An Interview With John Dugard
In preparation for its anticipated ground invasion of Gaza, under comprehensive siege for the past seventeen years, the Israeli military has ordered northern Gaza’s million residents to leave within 24 hours.
Almost a half million have already been driven from their homes, in the wake of last weekend’s brutal assault by Palestinian militants on Israeli communities east of the ghetto’s heavily militarized, seemingly impregnable perimeter, and almost 2000 Palestinians have been killed, including hundreds of children.
“Forcible population transfers constitute a crime against humanity, and collective punishment is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” said Paula Gaviria Betancur, Special Rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons, in an October 13 media release.
The GPM spoke with John Dugard about the current situation.
Dugard is a South African legal scholar now living in the Netherlands. During South Africa’s latter apartheid years, Dugard directed the Centre for Applied Legal studies of the University of the Witerwatersrand, which engaged in human rights advocacy research and litigation. He subsequently taught at the Universities of Cambridge and Leiden, and has served as a member of the UN International Law Commission and judge ad hoc of the International Court of Justice. Between 2001 and 2008, Dugard served as the fourth ‘UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967’, predecessor to Richard Falk.
Listen to our conversation here:
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