The recently published Middle East "Road Map"2 is not the first attempt to find a solution to the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory since 1967. Numerous agreements have been concluded between the Palestine Liberation Organization and the occupying power, the State of Israel. Thus far, the parties have failed to agree on the status of issues deferred during the Oslo negotiations process to the final stages of the "peace" process. The failure to address these issues, and the violence, killing, loss and destruction, which followed the parties' failure - not an unexpected development in such situations - begs the question, where have the parties failed? For those of us living the current tragic reality, these are not purely academic questions, because our own children need to cross checkpoints to reach their schools, and because those of us destined to live here in this troubled land need, above all else, to find a solution to the current deadlock, and hopefully to the conflict altogether.
There may be more than one reason why the parties have failed to reach a solution to their "differences." Politicians, security experts, economists, sociologists, historians and others may all try to provide possible answers, and suggest ways out of the current crisis. I cannot put myself into any of the above categories of experts: I am a human rights lawyer with some expertise in the field of negotiation and conflict resolution, and I use my training and experience to examine human rights aspects of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process, and to identify the weaknesses and failures of the process and/or the parties.
It is true we Palestinians and Israelis think of ourselves as engaged in a unique conflict, which warrants "unique solution(s)," but a short visit to, or study of, other conflicts reveals similar claims/perceptions. Therefore, it follows that we can learn from other peoples' experiences and conflicts.3 There are enough similarities to make comparisons valid and differences enough to make the exercise interesting. Without engaging in a lengthy discussion of the validity of the comparison, however, I submit that among the obvious similarities of many world conflicts is the role played by the land/people nexus.4 A second common feature is the role of, and need to, end intractable, organized, political violence.5
The differences between the various conflicts include the rules of international law that apply to each. In cases of foreign occupation, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force and other aspects of international humanitarian law apply. In other situations international law is not as clear about the requirements placed on the parties or the restrictions it imposes on them. The latter group of conflicts include those in which a minority group seeks fulfilment of a claimed right to self-determination, or those in which it is not clear how self-determination can be realized, given the circumstances.

Negotiation "Processes"
In most conflicts, parties negotiate with the same parties they are fighting, although the means and timing of the negotiations may vary. Political discussions - often described as war by other means - traditionally are considered as the usual form of negotiation. However, in some cases, the use of force or violence may also be an integral part of negotiation. Although the use of force usually has repercussions for those imposing the violence, as well as their targets, it could therefore be seen as a means for disadvantaged group(s) to manipulate the balance of power, in order to improve the position from which they negotiate. In 1977, Morton Deutsch concluded his book The Resolution of Conflict by wondering:
"Is it not obvious that, with the great disparities in power and affluence within nations and between nations, there will be continuing pressure for social change? And is it not also obvious that the processes of social change will be disorderly and destructive unless those in power are able, or enabled, to lower their defensiveness and resistance to a change in their relative status?"6
Thus, in a region with violent conflict, there is a need to not simply work toward ridding the region of violence, but also - and perhaps more importantly - dealing with and eradicating its root causes: The absence of resolution to the conflict. Though it is often enough for people to claim a certain conflict is "intractable" to justify the failure of the parties to agree on its end, it is often we humans and our leaders who make conflicts insoluble.
According to author Thomas G Mitchell, the first and perhaps most important stage of a negotiation process involves the search for a formula for reaching an agreement.7 Though each party still may try to ensure his/her interpretation of the formula driving or shaping the ultimate outcome of the negotiations, even this manoeuvring has to occur within the framework established by the formula. It is at this early stage of a negotiation process that parties agree on the formula for resolving their dispute. Thus the formula will play a critical role throughout the negotiations, even if the process takes years.8

Principled Negotiation?
The developing international consensus on the universal nature of international human rights means they are assuming much greater importance in international relations. Evidence of the strength of this trend is found in the overwhelming support the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court received in 1998, and the British and Chilean judgments in the case of General Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator.9 This increased role for human rights also extends to the management and resolution of conflicts.10 Therefore, in an age where human rights are celebrated as universal, and all peoples are considered to be equal and entitled to equal rights and treatment, internationally accepted legal and human rights norms offer a valid lens through which the parties' behaviour can be judged. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights adopted this logic in its preamble more than 50 years ago: "Recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world."
