Udenrigsudvalget 2017-18
URU Alm.del
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Final Assessment of 24 CSOs supported by HR IHL Secretariat
Assessment of 24 CSO supported by HR/IHL donor consortium
1. Background
Under Pillar 3 of the Palestine Country Programme, Denmark supports Palestinian and
Israeli CSOs to monitor and document human rights and international humanitarian law
(HR/IHL) violations pertaining to Palestinians and to influence the behaviour, policies and
practices of duty bearers to be more in line with their HR/IHL commitments and good
governance standards. The Danish support is part of a donor consortium fund, consisting of
Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland. Sweden is leading this joint donor
funding modality. The fund is presently managed by the HR/IHL Secretariat, established
especially for the purpose under the auspices of the consultancy firm NIRAS and the Birzeit
University’s Institute of Law. By pooling resources and providing core funding to selected
grantees, the donors aim to reduce fragmentation of funding and duplication of support,
alleviate the administrative burden on partners, and free up resources for a more strategic
and qualitative dialogue with duty bearers. Grantees are selected based on themes, their
strategic and organisational capacity to implement, monitor and report their own work. In
2016, a
study of
“the effectiveness of core funding to CSOs in the field of human rights and
international humanitarian law in occupied Palestine” was conducted, which i.a.
recommended to reduce the number of core funded CSOs from 24 to some 15 in order to
increase the % of core support, and thereby enhance aid efficiency. The Palestine Country
Programme (2016-2020)
Appraisal similarly advised to “gradually reduce numbers of
CSOs
receiving core funding from 24 to 10-15”.
The overall environment is also characterized by increasing pressures from authorities in
particular on Israeli but also on Palestinian CSOs, not least HR CSOs.
Another Israeli bill under preparation seeks to amend the Income Tax Ordinance to revoke
the tax exempt status of “public organizations” that, “act against the State of Israel abroad”.
According to the bill, a relevant “act” would include publishing a claim that Israel has
committed war crimes or calling for a boycott of Israel or its citizens (including Israeli settlers
in the West Bank). The purpose of the bill is to reduce donations to these organizations and
therefore impair their ability to continue their operations. The legislation passed a preliminary
reading on 8 March 2017.
2. Objective
The objective is to assess the currently supported CSOs with reference to the quality,
coverage and effectiveness of their work (documentation, holding duty bearers accountable,
advocacy, awareness raising) as HR Defenders in relation to the IHL & HR scenario in
Palestine.
3. Methodology
The assessment is based on a desk review of publicly available material from the
CSOs’ websites, Facebook
(FB) and Twitter accounts,
in English, Arabic and Hebrew,
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Final Assessment of 24 CSOs supported by HR IHL Secretariat
with focus on the period of current consortium engagement (2014- till today). The desk
review was conducted internally by staff of the DRO in Ramallah, utilizing a pre-designed
format for capturing the data in a uniform manner.
The assessment has obvious limitations and would need to be supplemented by
considerably deeper review, if it shall be used to assess any individual
organization.
The filled out format invariably would still reflects some measure of individual
‘judgement call’ as several staff were involved
in the review of the many websites, FB and
twitter accounts in three languages, which should be kept in mind in case of reference to
individual CSO profile sheets. Furthermore, the websites of the various CSOs vary
considerably in quality, frequency of updates, and transparency (i.e. what kind of information
is placed in the public domain). The attached CSO profiles reflect this variation. Where certain
data were unavailable from the websites, to the extent possible this data have been filled in
from other sources such as Annual Audit reports etc, available to DRO as donor.
There were
no substantive differences found across the English/Arabic/Hebrew
websites of any of the CSOs with regard to content and tone.
4. Focus are (IHL/HR) & geographic coverage
The geographic coverage of the HR/IHL agenda seems good.
The 24 CSOs cover
HR/IHL issues in oPt, i.e. West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem
–
and the Palestinian minority
in Israel. The HQ of the CSOs are in West Bank (10), Israel (8), Gaza (4) and East Jerusalem
(2), with several organizations having regional offices in different part of the West Bank.
