The Russell Tribunal on Palestine
On 4 March 2009, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine was launched at a press conference in Brussels chaired by Stéphane Hessel, Ambassador of France. The initiators of the Tribunal, Ken Coates, Chairman of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Leila Shahid, General Delegate of Palestine to the European Union, Belgium and Luxembourg, and Nurit Peled, winner of the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, discussed why they called its creation.
In the tradition of the Russell Tribunal on War Crimes in Vietnam, the Russell Tribunal on Palestine is a citizens’ initiative which aims to reaffirm the primacy of international law as the basis for solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and at raising awareness of the responsibility of the international community in the continuing denial of the rights of the Palestinian people.
Russell Tribunal on Palestine - NYC October 6–7, 2012
READ FULL REPORT - PDF
The executive summary of the findings of the New York session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine are now available. You can also download PDF version. (A full report will be issued by the end of this month.)
Message to New York Session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine
from the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
Bertrand Russell died on 2 February 1970, in his 98th year. Two days
earlier he had composed a message to the International Conference of
Parliamentarians, who were about to meet in Cairo whilst Israeli air
raids reached deep into Egyptian territory. Russell’s message was read
to the assembled parliamentarians on the day after his sudden death. He
had remarked that:
‘The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was
“given” by a foreign Power to another people for the creation of a new
State. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people
were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers
have increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this
spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees
have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the
denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. No
people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from
their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to
accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate? A permanent just
settlement of the refugees in their homelands is an essential ingredient
of any just settlement in the Middle East.’
(See
more)
The Russell Tribunal on Palestine can promote peace, truth and reconciliation - article by Desmond Tutu and Michael Mansfield, guardian.co.uk, Thursday 3 November 2011
London session, November 2010
The second international session of the RToP took place in London, in November of 2010. It examined International corporate complicity in violations of international law arising from Israel’s ongoing occupation of Palestinian land, control of and exploitation of natural resources and crops, domination of trade and infrastructure.
For the full details of this session see the Russell Tribunal's web page
Video of London Proceedings.