Adalah Submits NGO Report to UN on Israel's Lack of Implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights

UN Committee to Hold Preliminary Review of Israel in November 2010

On 25 October 2010, Adalah submitted an NGO report to the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“the Committee”) to assist it in its consideration of Israel's Third Periodic Report to the Committee of July 2010. The Committee monitors the implementation of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), which Israel ratified in 1991. During its pre-sessional working group meeting, to be held on 19-22 November 2010 in Geneva, the Committee will consider Israel's report and information provided by Adalah and other local and international NGOs in order to draw up a "List of Issues" and questions for Israel to answer concerning its implementation of the ICESCR. The Committee's full review of Israel is scheduled to take place in November 2011.  

Adalah's report focuses on Israel's violations of the ICESCR with regard to Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel. It discusses the fact that Israel has not incorporated the provisions of the ICESCR into its domestic legislation and asks whether Israel will sign the new Optional Protocol to the ICESCR, which provides for an individual complaints mechanism. Adalah's report presents a series of questions for the Committee to pose to Israel, together with background information, on the following issues: 

1. The lack of a constitutionally-guaranteed right to equality; the enactment of discriminatory laws;  and the use of military and/or national service as a mechanism for discrimination;
2. High rates of unemployment and obstacles to employment opportunities; the low percentage of Arab citizens employed in the civil service; limitations on the right to social security; and income, poverty and wage gaps;
3. The ongoing ban on family unification;
4. The demolition and evacuation of the unrecognized Arab Bedouin villages in the Naqab; 
5. The lack of access for Arab citizens of Israel to land and housing; the new land reform law and internally-displaced Palestinians; and discrimination in planning;
6. Infant mortality and the health situation in the unrecognized villages in the Naqab; the lack of access to clean drinking water;
7. Systemic under-investment in Arab education and gaps in educational attainment;
8. The status of the Arabic language, the lack of state resources to Arab cultural projects; and severe restrictions on cultural contact by Arab citizens with the Arab world.

For Adalah's NGO report:
http://www.adalah.org/newsletter/ara/oct10/Adalah%20CESCR%20Report%20October%202010.pdf

For more information on the ICESCR, Israel's State Report, and other NGO reports submitted to the Committee, see: http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cescr/cescrwg45.htm