Palestine strengthened its international human rights mechanism in 2014 with its accession
to eight HR/IHL conventions
1
(CAT, CEDAW, CPRW, CRC, CRPD, ICCPR, CERD, and ICESCR)
and a number of protocols. However, the Independent Commission for Human Rights’ (ICHR)
recent shadow report on CEDAW points to the ” non-obligatory
nature of the human rights
treaties, including CEDAW, for all official and non-official bodies in the State of Palestine due
to the non-existence of a legal framework which would regulate the merger of these treaties
in the national legal system. They have not been published in Palestine’s
Official Gazette
and
have neither been officially published nor translated”
2
. All the supported Palestinian CSOs
have activities directly referring to the international conventions, but with focus mainly on
Human Rights Conventions:
Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or
Punishment (CAT); Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW);
Convention on the Political Rights of Women (CPRW); Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC); Convention of
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD); International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR);
International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD); International Convention on
Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR); Optional Protocol to the Convention of the Rights of the Child on the
Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict.
International Humanitarian Law:
Hague Convention (IV) respecting the
Laws and Customs of War and Land and its annex: Regulations concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land;
Geneva Convention (IV) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded and the Sick in Armed Forces in the
Field; Geneva Convention (II) for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Wounded, Sick and Shipwrecked Members
of Armed Forces at Sea; Geneva Convention (III) relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War;Geneva Convention (IV)
relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War; Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions and relating
to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts.
1
2
ICHR’s Intervention on Palestinian Government Report to CEDAW (Sept. 2017), pp. 3-4.
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Final Assessment of 24 CSOs supported by HR IHL Secretariat
the ICESCR, ICCPR and CEDAW. However, an even stronger convergence of focus is on IHL
and collaboration with ICC, which involves 10 of the Palestinian CSOs.
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Israel is party to the following conventions
4
: CAT, CEDAW, CERD, ICCPR, ICESCR, CRC,
CRPD. The Israeli CSOs are equally focused on ICCPR, but also on CERD, and on CAT. Seven
out of the nine CSOs frame their work specifically in the context of the occupation and IHL.
Human Rights Conventions:
International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination
(CERD), International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic,
Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading
Treatment or Punishment (CAT), Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), Amendment No. 14 to the Youth (Trial,
Punishment and Modes of Treatment) Law 5731-1971, in July 2009, and Convention on the Rights of Persons with
Disabilities (CRPD).
4
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Most of the Israeli and Palestinian CSOs work both within the framework of HR
conventions and IHL. A few, however, centre their work around either HR only or
IHL only.
5. Thematic Work Areas of CSOs
Among the supported CSOs, 96% mention that they address Israel as responsible duty bearer
while 63% address the PA, and Hamas in case of Gaza, as duty bearer. The focus on IHL
however, also causes a number of CSOs to address the international community as a ‘Third
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Final Assessment of 24 CSOs supported by HR IHL Secretariat
Party’ with responsibility for the Palestinian ‘situation’, both in terms of its origin and its
continued existence.
Further, the focus on IHL also leads some CSOs to extend their advocacy and campaign activities
towards the role of the private sector engaging/investing in settlements in the oPt, which
according to IHL is deemed illegal.
The main focus areas of the CSOs, according to their website information, roughly fall in the
areas indicated in below chart:
CSO
Adalah
Location
Israel
Focus Area
Arab minority rights in Israel,
prisoners, civil & political
rights, land rights, legal aid
Planning, land rights
The occupation, IDF’s role in
occupation, settler violence
Bimkom
–Planners
for Planning
Rights
Breaking the Silence
Israel
Israel
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B’Tselem
- Israeli
Centre for HR in oPt
Information Israel
Women, children, prisoners,
occupation, settler violence,
land
rights,
freedom
of
movement, civil and political
rights
Gaza blockade, freedom of
movement
,legal aid
Prisoners, occupation, freedom
of movement), civil & political
rights, legal
aid
Prisoners, torture, legal aid
Prisoners,
incl.