In light of the above, human rights groups worldwide call for respect for human rights as a condition for peace. There is also an increased emphasis on a role for human rights and international law in resolving, and preventing, conflicts, as is evident in the many "universally accepted" human rights and international law instruments. This supports, and is supported by, the increasing calls for a role for principle in processes aimed at resolving conflicts, made by international organizations as well as negotiation theorists. In the latest report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, the UN secretary general stated; "effective protection of civilians is a critical element in laying the foundations of the peace process. The durability of peace is dependent on a commitment to the protection of civilians from its very inception."11
For decades there has been a trend in the field of negotiation theory which emphasizes the importance of including principle in negotiation processes. The proponents of the "principled negotiation" theory believe the use of objective criteria, or principle, in the making or design of the formula for agreement both makes agreement possible and "wise;" that is, among other things, durable.12 The authors of principled negotiation theory argue that parties to conflict cannot, and in fact do not have to, abandon principles to reach agreement.13
The exchange that occurred in 1996 and 1997 between an anonymous writer, and Francis Boyle and Felice D Gaer on the pages of Human Rights Quarterly about the role of principle versus pragmatism in the search for peace, encapsulates the essence of the debate about the need to include human rights principles in peace negotiations.14 The place of principle in the Oslo process was debated more recently by US professor John Quigley and Israeli cabinet minister Shimon Shitreet.15

The Palestinian-Israeli Negotiation Process
Under international law, there is no debate about the legal status of the West Bank (including Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip, the two parts of Palestine occupied by Israel in 1967: They qualify as territories occupied by military force.16 The occupation is subject to the provisions of both the Hague Regulations of 1907 and the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.17 The application, following the 1967 War, of Israeli laws in occupied Jerusalem, which amounts to Israeli annexation, has also been declared illegal under international law.18
The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) originally saw the establishment of a secular, non-racial state for all Palestinians regardless of their religious beliefs or affiliation as its ultimate goal.19 However, the PLO's position shifted almost three decades ago, when the Palestinian leadership's declared goal became the establishment of the State of Palestine over the territory of the West Bank (including Jerusalem) and the Gaza Strip. Further, even though the PLO originally resorted to violence as the means to liberate Palestine, by the 1980s, it realized that a political solution, through negotiation, was worth pursuing.20
With the conclusion of the Gulf War in 1991, the US launched an initiative for Middle East peace based on Security Council Resolutions 242 and 338. The initiative came at a time when the Cold War was ending with the collapse of the former Soviet Union, and the assumption by the US of the role of the only world superpower. US foreign policy declared that, once the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait was resolved, the US would work toward solving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.21 Thus, the moment was ripe for the invitations from the US and Russia for Arab countries, Palestinians and Israel to attend the Madrid Peace Conference, which convened in October 1991.22 Since then, the parties have participated in numerous talks/negotiations, and concluded many agreements, the first of which was the 1993 Palestinian-Israeli Declaration of Principles on Self-Government Arrangements for Palestinians (DOP).
The DOP and all succeeding Israeli-Palestinian agreements have been criticized for the lack of attention to and use of principles contained in international law, including human rights.23 Palestinian human rights groups identified this as one of the main weaknesses of the process from its outset. International human rights groups have also warned the parties to refrain from repeating the mistakes of the past, both by failing to address key and serious human rights issues in the agreements, and by failing to consider the impact post-agreement practices had on the human rights of ordinary civilians, especially those living in the occupied Palestinian territories (OPTs).24
The DOP, in its more than 3,400 words, makes not a single reference to the "human rights" of either the Palestinian people or the Israelis. The Gaza-Jericho Agreement, reached in Cairo on May 4, 1994, (the first of a series of Israeli-Palestinian agreements of a transitional nature and according to which the Israeli army redeployed in parts of the Gaza Strip and Jericho), includes a single, general sentence on human rights: "Israel and the Palestinian Authority shall exercise their powers and responsibilities pursuant to this agreement with due regard to internationally accepted norms and principles of human rights and the rule of law."25 The remaining provisions of the agreement put much emphasis on policing by the PNA, and set up Israeli-Palestinian structures for coordination, which has left the Israeli occupation authority with wide powers in almost every aspect of the life of Palestinians.
