Genocidal War and Complicity?
The War on Gaza and Western Responsibilities
with
Francesca Albanese, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories
Chair: Helmut Krieger, University of Vienna
Tuesday, April 30, 2024, 18:30-20:00
Lecture Hall C2, Unicampus Hof 2, Spitalgasse 2, 1090 Vienna, University of Vienna
Abstract
This talk with UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese, who will join the event online, will discuss her analysis of Israel’s war on Gaza and recommendations to UN-member states.
In her latest report to the UN-Human Rights Council published on the 25th of March, 2024, Francesca Albanese argues that “[b]y analysing the patterns of violence and Israel’s policies in its onslaught on Gaza, this report concludes that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the threshold indicating Israel’s commission of genocide is met”. In her recommendations at the end of the report, she states that “Israel and those states that have been complicit […] must be held accountable and deliver reparations commensurate with the destruction, death and harm inflicted on the Palestinian people”. Furthermore, she raises the issue of an arms embargo on Israel as well as other economic and political measures including sanctions to ensure a lasting ceasefire while, at the same time, firmly condemning “the crimes committed by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups in Israel on 7 October”.
In light of this report, we will discuss the following questions: How does the UN Special Rapporteur substantiate her allegations made against the State of Israel? What are legal and political consequences for UN-member states that may derive from the recommendations mentioned above? To what extent can such reports effectively shift discourses on the war on Gaza in Western political, media, and academic fields?
Francesca Albanese
Francesca Albanese is an international lawyer, scholar, and the author of various publications on the question of Palestinian refugees. On 1 May 2022, she was appointed Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, for a three-year term. The Special Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to follow and report on the human rights situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
Although embedded in my seminar on Palestine at the Department of Development Studies at the University of Vienna, this event is open to the public as well.
