STORY SUMMARY

Seventeen respected international human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and prominent Palestinian groups Al-Dameer and Al-Haq, this week urged the Palestinian government to promptly join the International Criminal Court and use it to end a lack of accountability for alleged crimes committed by both sides in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

It also means applying international rule of law to criminal Israeli behavior in the occupied Palestinian territories and to any parallel illegal actions by Palestinians, providing a widely respected focal point for large-scale international support for the Palestinian cause.

The Palestinians’ recent membership applications to 15 United Nations agencies and international treaties and conventions, and plans to join another 48 organizations in due course, includes signing up to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Over the past decade the settler population has grown at a much higher rate than the population in Israel itself, with a yearly average growth of 5.3 percent (excluding East Jerusalem), compared to 1.8 per cent in Israel.

Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/Opinion/Columnist/2014/May-10/255926-for-palestinians-the-icc-path-beckons.ashx#ixzz31lPNEF45
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)