Further, the way in which the Gaza-Jericho Agreement was implemented suggests the provision was not meant to represent a serious commitment to human rights. Succeeding agreements also paid short shrift to human rights considerations. Neither the Agreement on Temporary International Presence in the City of Hebron, signed on May 9, 1996, and the January 15, 1998 Protocol Concerning Redeployment in Hebron, contain any mention of human rights, although by 1996 human rights groups and ordinary citizens had expressed dismay about the deterioration of Palestinians' human rights as the peace process unfolded.
The only reference to human rights in the Wye River Memorandum, signed on October 23, 1998, is weak, general, and pertains only to actions of the Palestinian police:
"Pursuant to Article XI (1) of Annex I of the interim agreement, and without derogating from the above, the Palestinian police will exercise powers and responsibilities to implement this memorandum with due regard to internationally accepted norms of human rights and the rule of law, and will be guided by the need to protect the public, respect human dignity, and avoid harassment."
This provision not only fails to offer the minimum guarantees required in the complex situation prevailing in the OPTs, but it sent the wrong message to both parties and peoples. First, it pertained only to the Palestinian side, so Israeli occupation authorities, whose powers affect almost every aspect of the lives of Palestinians in the OPTs, have no corresponding obligations to respect human rights and rule-of-law dictates. The assumption must have been either that Israel does not, or would not, violate human rights, or that its violations of the rights of the Palestinians were beyond the scope of the Palestinian-Israeli negotiation process. Neither assumption should have been acceptable for Palestinian negotiators or the international community. Second, the language was insufficient, as it pertained to violations of human rights by the Palestinian police. In its analysis of the memorandum, Human Rights Watch observed that:
"Instead of creating strong mechanisms to prevent such violations, many sections of the Wye River Memorandum can be read as encouraging them. Much of the document's language relating to security is broad and categorical, as in the requirement that the Palestinian side pursue a policy of "zero tolerance for terror and violence" and that both sides "take all measures necessary in order to prevent acts of terrorism, crime and hostilities." Without a countervailing emphasis on human rights, such language suggests that any and all measures, whether or not they accord with the parties' human rights obligations and the fundamental principles they have pledged to respect, are justified in the fight to eliminate armed attacks against civilians."26
But even the above, broad and weak provision was later not continued in the Sharm el-Sheikh Memorandum on Implementation Timeline of Outstanding Commitments of Agreements and the Resumption of Permanent Status Negotiations, signed on September 4, 1999. Thus, the two Israeli-Palestinian instruments/agreements guiding the negotiations on permanent status issues (the 1993 DOP and the 1999 Sharm El-Sheikh Memorandum) have nothing to say about human rights. It would have been surprising if any negotiation process based on these two components resulted in a situation where human rights were respected or protected by the parties.
Thus, the many calls on both parties to address the numerous human rights issues and concerns so very present in the conflict went unanswered. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have repeated what they said at the outset of the "peace process", both as the parties were negotiating final status issues, and even after the beginning of the current Intifada in 2000. In 1998, Amnesty International stated that:
"[T]he acceptance by the international community of 'peace' at any price or of a security-led agenda involving the suppression of 'terrorism' without regard for human rights has often encouraged violations, and the international community has a crucial role to play in achieving respect for human rights by refusing to accept these violations. Israelis and Palestinians must not accept human rights violations in the name of achieving 'peace' or fighting 'terrorism'."27
In its document entitled Developing a Human Rights Agenda for Peace, issued on March 26, 2001, Amnesty International called, "... unreservedly for the full enjoyment of the human rights in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights for all people." It also added:
"A major flaw of the process which began with the Oslo Agreement of 1993 was that peace was not founded on ensuring respect and protection for human rights.The past months have shown more clearly than ever that if human rights are sacrificed in the search for peace and security there will be no peace and no security. Even if the human rights agenda is not the only answer, it must be part of the solution."28

The Road Map
With the collapse of the Camp David negotiations in 2000 and the election of the Likud government in Israel in the same year, before the Taba talks could produce results, the violence in the OPTs rose to unprecedented levels.29 This included the Israeli army's invasion and occupation of all West Bank Palestinian towns, villages and refugee camps in the first half of 2002.
