The Status of Palestinian Refugees in International Law

Front Cover
Clarendon Press, 1998 - 411 pages
This book explores the status of Palestinian refugees in international law, focusing both on the position of Palestinians in the Arab world and in Western countries. It contains a thorough and useful analysis of various areas of international law, including refugee law, the law relating to stateless persons, humanitarian law, and human rights law, and probes their relevance to the provision of international protection for Palestinian refugees to the search for a durable solution within the context of the Middle East peace process. The book includes: a complete analysis of the application and interpretation of article 1D of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees ; a detailed examination of the roles of UNRWA, UNHCR, and other institutions providing protection to Palestinian refugees ; an overview of the most pressing issues that need to be addressed during the so-called permanent status negotiations on the Palestinian refugee question ; an excursus providing detailed information on the legal status of Palestinian refugees in the various Arab states ; annexes containing a number of important documents no previously published, including the English translation of the 1965 Casablanca Protocol on the Treatment of Palestinians in the Arab States. (Adapted from Publisher's Abstract).

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Contents

Selected Abbreviations
xix
Table of Treaties and other International Instruments
xxiv
Introduction
xli
Palestinian refugees
xli
the legal status of Palestinian refugees in
xli
The story of Rula
1
Historical background
8
The number of Palestinian refugees and their geographical
18
The right to selfdetermination
250
The status of Palestinian refugees in
260
Family reunification and the principle of unity of the family
262
Concluding remarks
272
Introductory remarks
277
the role
280
Protection of Palestinian refugees residing outside UNRWAs
304
The League of Arab States and Palestinian refugees
308

Article ID
36
Scope of the study
40
Other aspects of article 1
123
Law relating to stateless persons
175
Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons
185
Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness
191
Humanitarian law
196
The position of Palestinian Refugees in the territories
211
The relevance of the PLOIsraeli Declaration of Principles
218
Some conclusions
226
Other attempts at providing international protection
311
The search for a durable solution
318
Possible scenarios for the permanent status of the Palestinian
327
The permanent status negotiations on the refugee issue
332
Summary and conclusions
345
ANNEXES
359
UNRWA instructions concerning registration and eligibility
368
Bibliography
379
Index
403
Copyright

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About the author (1998)

A Dutch national, Dr. Lex Takkenberg was born in 1959 in Zaandam, the Netherlands. After graduating from the Scholengemeenschap Casimir (athenaeum B) in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, he earned advanced degrees in international law (1983) and Dutch law (1985) from the University of Amsterdam. In February 1997, he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation The Status of Palestinian Refugees in International Law at the University of Nijmegen, the Netherlands. Since 1989 he has worked with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and currently occupies the post of Chief, Field Relief and Social Services Programme in the Gaza Strip. In this capacity he is responsible for UNRWA's direct relief programmes and developmental social services programmes in the Gaza Strip (totalling US $45 million in 1996-97). He also supervises the records of 750,000 Palestine refugees registered with the Agency. Since joining UNRWA, he has also worked in the West Bank and Syria. In the West bank he was part of a protection programme initiated by the Agency after the start of the Palestinian uprising. He headed UNRWA missions to Kuwait (1992) and the Egyptian-Libyan border (1995-96).

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