I am honoured to write the foreword for this book which aims to focus international attention on the extraordinary length of the belligerent occupation of the Palestinian territory by Israel. Inherently only a temporary status, this occupation has now lasted more than half a century.

Over thirty years ago, in December 1987, Al-Haq organised its first international conference on “International Law and the Administration of Occupied Territories”. Our aim was to seek international expertise on the question of how an occupier should administer occupied territory under a prolonged occupation, a question which had been largely unexplored since after World War ii. Working with Al-Haq at the time, I helped to organise that conference and subsequently edited the collection of papers.¹

Humanitarian law was a backwater at that time, so we were asking experts to draw on precedents from decades earlier to consider how Israel should be administering the Palestinian territory it occupied. At that time the prolonged nature of the occupation, already in place for twenty years, preoccupied many of our contributors, but who then could have imagined that it would still be continuing for over 55 years, until today?

Yet soon after publication of that book, humanitarian law became all too topical in a number of ways: the Gulf War, the occupation of Kuwait by Iraq, the establishment and developing jurisprudence of the UN International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the International Criminal Court, and the International Court of Justice’s advisory opinion of 2004 on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Al-Haq’s book, published under my name in 1992, provided persuasive evidence of the violations of international law in Israel’s administration of the territories it occupied. We had hoped that by making the international community aware of the maladministration and exploitation by Israel of the territories it occupied and of its violation of international humanitarian and human rights law, we could contribute to the pressure on Israel to change. Regrettably this did not happen and the opportunities for such change now seem ever more remote. Rather the occupation deepened and as explored in the current volume, came closer in many ways to de facto annexation, with expansion of settlements, the building of the Wall, restrictions on movement, and seizure of Palestinian land and resources, as well as the continued systematic repression of the Palestinian civilian population.

I was therefore glad to know that Al-Haq had again taken the initiative, in partnership with the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Birzeit University’s Institute of Law, and the International Federation for Human Rights to bring together international legal and practitioner expertise in an international conference in 2018 on “The Threshold from Occupation to Annexation”. That conference and the passing of half a century of occupation gave momentum to the present volume, edited by Nada Kiswanson and Dr Susan Power focusing on the critical issue of prolonged occupation and international law.

I was privileged to work with Al-Haq in its early formative years and to have known the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights since its establishment in Gaza. I observed both organisations over the years as they faced seemingly insurmountable challenges and admired their steadfastness in overcoming these and in sustaining the extraordinary quality of their work in documenting, defending, and promoting human rights in Palestine. At the time of writing, there is a concerted effort to stifle Palestinian human rights organisations and silence Palestinian civil society at large, including by criminalising, arresting, and threatening human rights defenders.² The vibrant international law discourse and human rights movement is, however, resilient. Since the conference held by Al-Haq in 1987, not only has international humanitarian law developed rapidly, but documents have come into the public domain which have enabled researchers to review key aspects of the events surrounding the establishment of the State of Palestine and the occupation of Palestine. While many of these remain “classified”, enough has been made accessible for Palestinian, Israeli and international historians to add considerably to earlier understandings of what really happened in 1948 and 1967 to the Palestinian people. Some of these findings are drawn on by the distinguished contributors to the present volume, including some who also contributed to our conference in 1987.

Chapters in this book cover an array of topics and aspects of the prolonged occupation and Israel’s control, ranging from colonialism and apartheid to the illegality of occupation. Nada Kiswanson, in her excellent introduction, summarises and groups the chapters. Importantly, many of the chapters in this book propose specific actions which can and should be taken by States, collectively and individually. Such actions include asking the United Nations to organise the necessary steps towards a fair solution for Palestinian refugees, including financial resources to cover compensation. They also include calls for the direct involvement of the international community in bringing an end to settlement activities in the West Bank and the lifting of the blockade of the Gaza Strip. In agreeing that Israel’s exercise of control over Palestinians is unacceptable, chapters examine Third States’ responsibilities under international law and underline their duties not to recognise as lawful a situation created by serious breaches arising under a peremptory norm of general international law, nor to render aid or assistance in maintaining that situation. Notably, the European Commission should be pressed to propose a law to stop trade with illegal settlements, but if the Commission fails to do so, then Member States should act unilaterally in compliance with its legal obligations. Considering the potential role of the International Criminal Court, contributors stress the importance of realistic expectations of what can be achieved through the icc while anticipating that it can expose some crimes committed by Israeli officials and in turn bring much needed justice to some victims.

I applaud Al-Haq and their co-convenors of the conference and Nada Kiswanson and Dr Susan Power for their efforts in bringing new analyses and, importantly, recommendations for urgent action to the international community. I sincerely hope that drawing on the recommendations put forward by the contributors to this book, action will be taken to bring justice to Palestinians and Israelis so badly affected by the long years of conflict.

Emma Playfair