As the violence continued, a quartet composed of representatives of the UN, and the governments of the US, EU countries and Russia, developed a "Road Map for Peace in the Middle East" as part of their efforts to revive the Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process. The Road Map is not a treaty of any sort, but simply a performance-based list of sequential steps the Israeli and Palestinian authorities should take with the backing of the Quartet members. However, it was not officially released during 2002, although it circulated widely on an informal basis.
The Road Map was largely based on a speech the US president delivered on June 24, 2002, in which he conditioned any support for the resumption of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on Palestinian "reform," including a change in the leadership of the PNA. Although the Palestinian people elected their president in 1996, the selection of a prime minister was done under Israeli and US pressure, without any recourse to the ballot box.30 There is no explicit reference to any provisions of international law in the Road Map, and its implementation and monitoring were not entrusted to any international organization, not even the UN. The Road Map is based on the premise that the parties will reach a negotiated settlement, but it does not stipulate that the outcome conform with international law.31
Thus, the latest framework for an Israeli-Palestinian negotiation process, the Middle East Road Map, is no better than and, indeed, no different from its predecessors with respect to human rights. Both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have studied the Road Map and, upon its release, made their positions clear. Human Rights Watch expressed its concern at, "the failure of the Road Map to incorporate into its provisions internationally recognized human rights and international humanitarian law (IHL) principles," and concluded that: "Other human rights and international humanitarian law standards are incorporated not as binding obligations but as political benchmarks subject to negotiation, political expediency, and performance by other parties."32
Amnesty International's position is similar: "The failure of past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians has demonstrated that while a human rights agenda alone may not be the answer, it must be a central part of any solution. Only a just settlement, which respects the human rights of all parties, will endure."33

Conclusion
Should the international community fail to rectify the current situation, in which "peace" building does not improve enjoyment of equal rights by affected citizens through the incorporation of appropriate human rights guarantees, there will be a repetition of past failures, and the hopes of both Palestinians and Israelis for an end to the conflict will be dashed. Such a failure will also cast the international community as accomplices to breaching the rights they advocate in other settings, and which they helped develop for "universal" application. Indeed, as Human Rights Watch warned, the failure of the drafters of the Road Map to incorporate human rights standards in its negotiation process is not novel, as almost all preceding Israeli-Palestinian agreements have also failed to appropriately, if at all, address human rights issues or include protections.34
By repeating these past failures, the parties concerned will also have failed to learn from the experiences and lessons of peace processes in the former Yugoslavia, Northern Ireland, South Africa, East Timor, Guatemala and elsewhere. In these countries, "the legitimacy and sustainability of political processes are strengthened, not weakened, by including [international humanitarian law] and human rights standards. All conflict-related agreements should include and uphold human rights and international humanitarian law standards."35
If the parties and negotiation sponsors are willing to learn from similar processes in other areas, they will find plenty of sources on how specific human rights issues may be addressed, including those involving refugees, the treatment of individuals suspected of human rights abuses, war crimes, and damage and injury caused to property and civilians in the course of the conflict. The parties will also have to consider how best to guarantee better enjoyment of human rights by all in the future, when there may be Palestinians living under Israeli jurisdiction and Israelis under Palestinian jurisdiction. Under such circumstances, guaranteeing equal and better enjoyment of human rights becomes even more crucial.
However, until the parties agree to include human rights and (more generally) international law principles and standards in their negotiations, human rights activists, as well as interested parties, should keep up the pressure on the parties and the sponsors of the process to ensure these principles are accorded the status they deserve in any Palestinian-Israeli negotiation process. This is the duty and entitlement of all civilians who are suffering as a result of the continuation of the occupation and conflict.


1 Mustafa Mari LL.B, LL.M, Ph.D. (Law). The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of the University of Bir Zeit or any other organization with which the author is affiliated.
2 A Performance-Based Road Map to a Permanent Two-State Solution to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, released by the Office of the Spokesman of the U.S. State Department on April 30, 2003, Press Statement # 2003/451. Though the Road Map was developed in 2002, it was only released following the creation by the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), on demand from the US, of the position of a Palestinian prime minister, and the swearing in, in April 2003, of the first Palestinian prime minister.
