address historical and current patterns of violations of the right to return that may be brought to the attention of the Office of the Prosecutor.

Speakers

• Ms Haydee Dijkstal - Chief External Counsel at International Center of Justice for Palestinians, barrister at 33 Bedford Row
• Professor Susan Akram - Director of the International Human Rights Clinic, Boston University School of Law.
• Mr Ahmed Abofoul - Legal Advisor, Al-Haq Organization and former research fellow, ISS-EUR

The discussion will be moderated by Dr Jeff Handmaker - Associate Professor at the International Institute of Social Studies.

After a year of genocidal violence, Palestinians in Gaza are facing denial of return to their homes that perpetuates a decades-long displacement, as 80% of Gazans are refugees and the descendants of refugees expelled by Israel from their homes and lands in the 1947-1949 Nakba.

Even before the war on Gaza, Palestinians' right to return had been systematically denied by an architecture of laws and policies barring Palestinian refugees' right to enter and reside in the homes and lands they or their forefathers were forced to flee. This event will present the arguments made in an Art. 15 Communication to the International Criminal Court on the denial of Palestinian right to return as a crime against humanity, authored by the International Human Rights Clinic at Boston University School of Law and the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians. Speakers will also address historical and current patterns of violations of the right to return that may be brought to the attention of the Office of the Prosecutor.

Legal grounding for the right to return

The right to return is grounded in three main areas of international law. Its realization is also a cornerstone of the resolution of Palestinian refugees' decades of displacement and dispossession, as embedded in U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194. The denial of return is prohibited by both universal treaty and customary international law. 

Widespread or systematic violations of the right to return are currently being investigated as potentially giving rise to individual criminal responsibility under the Rome Statute, in the context of the Situation of Bangladesh/Myanmar. This has laid the foundation for arguing for the inclusion of the denial of return within the scope of the OTP's investigation into the Situation in the State of Palestine.