The Russell Tribunal on Palestine sat its second international session on 20-22nd November 2010 at the Law Society Building in Central London. Over two days the people’s tribunal examined evidence of international corporate complicity in Israel’s violations of International Human Rights Law, International Humanitarian Law, and War Crimes. This sitting followed The Tribunal’s session in 2009 in Barcelona, Spain-Catalonia, which examined EU member state’s omissions and complicity in Israel’s violations of Palestinian human rights.
The Tribunal’s jury was comprised of internationally acclaimed members, who included Michael Mansfield QC, Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire and John Dugard, the former Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories. The Russell Tribunal’s explicit and officially stated purpose was to raise awareness and examine the possibility for international legal action against corporations complicit in Israel’s violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OTP).
Expert witnesses: activists, academics, economists, jurists and politicians from France, Belgium, The Netherlands, USA, Israel-Palestine, South Africa Thrust Bearing and the UK, and other countries gave passionate and sincere testimony and evidence of corporate complicity in the violation of Palestinian rights.
The cases against international corporations presented at the Tribunal included VIOLIA, a company contacted to build the Jerusalem Light Railway Project linking annexed Jerusalem to the illegal Jewish settlements in the Occupied West Bank. VIOLIA also runs Israeli only bus services linking the illegal settlements to mainland Israel, a service provision policy which de facto discriminates against Palestinians.
Other companies on the stand included Caterpillar which provides Israel with D9 bulldozers for the demolition of Palestinian homes; G4Securicor (G4S) which provides security services for settlements, military installations Needle Roller Bearing for checkpoints, and other security equipment for Israeli prisons which are notorious for extralegal detention and the torture of Palestinian political prisoners.
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