3 Many authors have compared the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or aspects thereof, with other conflicts. See for example Thomas G. Mitchell, Native vs. settler: ethnic conflict in Israel/Palestine, Northern Ireland, and South Africa, (Contributions in military studies, No. 200), Greenwood Publishing Group, September 2000, hereafter Mitchell (2000); Donald Harman Akenson, God's peoples: covenant and land in South Africa, Israel, and Ulster, Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 1992, hereafter Akenson (1992). I have treated this issue in detail in my Negotiating Human Rights in Peace Processes: The Lessons of South Africa, Northern Ireland and the Palestinian-Israeli Situations, Ph.D. thesis submitted to the University of Ulster, Northern Ireland, UK, 2001.
4 See Mitchell (2000) on the settler vs. native origins of the conflicts in the three cases. See also Akenson (1992). See also Peter Wallensteen and Margareta Sollenberg, "Armed conflicts, conflict termination and peace agreements, 1989-96," Journal of Peace Research, Vol. (34) 3, 1997, pp 339-358.
5 On this generally see E. E. Azar, "Protracted international conflicts: ten propositions," in International Interactions, Vol. 12, 1985, pp 59-70; E. E. Azar, The management of protracted social conflict, Hampshire, Dartmouth Publishing, 1990. See also Daniel Bar-Tal, "Societal beliefs in times of intractable conflict: the Israeli case", The International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 9 (no. 1), 1998, pp 22-50, and John McGarry, "Political settlements in Northern Ireland and South Africa", Political Studies, Vol. XLVI, 1998, pp 853-870.
6 Morton Deutsch, The resolution of conflict, New Haven and London, Yale University Press, 1977, p 400.
7 C. R. Mitchell, The structure of international conflict, London, MacMillan, 1981, pp 206-207.
8 In the case of South Africa, negotiations lasted for years before the parties were finally able to agree to the formula for resolving the conflict: one man one vote, with certain power-sharing arrangements. On the South African negotiation process see Nelson Mandela, Long walk to freedom, Abacus, London, 1995, and T. R. H. Davenport, The transfer of power in South Africa, David Philip Publishers, 1998.
9 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, UN Doc A/Conf.183/9, 17 July 1998; Pinochet case: A landmark but rights group disappointed if no trial, New York, Human Rights Watch, January 12, 2000; Regina v. Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate and Others, Ex parte Pinochet Ugrate, [1998] 3 W.L.R. 1456 (in which the House of Lords quashed the decision of the Divisional Court that invalidated the arrest warrants issued for Pinochet); Regina v. Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate and Others, Ex parte Pinochet Ugrate (No. 2), [1999] 2 W.L.R. 272, and Regina v. Bow Street Magistrate, Ex p. Pinochet (No. 3), [1999] 2 W.L.R. 827 (in which the House of Lords finally decided to accept the appeal and quash the decision of the Divisional Court, thus permitting reinstatement of the arrest warrants against Pinochet). See also "Chile: Truth and justice must not be hindered", AI Index AMR 22/009/2001, London, Amnesty International, July 9, 2001, and "Chile's Pinochet unfit for trial, court says", Reuters News Service, July 10, 2001.
10 See Colin Campbell, "Peace and the laws of war: the role of international humanitarian law in the post-conflict environment", Review of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Geneva, ICRC, September 2000, Vol. 82, number 839, pp 627-651, pp 628-631, and Christine Bell, Human rights and peace agreements, Oxford University Press, 2000, p 4.
11 UN Secretary General Report on the Protection of Civilians in Armed Conflict, UN Doc. S/2002/1300, available at www.hrw.org.
12 Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton, Getting to yes, Penguin, 1991, hereafter Fisher et al. (1997), p 4.
13 Fisher et al. (1997).
14 See Anonymous, "Human rights in peace negotiations", Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 18 (2), 1996, pp 249-258; Francis A. Boyle, "Negotiating human rights in peace negotiations", Human Rights Quarterly, Vol. 18 (3), 1996, pp 515-516, and Felice D. Gaer, "UN-Anonymous: reflections on human rights in peace negotiations", Human Rights Quarterly, Vol 19 (1), 1997, pp 1-8.