torture,
occupation, right to health
Occupation, Palestinian land
rights
Prisoners,
incl.
children,
occupation, legal aid
Prisoners, occupation, Gaza
blockade, civil & political rights,
legal aid
Gaza blockade, civil & political
rights, good governance, legal
aid
Fængslede
incl.
tortur,
besættelsen og voldsudøvelse,
blokade af Gaza,
jordrettigheder,
civile
og
politiske rettigheder, retshjælp
Women,
right
to
return,
refugees & displaced, civil &
political rights
Children, legal aid
Women, civil & political rights,
legal aid
Civil & political rights incl.
legal aid
Women, civil & political rights,
good governance
Occupation, civil & political
rights, legal aid
Gisha- Legal Centre for Freedom Israel
of Movement
HaMoked
–
Centre for the Defence Israel
of the Individual
PCATI - Public Committee Against Israel
Torture
PHR
–
Physicians for Human
Rights
Israel
Yesh Din
–
Volunteers for Human Israel
Rights
Addameer
–
Prisoner Support and WB
Human Rights Association
Al Dameer Association for Human Gaza
Rights
Al Mezan Centre for Human
Rights
Al Haq
Gaza
WB
BADIL
–
Resource Centre for
WB
Palestinian
Residency
and
Refugee Rights
DCI/Palestine
–
Defence
Children International
DWRC
–
Democracy and
Workers’
Rights
Centre
Palestine
for WB
WB (& Gaza)
in
JLAC
–
The Jerusalem Legal Aid & East
Human Rights Centre
Jerusalem
(& WB)
MIFTAH
–
The Palestinian
Initiative for the Promotion of
Global Dialogue and Democracy
WB
PCHR
–
Palestinian Centre for Gaza
Human Rights
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PWWSD
–
Palestinian Working WB (& Gaza)
Women Society for Development
WAC
–Women’s Affairs Centre
WATC
–
Women’s
Technical Committee
Gaza (& WB)
Women, civil & political rights,
legal aid
Women, prisoners
Women, civil & political rights,
rule of law
Women, civil & political rights,
legal aid
Women
Affairs
WB (& Gaza)
WCLAC
– Women’s Centre for
WB (& East Jerusalem)
Legal Aid and Counselling
WSC-Jerusalem - Women Studies Jerusalem ( & WB)
Centre
Main Advocacy and Campaigns
All CSOs, with the exception of three, indicate engagement in campaigns in relation to HR issues
and/or the occupation and IHL.
From the 15 Palestinian CSOs supported, 11 are listed as members of the BDS
movement of 2005,
which was established with
very broad support from Palestinian political
parties, unions, associations, coalitions and organizations, representing Palestinian refugees,
Palestinians under occupation and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
The formation of the BDS
movement was an attempt to emulate the boycott of the South Africa apartheid regime and gain
broad international support for non-violent, punitive measures against Israel, to force Israel to
meet its obligations to recognize the Palestinian people’s right
to self-determination and fully
comply with the precepts of international law. The formal membership of the 2005 BDS
movement is not indicative of any specific BDS activities today. However, five of the supported
Palestinian CSOs in addition have specific activities and campaigns directed at BDS:
Campaigns by the Israeli CSOs focus on Israeli violations of HR and IHL in connection with the
occupation of the WB, East Jerusalem and the blockade of Gaza. The focus is on discrimination,
torture of prisoners, imprisonment of children, demolitions and revoking of residency rights,
expropriation of resources in oPt (land, water and minerals) in violations of IHL, and Israeli
defence
Forces’ HR violations.
6
. Extent and functionality of Legal Aid and Grievance Redress Mechanism
Seventeen out of the 24 CSOs indicate that they provide Legal Aid or undertake some kind of
complaints handling within a wide range of areas, which, as the table below indicates, results in
considerable overlap of focus areas across CSOs. However, it should be kept in mind, that the
Israeli and Palestinian CSOs are complementary in this respect, as the Israeli CSOs alone are
able to represent Palestinian interests vis-a-vis the Israeli legal system.
