Apartheid in the Occupied West Bank: A Legal Analysis of Israel’s Actions

Joint submission by the International Human Rights Clinic (IHRC) at Harvard Law School and Addameer to the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Territory arguing that Israel’s actions in the occupied West Bank amount to the crime of apartheid under international law. The submission covers Israel’s dual legal system applying unequal rights and protections to Jewish Israelis and Palestinians, violations of due process and fair trial rights in Israeli military courts, the use of prolonged administrative detention without charge, failure of Israeli officials to prevent or prosecute Israeli settler violence against Palestinians, and additional evidence of systematic discrimination against Palestinians in the West Bank. The submission applies the legal definition of apartheid under the Apartheid Convention and the Rome Statute to conclude that Israel’s system of racial domination in the West Bank constitutes a crime under international law. The submission is a meaningful push for international intervention and valuable for contextualizing Israel’s occupation of the West Bank from an international criminal lens.