Speaker: Professor John Dugard

South African international human rights lawyer

Lecture title: 

Palestine: Is Israel above the law?

SATURDAY, 15 October 2016, 5:30PM-7:00PM

ELDER HALL, THE UNIVERSITY OF ADELAIDE,
NORTH TERRACE, ADELAIDE SA

#EdwardSaidMemorialLecture    #ESMLadelaide

About Professor John Dugard

Professor Dugard is a South African international lawyer, renowned for his work as Special Rapporteur to the UN Commission on Human Rights on violations of international humanitarian law and human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, from 2001-2008. Also for the United Nations, he was a member of the International Law Commission between 1997 and 2011.

He has an eminent career in the discipline, holding a range of academic positions over 45 years at the universities of Witwatersrand in South Africa, Cambridge in the UK, Leiden in Amsterdam, Duke, California, Berkeley and Pennsylvania in the USA, and was a visiting professor of law at the University of New South Wales in 1991. He was Judge ad hoc on various cases of the International Court of Justice between 2002 and 2016.

 Professor Dugard was appointed Chairperson of the UN Human Rights Inquiry Commission on the situation of human rights in Palestine following the intifada in 2000. In 2001, he was appointed as Special Rapporteur to the Commission and submitted annual reports and recommendations to the UN concerning the situation of international human rights and humanitarian law. In its first special session in July 2006, the nascent Human Rights Council decided to dispatch an urgent fact-finding mission headed by Professor Dugard to report on the situation there. On 26 September 2006, he reported that the "standards of human rights in the Palestinian territories have fallen to intolerable new levels".

Professor Dugard has written several books on apartheid, human rights and international law, and has co-authored textbooks on criminal law and procedure and international law. He writes and speaks regularly on the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Professor Dugard spoke on the topic, 'Palestine: Is Israel above the Law?'