Among the Palestinian CSOs, 10 out of 15 CSOs are engaged in legal aid/complaints handling,
and mostly across a range of thematic areas. This would indicate a certain level of duplication
of functions across the CSOs - quite apart from the fact that ICHR also has it within its mandate
to address complaints handling.
Among the Israeli CSOs, 8 out of 9 CSOs activities related to legal aid/complaints handling, but
in most cases with a narrower focus area, corresponding to the clearer functional division of
labour existing across these organizations.
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Adherence to HR Defender Status
Most of the supported CSOs directly invoke Human Rights and/or International Humanitarian
Law in their Vision or Mission statement, while a few mainly refer to specific areas of HR/IHL as
their focus. Among the Palestinian CSOs, some define their work area as building a free and
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democratic Palestine based on rule of law and human rights. Other CSOs define a more focused
mandate, such as Child Rights, Women’s Rights and Prisoners’ Rights and Refugees’ and
Displaced Peoples’ Rights, as illustrated above.
In general, the Israeli CSOs are more specialized, such as Legal Aid to the Arab minority, Health
Rights, anti-Torture, Right to Movement and Access, documentation of IDF actions against
civilians and Human Rights and Planning Policies.
None of the CSOs directly spell out on their websites or printed documentation what is required
to formally qualify to be labelled as HR Defender, i.e. the recognition of the universality,
interdependence and indivisibility of human rights, irrespective of gender, ethnicity, nationality,
religion, sexual orientation or other characteristics, and being committed to implement, uphold
and promote these HRs by non-violent means only. However, the review did
not
find any breach
of the above criteria on any CSO website, FB, twitter account or published material.
The only issue in this context is the social media, where none of the CSOs have a disclaimer on
their websites and other social media regarding external content posted, which at times are
applying strong language.
Apart from the lack of disclaimer on the social media platforms, there does not appear to be
any criteria applied by a CSOs as to what kind of external content is acceptable to appear on
the social media.
Organizational Character
The organizational structure of the various organizations are in many cases not clearly spelled
out on their websites. While none of the supported CSOs appears to be outright membership
organizations, some CSOs have a broader basis obtained through a number of supporters and
volunteers.
Generally, organizations seem to be founded by a smaller or larger group of like-minded persons
and in some cases institutions or political parties, which today are reflected in a General
Assembly or Public Council (self-supplementing?), from which a smaller Board may be
formed/elected, to oversee the work and administrative set-up of the CSO. How a person gets
to participate in the General Assembly and how the Board is formed (appointed or elected) by
the General Assembly is not explained on any website. As far as the General Assembly and Board
of many of the Palestinian CSOs is concerned, there is a certain overlap of persons across several
organizations, and some organizations have people from the executive on the Board or in
General Assembly (e.g. such as ministers or mayors).
8. Conclusion
CSOs compete for money, visibility, relations, research subjects and areas of operations.
•
The 24 CSOs provide
a fair coverage of the geographic area
(West Bank, Gaza, East
Jerusalem and Palestinian minority in Israel). Gaza and East Jerusalem have special
access restrictions for Palestinians, and 4 CSOs are Gaza based and 2 are based in East
Jerusalem, which ensures coverage of these areas;
The Palestinian CSOs primarily focus on IHL and HR conventions of ICESCR,
ICCPR and CEDAW with far less attention to other conventions. The Israeli
•
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CSOs,
selected based on their work related to Palestinian issues (not general HR issues
in Israel that are beyond the mandate of the Secretariat),
mainly focus on ICCPR,
CERD and CAT, and most reference their work in the context of the occupation
and IHL;
•
While the Israeli CSOs define Israel as the relevant duty bearer, the Palestinian CSOs
similarly address the PA and/or Hamas in case of Gaza. However, since the major HR
violations in oPt is caused by the occupation and the blockade of Gaza, the Palestinian
CSOs also address Israel as duty bearer. Beyond that, both some Israeli and Palestinian
CSOs also refer to the international community as ‘duty bearer’, or more properly as
Third Party responsible, with reference to IHL violations by Israel;
There is a reasonably clear division of labour between the Israeli and Palestinian CSOs in
terms of thematic areas of work.
