Occupation of areas within the palestinian region and israel's involvement

We can talk about examples of occupation as it relates to the arab-israeli conflict in terms of the occupation of areas within the palestinian region and israel's involvement in that about the 2003 occupation of the state of iraq by us-led coalition forces these are all examples where we have situations of belligerent occupation and the question of h an rights is very important in these in these instances but even though they're very important they are still nonetheless quite heavily debated okay now let's think about the reasons why h an rights should apply legally should apply to situations of belligerent occupation,

There are a number of arguments that we can present to to support this premise the first of these arguments is the one i'm just going to begin with obviously and that is that h an rights law and h an rights in general like the kind of ethereal concept of h an rights simply do not disappear when occupation is applicable so we can talk about this by referencing scholarly interpretation and we can also reference some case law so what is this argument a little bit more detail let's flesh this argument out a little bit more ultimately what this argument stating is that it takes the first premise of h an rights that h an rights are universal in nature h an rights are a universal concept okay there is no situation where we should be able to apply and say that h an rights exist in one argument and in one arena and in one situation but not in another they have to be universal okay now there are some scholarly interpretations of this so for example draper argues,

That human rights quote do not dissipate if an armed conflict breaks out this supports the notion that h an rights are universal they don't just disappear if if a war breaks out okay if anything they should be bolstered even more when a conflict breaks out because during armed conflicts do we have situations where h an rights might be violated and even and so therefore this is the case even in armed conflicts and by extension in cases of belligerent occupation robertson goes one step further they make the claim that quote h anitarian law is one branch of h an rights so they argue that h a international h anitarian law is a subset of international h an rights law and so therefore to suggest that one law should apply when another one shouldn't in any kind of situation like a situation of occupation doesn't actually make sense,

Because they are both one in the same thing they just talk about and exist in two different scenarios so we do also have support for this proposition in regard to international institutions and various examples of case law so first of all there have been numerous examples of very significant organs of the united nations that have upheld the applicability of h an rights in the cases of belligerent occupation so for example the un general assembly in 1968 argued that h an rights should be observed during times of armed conflict and they made and took particular note to reference cases of belligerent occupation equally in 2003 the united nations security council followed suit and explicitly emphasized the importance of h an rights law following the the 2003 us-led occupation of iraq,

So during the iraq occupation the u.n security council made it very clear and emphasized that human rights law does not dissipate they do not disappear in situations of occupation like the occupation that we had in iraq secondly there is evidence to support the necessity of h an rights in cases of belligerent occupation when we look at some pieces of case law the most prominent example of this was the opinion of the european commission of h an rights in the case of turkey v cyprus or cyprus v turkey sorry now the detail that this case concerned the military occupation of parts of cyprus in 1974 there had been accusations of h an rights abuses by cyprus and specific articles of the european convention for the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms was cited so they cited the h an rights charter effectively not the european union's human rights charter,

But the european convention for the protection of h an rights now this was an interesting case because what turkey did was denied that the territorial control of this part of cyprus was an occupation they had argued that quote a new government had been established in the area of cyprus at issue and that turkey did not control the area as a result of that but the commission disagreed with this interpretation they held that h an rights norms as stated that were violated were applicable in this situation and so this decision has been seen as quote significant recognition to the principle of applicability of international h an rights law in occupied territories so we can see already that some of the courts and case cases that we've seen on this issue have upheld the fact that h an rights should apply in situations of belligerent occupation now ultimately in discussing this argumentone should not be under the impression that occupation law and provides no protections for civilians,

This is not to say that if we do not apply h an rights law to cases of belligerent occupation that there is no protection of civilians that are provided by the geneva conventions or the hague regulations that's not true the law of occupation does provide some protections okay and these are these include the prohibition of rights violations including violence against citizens as well as prohibition of discrimination based on quote race color sex language religion political opinion origin wealth birth or other status this is what is defined in the first protocol additional protocol one of the geneva conventions so we also see within the treaty law that there is also a an explicit prohibition of physical or psychological torture as well as any kind of collective punishment prohibition of collective punishment as well so there are some rights that exist within the law of occupation,

There are some human rights that exist there but obviously they're not as extensive or expansive as that of the law of h an rights in addition to this the nature of occupation law presupposes a number of limitations to the population's h an rights the actual existence of of an occupation surely causes some problems as it relates to whether or not h an rights should even exist in these scenarios for example one cannot be protected by the international humanitarian law of belligerent occupation in circ stances where there isn't an international armed conflict so by extension of this logic the international humanitarian law as a collective okay as the existence of violent hostilities because international humanitarian law only applies in situations of armed conflict and so by extension of this logic there is some protections by human rights,

That cannot be protected by international humanitarian law because it as that violent hostilities are going to take place one such example of this could be the h an right to life this is something that is established in article 3 of the universal declaration of h an rights one critic of the argument that we've that we've presented may point to the very purpose of international humanitarian law and say that it's part its purpose is to negate as so far as possible the effects of armed conflicts on those who are not involved in the armed conflict but its purpose isn't to to stop violent armed conflict and therefore it could be suggested that questions should arise of whether or not human international humanitarian law is even equipped to provide human rights protections such as the right to life it seems to be almost contradictory to the concept of life and the right to life to have a law that only applies during violent armed conflicts,

Where death is something that is going to happen to people who are who are fighting people who are always to combat or people who are civilians a more apt example could be the right to self-determination now this is something that is very important because the concept of occupation necessarily deprives a local population of its right to self-determination now this is a right a h an right that is established by article 21 3 of the universal declaration of h an rights how can the international law of belligerent occupation how can the rules that apply in situations where we have an occupied territory like the situation that might be taking place in ukraine at provide for the right to self-determination as stated in article 21 3 of the universal declaration of h an rights.