[DEBATE] : John Dugard - UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine - Speaks at Wits THURSDAY 7PM

[Kameelah Rasheed]

* John Dugard *

* - UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Occupied Palestine -*

* Speaks at Wits*



Hosted by Yasmin Sookha, Director of The Foundation for Human Rights and
former TRC commissioner in South Africa and Seirra Leone.



* Time: 19:00*

* Date: Thursday, 29th March 2007*

* Venue: Senate Room, Senate House, University of the Witwatersrand.*

* Speaker - John Dugard *



Currently the Extraordinary Professor at the Centre for Human Rights,
University of Pretoria, John Dugard is a South African professor of
international law. He has  served as Judge ad hoc on the International Court
of Justice and as a Special Rapporteur for both the United Nations
Commission on Human Rights and the International Law Commission. He has
written extensively on South African apartheid. From 1975-1977, Dugard was
the Dean and a Professor of Law at Wits University. From 1978-1990,
Dugardwas the Director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies.



He has held visiting professorships at Princeton University, Duke
University, UC Berkeley and University of Pennsylvania, and University of
New South Wales (Australia). Dugard was Director of the Lauterpacht Centre
for International Law at the University of Cambridge from1995-1997. In 1998,
he was appointed as Chair in Public International Law at Leiden University
in the Netherlands and as Director of the advanced LLM programme in Public
International Law.



He has, since 1997, served as a member of the International Law Commission
of the United Nations. In 2000, he became its Special   Rapporteur on
Diplomatic Protection.



In 2000, he served as Judge ad hoc in the cases concerning Armed   Activities
on the Territory of the Congo (Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Burundi)
(Democratic Republic of the Congo v. Uganda) and  (Democratic Republic of
the Congo v. Rwanda) at the International Court of Justice.



Following the recurrence of the Palestinian intifada in late 2000, John
Dugard was appointed as Chairman of a UN Commission on Human Rights inquiry
on the situation of human rights there. In 2001, he was appointed as Special
Rapporteur to the Commission and has submitted annual reports and
recommendations to the UN concerning the situation of international human
rights and humanitarian law. He now reports to the UN Human Rights Council
as Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied
Palestinian territories. In its first special session in July 2006, the
nascent Human Rights Council decided to dispatch an urgent fact-finding
mission headed by Dugard to report on the situation there. On 26 September
2006, Dugard reported that the "standards of human rights in the Palestinian
territories have fallen to intolerable new levels". In his report to the 4th
session of the Human Rights Council, Dugard states, "Discrimination against
Palestinians occurs in many fields. Moreover, the 1973 International
Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of   the Crime of Apartheid
appears to be violated by many practices, particularly those denying freedom
of movement to Palestinians."



* In a report release in February 2007, John Dugard, the U.N.'s "Special
Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories
occupied since 1967," announced that Israel's policies   resemble those of
apartheid. "It is difficult to resist the conclusion that many of Israel's
laws and practices violate the 1966 Convention on the Elimination of all
forms of Racial Discrimination," says the   report.*

*  *

* Referring to Israel's actions in the occupied West Bank, he wrote, "Can it
seriously be denied that the purpose [...] is to establish and maintain
domination by one racial group (Jews) over another racial group
(Palestinians) and systematically oppressing them? Israel denies that this
is its intention or purpose. But such an intention or purpose may be
inferred from the actions described in this report."*



* Safe parking on Yale Road. Please arrive early/on time-venue likely to be
filled very quickly.*