The Israeli CSOs are generally operating with a
narrow, well-defined focus, while many of the Palestinian CSOs define their
mandate very broadly.
Overlap and possible duplication are found among both groups,
but more so among the Palestinian CSOs;
The volume and quality of documentation varies considerably across the 24 CSOs,
probably partly a function of whether the organization perceives advocacy/awareness
raising as its main focus, or holding duty bearers responsible incl. provision of legal aid
services;
Most CSOs provide Legal Aid or undertake some kind of complaints handling
within a wide range of areas, resulting in a certain overlap of focus areas across
CSOs.
However, the Israeli and Palestinian CSOs are complementary in this respect, as
the Israeli CSOs alone are able to represent Palestinian interests vis-a-vis the Israeli legal
system, which is essential in the context of defending HR. However, for the Palestinian
CSOs, the Legal Aid and complaints handling may indicate some duplication/overlap also
with ICHR, which has complaints handling within its mandate;
Review of the 24 CSO websites, FB, twitter account and published material did
not find any incitement to violence or other breach of the requirements of HR
Defenders.
None of the CSOs have a disclaimer on their websites and other social media
regarding
external
content posted, which at times are applying strong language;
From the 15 Palestinian CSOs supported, 12 are members of the BDS movement,
which was established in 2005 with
very broad support from Palestinian political parties,
unions, associations, coalitions and organizations, representing Palestinian refugees,
Palestinians under occupation and Palestinian citizens of Israel.
BDS is defined as a
non-violent means of objecting to the occupation. A few have directly engaged
in awareness campaigns regarding companies investing in oPt in violation of
IHL, and in advocacy campaigns supporting consumer boycott of settlement
products;
All CSOs report engagement in wider networks domestic and international HR networks,
but the actual extent of it is hard to determine from the available material;
Some CSOs have a clearly formulated political vision for the future of Palestine
while others on their websites and FB present a more narrow HR/IHL focused
approach.
This difference may also be reflected in their work and overall balance
between awareness raising/advocacy, documentation and legal aid/complaints handling;
The organizational structure of the various organizations are in many cases not clearly
spelled out on their websites. While none of the supported CSOs appears to be outright
membership organizations, some CSOs have a broader basis obtained through a number
of supporters and volunteers;
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
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•
The supported CSOs are in general founded by a smaller or larger group of like-
minded persons, and in some cases institutions or by a broad range of (7)
political parties,
reflected in a General Assembly from which a smaller Board is
formed/elected, to oversee the work and administrative set-up;
There are
no clear indication of current political membership/affiliation of any
CSO or of its Board in the material scrutinized.
Any verification of such connection
(and in particular association with any EU-banned political group) is beyond the resources
and legal ability of DRO.
•
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Annex
CSO
Adalah
Bimkom
Breaking the Silence
B’Tselem
Gisha
HaMoked
PCATI
PHR
Yesh Din
Adameer
Al Dameer
Al Mezan
Al Haq
BADIL
DCI/Palestine
DWRC
JLAC
MIFTAH
PCHR
PWWSD
WAC
WATC
WCLAC
WSC-Jerusalem
Total 2017
budget (US$)
1 150 000
1 182 000
2 033 480
2 625 853
1 337 156
2 271 000
586 501
1 860 000
1 571 107
864 627
329 700
1 062 080
1 817 586
662 925
1 741 111
1 050 984
1 340 000
1 173 000
1 806 000
1 229 050
1 340 000
638 475
1 806 402
846 879
2017 Secretariat % support of
overall budget
10%
10%
9%
16%
18%
18%
30%
9%
11%
18%
26%
21%
23%
26%
20%
16%
15%
17%
23%
17%
15%
29%
23%
19%
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