The Human Right to Water and Its Application in the Occupied Palestinian Territories provides an overview and examination of the human right to water as determined under international human rights law. This is a highly topical issue, with the UN General Assembly having passed a resolution which declares access to clean water and sanitation a human right (New York, Jul 28 2010), the recent appointment of the UN Independent Expert on the issue of human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water and sanitation, and movement within the NGO community for an international water treaty. Amanda Cahill Ripley analyses the current legal status, substantive content, and obligations correlative to the right, and examines the relationship between other economic, social and cultural rights related to the right to water. The book goes on to look more specifically at the application of the human right to water in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Using innovative methodology, Cahill Ripley combines legal analysis with a qualitative social science empirical case study to explore the enjoyment of the right ‘on the ground’. The wider implications of the case study findings are then considered, looking at what can be done to strengthen the right legally in terms of its status and codification, and what remedy can be found for violations of the right, both specifically in the Occupied Palestinian Territories and in a more general context. The book will be of interest to students, academics and practitioners within the fields of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, as well as those concerned with international relations and conflict resolution within Israel/Palestine and the wider Middle East region.

"The widely held assumption that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory is a temporary situation and that the 'peace process' will soon bring an end to Israeli abuses has obscured the reality on the ground today of Israel's entrenched discriminatory rule over Palestinians. A single authority, the Israeli government, rules primarily over the area between the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea, populated by two groups of roughly equal size, methodologically privileging Jewish Israelis while repressing Palestinians, most severely in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT), made-up of the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and Gaza. Drawing on years of human rights documentation, case studies and a review of government planning documents, statements by officials and other sources, [this report] examines Israel's treatment of Palestinians and evaluates whether particular Israeli policies and practices in certain areas amount to the crimes against humanity of apartheid and persecution."--Page 4 of cover.

The first book to engage in a comprehensive examination of the human right to water in theory and in practice.

"This report documents how settlement businesses facilitate the growth and operations of settlements. These businesses depend on and contribute to the Israeli authorities' unlawful confiscation of Palestinian land and other resources. They also benefit from these violations, as well as Israel's discriminatory policies that provide privileges to settlements at the expense of Palestinians, such as access to land and water, government subsidies, and permits for developing land"--Publisher's description.

Watershed describes the water crisis faced by Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories today; a crisis that will have much to do with the design and the success of the current peace proposals. The authors examine the geopolitics of water in the region, the economic importance, problems of water supply and water quality, and regional conflicts over water.

The object of the research work is the analysis of the multilevel protection of the human right to water and the current degree of implementation that it has received in international, European, and national law, comparing the Italian and German contexts from the constitutional law perspective. Given the absence of an express recognition of the human right to water, another research question concerns the examination of the mechanisms of multilevel protection of human rights, assessing whether the relationships between the different levels of protection can contribute to the realisation of this fundamental human right. The research analyses the main sources of law and jurisprudence of each examined context, to understand the legal basis for the recognition of the human right to water, considering both the necessary protection of environmental aspects, as well as social and economic ones, fundamental for its full realisation. The analysis of normative and jurisprudential sources is supported by the examination of the most relevant doctrine.

The best country-by-country assessment of human rights. The human rights records of more than ninety countries and territories are put into perspective in Human Rights Watch's signature yearly report. Reflecting extensive investigative work undertaken by Human Rights Watch staff, in close partnership with domestic human rights activists, the annual World Report is an invaluable resource for journalists, diplomats, and citizens, and is a must-read for anyone interested in the fight to protect human rights in every corner of the globe.

This report show, most of the destruction in Rafah occurred along the Israel-controlled border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt. During regular nighttime raids and with little or no warning, Israel forces used armored caterpillar D9 bulldozers to raze blocks of homes at the edge of the camp, incrementally expanding a "buffer zone" that is currently up to three hundred meters wide. The pattern of destruction strongly suggests that Israeli forces demolished homes wholesale, regardless of whether they posed a specific threat, in violation of international law. In most cases Human Rights Watch found the destruction carried out in the absence of military necessity.

“A brilliant and bracing analysis of the Palestine question and settler colonialism . . . a vital lens into movement lawyering on the international plane.” —Vasuki Nesiah, New York University, founding member of Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL) Justice in the Question of Palestine is often framed as a question of law. Yet none of the Israel-Palestinian conflict’s most vexing challenges have been resolved by judicial intervention. Occupation law has failed to stem Israel’s settlement enterprise. Laws of war have permitted killing and destruction during Israel’s military offensives in the Gaza Strip. The Oslo Accord’s two-state solution is now dead letter. Justice for Some offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures—from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza—Noura Erakat shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel’s interests than the Palestinians’. But, Erakat argues, this outcome was never inevitable. Law is politics, and its meaning and application depend on the political intervention of states and people alike. Within the law, change is possible. International law can serve the cause of freedom when it is mobilized in support of a political movement. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Justice for Some calls for renewed action and attention to the Question of Palestine. “Careful and captivating . . . This book asks that the Palestinian liberation struggle and Jewish-Israeli society each reckon with the impossibility of a two-state future, reimagining what their interests are—and what they could become.” —Amanda McCaffrey, Jewish Currents

"Israel's settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are widely viewed as illegal under international humanitarian law, which prohibits the occupying power from transferring its civilian population into the territories it occupies. This report focuses on the less-discussed aspect of Israeli laws and policies in the West Bank that discriminate against the Palestinian population in favor of settlers. Based on case studies that compare Israeli settlements with next-door Palestinian communities in six areas of the West Bank, this report shows that Israel operates a two-tier system for the two populations in areas under its exclusive control--'Area C' and East Jerusalem; it provides preferential services, development and benefits for Jewish settlers, while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians. The report highlights Israeli practices the only discernible purposes of which appear to be promoting life in the settlements while in many instances stifling growth in Palestinian communities and even forcibly displacing Palestinian residents. Israeli policies control many aspects of the day-to-day life of Palestinians who live in Area C and East Jerusalem. Those policies often have no conceivable security justification for the harms they cause--such as denying access to electricity, water and roads, rejecting building permit applications for houses, schools, clinics and infrastructure, and demolishing homes and even entire communities. By contrast, Israeli policies, such as substantial government financial incentives, promote Jewish settlements and encourage them to expand in 'Area C' of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, often using land and other resources that are effectively barred to Palestinians. In some cases, Israel's discriminatory policies have forcibly displaced Palestinians from the same areas where settlements have encroached. Such different treatment, on the basis of race, ethnicity and national origin and not narrowly tailored to meet genuine security or other legitimate goals, is not justifiable and therefore violates the fundamental prohibition against discrimination under human rights law. The report calls on Israel to cease its discriminatory practices immediately, quite apart from its independent legal obligation to cease its support for settlements and to remove settlers from the West Bank. The report also calls on other countries and businesses to avoid supporting Israeli settlement policies that are inherently discriminatory and violate international law."--P. [4] of cover.