Author: Julian Craven

Published: 19 January 2021 Authors: Stefan Talmon and Julian Craven

During the Six-Day-War in June 1967, Israel captured the Gaza Strip, the West Bank – including East Jerusalem – and the Syrian Golan. It has occupied these territories ever since. In 1980, Israel annexed East Jerusalem, and in the following year it annexed the Syrian Golan. Both acquisitions of territory were not recognised by the international community, which considered these annexations null and void and without international legal effect. The United Nations and most States, including Germany, continue to regard Israel as the “occupying Power” in the territories captured in 1967, to which the provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention continue to apply. Notwithstanding the position of the international community, over the years Israel has moved some 25,000 Israeli settlers to the Syrian Golan, who today live in the territory alongside the remaining Syrian Druze population, which is about equal in size. In the West Bank, more than 611,000 people live in 131 official Israeli settlements and some 110 so-called “out-posts” without any legal basis. Some 210,000 of these Israeli settlers live in annexed East Jerusalem and in the Palestinian areas which Israel incorporated into Greater Jerusalem. In 2005, Israel evacuated all settlements in the Gaza Strip. Today, about 11% of the Israeli population live in settlements in the occupied or annexed territories. The Israeli settlements are of varying forms and sizes: while some are proper cities with several, sometimes tens of thousands of inhabitants and comprehensive infrastructure, others are little more than a few buildings or mobile homes. Some of the settlements are independent towns, while others lie on the edge of or as enclaves within Palestinian towns. Israeli settlements are accompanied by the building of roads and other infrastructure in the occupied territories. Settlement activities in strategic locations, especially around East Jerusalem, foreclose the creation of a viable and contiguous State of Palestine and thus make impossible any negotiated two-State solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (more…)

Published: 29 October 2019  Authors: Stefan Talmon and Julian Craven  DOI: 10.17176/20220122-160710-0

In March 2011, the Syrian civil war started with major unrest in Damascus and Aleppo. With the continuation and intensification of the conflict and the increasing violations by the Syrian Government under President Bashar al-Assad of international humanitarian law and human rights law, the relations between Germany and the Syrian Government deteriorated. On 7 February 2012, Germany expelled four employees of the Syrian embassy in Berlin for taking action in Germany against members of the Syrian opposition. In response to the massacre in the village of Houla on 25 May 2012, where 108 people, including 34 women and 49 children, were killed by Syrian troops and pro-government militias, Germany, together with Australia, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States expelled the heads of the Syrian diplomatic mission in their country.

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Published: 22 October 2019  Author: Julian Craven  DOI: 10.17176/20220113-170235-0

In May 2019, it was reported that the Namibian Ambassador to Germany, Andreas B.D. Guibeb, allegedly owed money to several companies and had attachment orders against him to the value of some €80,000. One of the companies which had conducted the Namibian Embassy’s media work and had provided website and project support sued the ambassador in th German courts. As the Ambassador did not appear at the various hearings, on 16 May 2018 the District Court of Berlin Schöneberg issued an arrest warrant against the Ambassador in execution proceedings for unpaid debt. The arrest warrant provided as follows: (more…)