Building the Rule of Law in Palestine: Rule of Law Without Freedom (F. Melhem & J. Salem)
Abstract:
Palestine, as a state-in-the-making (status nascendi), lies under the burden of legal complexity. The Palestinian legal system is described, first of all, in terms of diversity and plurality. The challenges are tremendous for developing and unifying Palestinian laws. There is a duality of legal orders with the separation between the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, a dichotomy between the Palestinian regulations and Israeli military orders, and a legal plurality represented in the coexistence of religious laws, positive law and customary law, in addition to an extremely complex legal environment that comprises a mixture of historical legacies associated with several political regimes from the Ottoman period to the current day.
The paper intends to explain and assess recent efforts in reforming the Palestinian legal system, taking into account social context related issues and the political constrains imposed by the occupying power.
The paper was published in a book titled “International Law and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict: A Rights-Based Approach”, which examines the Israeli/Palestinian conflict from a rights and international law perspective. It covers a variety of key topics ranging from security, through legal and political frame works through to the issues of refugees and Jerusalem.
