Sushila Rao
In a move laden with mostly symbolic significance—yet potentially fraught with the likelihood of fomenting further ill will in a troubled region—the jury of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine recently published its final statement, concluding that “Israel subjects the Palestinian people to an institutionalized regime of domination amounting to apartheid as defined under international law.”
Article 2 of the 1973 Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of Apartheid contains a definition of the crime of apartheid—“which shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa”—as covering “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them.” It then lists the acts that fall within the ambit of the crime, which include: murder, torture, inhuman treatment and arbitrary arrest of members of a racial group; deliberate imposition of living conditions calculated to cause its physical destruction; legislative measures that discriminate in the political, social, economic and cultural fields; measures that divide the population along racial lines by the creation of separate residential areas for racial groups; the prohibition of interracial marriages; and the persecution of persons opposed to apartheid. [Read more…] about The Russell Tribunal on Palestine: An International “Court” of Public Opinion?