15 See John Quigley, "The role of law in a Palestinian-Israeli accommodation", Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 1999, Vol. 31 (2/3), pp 351-381, and Shimon Shitreet, "Negotiations and agreements are better than legal resolutions: A response to Professor John Quigley", Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law, 2000, Vol. 32 (2), pp 259-272.
16 On this see The legal status of the West Bank and Gaza, United Nations, 1982.
17 IVth Hague Convention Relative to the Customs of War on Land and its annex Regulations Concerning the Laws and Customs of War on Land, The Hague, 18 October 1907, and Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Times of War, of 12 August 1949.
18 On this see Ian S. Lustick, "Has Israel annexed East Jerusalem?", Middle East Policy, Vol. V (number 1), January 1997, pp 34-45. See also UN Security Council resolution 465 of March 1, 1980 and resolution 904 of March 18, 1994, and Usama Halabi, Al-Quds: athar "dam Al-Quds ila Israel" 'ala hoqouq wawad' sukaniha al'Arab (Jerusalem - the Effects of Israel's Annexation of Jerusalem on the Rights and Position of its Arab Population), Jerusalem, The Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, 1990.
19 PLO Covenant, article 6. See also Mahmoud Abbas, Through secret channels: the road to Oslo, Garnet Pub Ltd, September 1997, pp 11-13, hereafter Abbas (1997).
20 PLO Covenant, article 9. See also Abbas (1995), pp 13-14.
21 Haider Abed Al-Shafi, "A Political reading of the DOP," in Challenges facing Palestinian society in the interim period, Jerusalem, PASSIA, 1994, pp 11-18.
22 US-USSR Letter of Invitation to the Madrid Peace Conference, jointly issued by the US and the USSR on October 18, 1991.
23 A Human Rights Assessment of The Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements for Palestinians, Ramallah, Al-Haq, 1993.
24 See Human Rights Should Not be Sacrificed in The Name of Peace, Amnesty International, AI INDEX: MDE 15/011/1996, February 12, 1996; An Analysis of the Wye River Memorandum, Human Rights Watch, November 1998; Five Years After The Oslo Agreement: Human Rights Sacrificed for "Security", Amnesty International, AI Index: MDE 02/004/1998, September 1, 1998. See also Human Rights Neglected in Theory And Practice by All Involved in "Peacemaking", Amnesty International, AI Index: MDE 02/009/1998, 23 December 1998, and Developing a Human Rights Agenda for Peace, Amnesty International, AI Index: MDE 15/012/2001, 26 March 2001.
25 Article XIV, Interim Agreement.
26 An Analysis of the Wye River Memorandum, Human Rights Watch, November 1998.
27 Five Years After The Oslo Agreement: Human Rights Sacrificed For "Security", Amnesty International, op. cit. See also Human Rights Neglected in Theory and Practice by All Involved in "Peacemaking", Amnesty International.
28 Developing a Human Rights Agenda for Peace, Amnesty International.
29 In December 2000 and January 2001, just weeks before the Israeli elections of February 6, 2001, and while the Palestinian Intifada and violence continued throughout the OPTs, Israeli and Palestinian teams conducted negotiations in which progress was made, though they did not reach agreement on any of the issues discussed. See "Israeli-Palestinian Joint Statement", issued at Taba, Egypt, January 27, 2001, published in The Jerusalem Post, January 28, 2001.
30 The US and Israel explicitly demanded the PNA replace its elected president, Mr Yasser Arafat. When the PNA refused, the US accepted an alternative plan, by which much of Mr Arafat's powers have been transferred to an appointed prime minister, a position that did not exist in the Palestinian political-constitutional system until the PLC adopted relevant amendments to the Basic Law on March 18, 2003.
31 See Road Map Fails Rights Test, Human Rights Watch, May 8, 2003. See also The Road Map: Repeating Oslo's Human Rights Mistakes, Human Rights Watch, May 8, 2003.
32 Op. cit.
33 Human Rights Should Not be Bargained Away in Road Map Negotiations, AI Index: MDE 15/050/2003, June 3, 2003.
34 See The Road Map: Repeating Oslo's Human Rights Mistakes, Human Rights Watch.
35 Op. Cit.