[This is the first installment of the O.I.L. Page Media Roundup, dealing with Occupation, Intervention, and Law. The O.I.L. page can be accessed here and can be clicked on the bar above]
In her article, “Exploiting A ‘Dynamic’ Interpretation? The Israeli High Court of Justice Accepts the Legality of Israel’s Quarrying Activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” Valentina Azarov examines the Israeli High Court’s decision legitimating Israeli extraction of natural resources in the Occupied Palestinian Territory for the benefit of the Israeli private market. Azarov argues that the “[t]his reasoning not only appears to grant the Agreements a quasi-legal character, but it also implies that the (political) Agreements can trump Israel’s international law obligations, effectively affirming Israel’s violation of the law of occupation and allowing for the Israeli authorities extensive exercise of rights in excess of the limits of the law of occupation, in territory where it is not the legitimate sovereign.” In his 2009 article, Israel’s Laws of Persecution, Nimer Sultany discusses the ways in which the Israeli High Court is part of the legal and political system upholding Israel’s institutionalized discrimination towards Palestinians both within and without the Green Line. In an earlier publication for the Harvard International Law Journal, Sultany critically examines the character of the Court and its relation to the State by taking a closer look at the legacy of its most prominent Chief Justice, Aharon Barak.
Azarov also examines Human Rights Watch’s most recent report on Israel’s Control of Palestinian Residency Rights in the West Bank, entitled “Forget About Him, He’s Not Here.” In her article, Under the Guise of Security? Population Control by the Occupying Power, Azarov discusses Israeli policies aimed at controlling the population in order to facilitate forced population transfers in international law. She emphasizes the Report’s findings that as an Occupying Power, Israel is prohibited from transferring its civilian population into the territory it occupies under a sweeping and indiscriminate security pretext.
In his piece, Iranian Threat to Close the Strait of Hormuz, James Harrison discusses the legality of Iran’s threat to control the movement of warships in its territorial waters. Harrison argues that this raises a classic law of the seas problem wherein a coastal state insists that it control the passage of hostile naval vessels passing through their waters. The proposition that coastal states reserve such a rights is derived from Article 17(1) of the 1982 Convention on the Law of the Sea “ships of all States … shall have a right of innocent passage.”
In his opinion piece in Haaretz, Time to Recognize Kosovo, Yonatan Touval chides the Israeli government for its failure to recognize the newly independent Balkan state. Notably, in his 2008 article, Touval examines the impact of such a vote on the prospects of similar Palestinian ambitions for, and tactics aimed at achieving, statehood.
The New York Times’ piece, Delays in a Trial Show Libya’s Legal Disarray, demonstrates Libya’s National Transition Council’s inability to control the country’s strong militias thus leading to a weak judicial system among other major challenges for the new Government.
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s leading Parliamentary force, wields Egypt’s 1979 Peace Treaty with Israel as leverage in its relations with the United States. The New York Times describes how the Brotherhood threatened to revisit the Treaty if the United States reduced its approximate $1.6 billion in aid in response to Egypt’s crackdown on foreign-funded NGOs.
Paul Robinson draws on Russian history to explain Russia’s veto of the UN Security Council Resolution on Syria in his blog post, Stolypin and Russia’s Veto of the Syria Resolution. Robinson asserts that an alternate explanation for Russia’s veto, as something other than national interest, is its historical aversion to democratization during times of upheaval.