(Jerusalem Post) Tovah Lazaroff - Israel argued this week that the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights did not apply to its treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza because those areas were outside the country's national boundaries, even as it defended its record before the covenant's monitoring body in Geneva. Israel's deputy attorney-general Malkiel Blass stated that his country believed the "convention, which was a territorially bound convention, did not apply, nor was it intended to apply, to areas outside its national territory." He said that "Israel did not control these territories and thus could not enforce the rights under the covenant in these areas." Israel ratified the covenant in 1991 and takes it very seriously, according to diplomatic sources.
2010-07-16 10:20:55Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive