The Legality of the West Bank Wall: Israel\u27s High Court of Justice v. the International Court of Justice

This Article offers a critique of the decision reached by Israel\u27s High Court of Justice in the Mara\u27abe Case (2005) as well as some aspects of the International Court of Justice\u27s Advisory Opinion on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (2004). The Article takes a socio-legal and facts-based approach to analyzing the decisions\u27 discussions of settlements, self-determination, and self-defense, examining all three topics in light of several recent legal and political developments

The right of return revisited

This article traces the historical, political, and legal events that have had the greatest impact on the plight of the former citizens of the British mandate of Palestine, resulting in the largest and longest running refugee crisis of the 20th century. Anti-Semitism, Zionism, mass immigration, colonialism, the holocaust, western imperialism, war, and military occupation all played their part. In fact, the events that led to the mass displacement of the citizens of the British mandate of Palestine are still very relevant today even though the events that led to their eviction were over half a century ago. If there is ever to be peace and justice in the Middle East the Palestinian refugee question cannot be ignored.peer-reviewe

Occupation, colonialism, apartheid? A re-assessment of Israel’s practices in the occupied Palestinian territories under international law

This study was commissioned and coordinated by the Middle East Project (MEP) of the Democracy and Governance Programme, a research programme of the Human Sciences Research Council of South Africa. The genesis of this study was the suggestion made in January 2007 by Professor John Dugard, in his capacity as UN Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories, that Israel’s military occupation displays elements of colonialism and apartheid. The Human Sciences Research Council commissioned this study to scrutinise Professor Dugard’s hypothesis from the perspective of international law. Over a period of 15 months, the team of scholars engaged in extensive research, discussion, and rounds of lively debate through seven drafts. The result is the consensus represented in this report, offered here for public discussion. Constructive criticism is welcomed, in order that shortcomings in this document may be addressed in a future edition. Although this study is essentially a legal document, observations from other disciplines are encouraged

Foraging patterns of acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) on valley oak (Quercus lobata Née) in two California oak savanna-woodlands

Landscape characteristics and social behavior can affect the foraging patterns of seed-dependent animals. We examine the movement of acorns from valley oak (Quercus lobata) trees to granaries maintained by acorn woodpeckers (Melanerpes formicivorus) in two California oak savanna-woodlands differing in the distribution of Q. lobata within each site. In 2004, we sampled Q. lobata acorns from 16 granaries at Sedgwick Reserve in Santa Barbara County and 18 granaries at Hastings Reserve in Monterey County. Sedgwick has lower site-wide density of Q. lobata than Hastings as well as different frequencies of other Quercus species common to both sites. We found acorn woodpeckers foraged from fewer Q. lobata seed source trees (Kg = 4.1 ± 0.5) at Sedgwick than at Hastings (Kg = 7.6 ± 0.6) and from fewer effective seed sources (Nem* = 2.00 and 5.78, respectively). The differences between sites are due to a greater number of incidental seed sources used per granary at Hastings than at Sedgwick. We also found very low levels of seed source sharing between adjacent granaries, indicating that territoriality is strong at both sites and that each social group forages on its own subset of trees. We discovered an interesting spatial pattern in the location of granaries. At Sedgwick, acorn woodpeckers situated their granaries within areas of higher-than-average tree density, while at Hastings, they placed them within areas of lower-than-average tree density, with the outcome that granaries at the two sites were located in areas of similar valley oak density. Our results illustrate that landscape characteristics might influence the number of trees visited by acorn woodpeckers and the locations of territories, while woodpecker social behavior, such as territoriality, shapes which trees are visited and whether they are shared with other social groups