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Karen AbuZayd at 'Oslo at 25: A Legacy of Broken Promises'

Panel/Topic: Oslo and the Negation of International Law

October 6, 2018 at 9:37 am

Address by Prof Karen AbuZayd at MEMO’s ‘Oslo at 25: A Legacy of Broken Promises’ conference held in London on September 29, 2018.

Karen AbuZayd has been serving as a pro bono Commissioner on the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, mandated by the 47 member UN Human Rights Council in Geneva, since September 2011. AbuZayd retired from the UN in 2010 as Under Secretary General and Commissioner-General of UNRWA. She is currently a member of several refugee and humanitarian boards, among them the Middle East Policy Council (Washington) and UNRWA USA.

PANEL: Oslo and the Negation of International Law

Although the process was based on the formula of ‘land for peace’, it was clear Israel was not prepared to withdraw from the territories occupied in 1967. Because none of the documents referred to Israel as the occupying power, or the applicability of international humanitarian law to the territories, Oslo’s approach to the permanent status issues were based on Israeli imperatives.