UN rights office says Israeli settlements remain unlawful
The UN human rights office reaffirmed its
long-standing position on Tuesday that Israeli settlements in occupied
Palestinian territory are in breach of international law, thereby rejecting the
Trump administration’s revised position.
The United States on Monday effectively backed
Israel’s right to build Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank by
abandoning its four-decade-old position that they were “inconsistent with
international law.”
“A change in the policy position of one state does
not modify existing international law nor its interpretation by the
International Court of Justice and the (UN) Security Council,” UN human rights
spokesman Rupert Colville told a Geneva news briefing.
Until now, US policy was based, at least in theory,
on a legal opinion issued by the State Department in 1978, which said that
establishing of settlements in the Palestinian territories went against
international law.
The Fourth Geneva Convention on the laws of war
explicitly forbids moving civilians into occupied territories.
While the United States has generally vetoed
Security Council measures critical of Israel, previous president Barack Obama,
exasperated with Netanyahu, in his final weeks in office allowed the passage of
Resolution 2334 that called Israel’s settlements a “flagrant violation” of
international law.
