International Workshop on Citizenship and Residency Generates New Strategies for Challenging the Citizenship Law
(East Jerusalem) On 26 and 27 November 2012, Adalah convened an international legal workshop on “Citizenship and Residency in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory”. The workshop provided a forum for the participants to appraise the available legal and other means of challenging Israeli policies that limit Palestinians’ rights to citizenship and residency. The workshop, which was supported by the United Nations Development Programme, brought together local and international practitioners who are working to protect the residency and citizenship status of Palestinians and members of other vulnerable populations around the world. Over 30 individuals representing a dozen local and international organizations joined the workshop.
The first session, which addressed the use of litigation strategies to defend Palestinian citizenship and residency rights, featured Adalah Attorney and General Director Hassan Jabareen, Attorney Yossi Wolfson, Attorney Manal Hassan-Abu Sinni of the Society of St. Yves, and Attorney Sanaa Duweik of the Women’s Center for Legal Aid and Counseling (WCLAC). The speakers described the various laws and policies through which Israel exercises control over Palestinian residency rights, and their devastating impact, particularly on women and children. Attorney Padraig Hughes of London-based international legal human rights organization Interights drew comparative lessons from the approach and case law of the European Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights.
The second session, which discussed comparative legislation and policies, was moderated by Adalah Attorney Sawsan Zaher and included presentations by Eitan Diamond of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Ivanka Kostic, the Executive Director of Praxis, a Serbian human rights organization that defends the rights of the Roma minority. Mr. Diamond set out the rules of the law of occupation as they concern demographics and population transfer. Attorney Kostic then described the successful legal and advocacy efforts used by Praxis to challenge the discrimination, marginalization and social exclusion of the Roma community in Serbia.
The second day of the workshop focused on international advocacy and public activities as ways of bolstering legal work and raising awareness of violations of residency and citizenship rights. A session on international outreach and advocacy, chaired by Rina Rosenberg (Jabareen) of Adalah, brought together Sebastian Kohn of the Open Society Justice Initiative, Valentina Azarov of Al-Quds Bard College, Martin Clutterbuck of the Norwegian Refugee Council, and Tzvika Besor, an Israeli social media expert. Nicole Fritz of the Southern African Litigation Center submitted a written description of international advocacy efforts to change citizenship regulations in Apartheid and post-Apartheid South Africa. The speakers emphasized that challenges to discriminatory laws should be discussed in relation to issues that the government already cares about, that target audiences must be chosen and spoken to carefully, and that there have thus far been few successful public campaigns challenging the Israeli government’s discriminatory policies towards Palestinian residency and citizenship rights.
The workshop concluded with a group discussion on lessons learned and the most important issues for the future, including the need for relevant actors within Palestinian and Israeli civil society to work together to address the erosion or total erasure of Palestinians’ citizenship rights. The group identified women and children as the most vulnerable populations, those who tend to be harmed the most by both divided marriages and the loss of residency, and discussed possible local and international advocacy strategies tailored to the needs of these groups.
