From November 5 - 7 the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will be broadcast live on the internet. Live proceedings will be embedded on the Russell Tribunal on Palestine website.
Here is the programme:
Third International Session of the
Russell Tribunal on Palestine
Are Israel practices
against the Palestinian People in breach of the prohibition on Apartheid under
International Law?
Cape Town, 5-7 November 2011
District Six Museum
Jury Members: Stéphane Hessel, Gisèle Halimi,
Ronnie Kasrils, Mairead Maguire, Michael Mansfield, Antonio Martin Pallin,
Cynthia McKinney, Aminata Traoré, Yasmin Sooka and Alice Walker.
Saturday 5
November – Day One
09.15 Doors open.
10.00 Introduction: Pierre Galand and Stéphane Hessel.
10.30 Opening Remarks: Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu.
Setting the Legal Context:
The Palestinian Right to Self-Determination
10.45 Raji Sourani will explain the content of the
right, the nature of its denial in the Palestinian context, and its relation
to apartheid and persecution.
Apartheid
Apartheid in South Africa, and
the Prohibition of Apartheid in International Law
11. 15 Max du Plessis will detail the treaty and customary international law status of the
prohibition on apartheid in international law.

11.45 Coffee Break
The Law and Practice of Apartheid in South Africa and Palestine
12.15 John Dugard will give a reminder of how the apartheid regime operated in law and policy in
South Africa, and provide an overview of Israeli law and policy with respect
to the prohibition on apartheid.
Elements of the Definition of Apartheid: Racial Groups under International Law
12.45 David Keane will explain the broad construction given to the term ‘racial’ in the
context of ‘racial discrimination’ in International Law.

13.05 Lunch
14.35 Ingrid Jaradat will discuss Palestinian identity and
Palestinians as a distinct racial group for the purposes of the definition of
apartheid.

 Ran
Greenstein
will discuss the
extent to which the legal definition of apartheid, based on the notion of
racial domination, applies to the practices of the oppressing group in
Israel/Palestine.
Elements of the Definition of Apartheid: an institutionalized regime of systematic domination
15.05 Joseph Schechla and Emily Schaeffer will go
over discriminatory
elements of the Israeli legal system and the separate legal systems and
courts for Jewish-Israeli settlers and Palestinians in the occupied
territories.
Acts of apartheid
15.45 Marianne Blume will discuss whether there is a case
of deliberate imposition on a racial
group or groups of living conditions calculated to cause its or their
physical destruction in whole or in part.

16.00 Coffee Break
16.30 Dr Allan Boesak and Mahmoud Hassan
will give testimonies about extra-judicial killing, torture or
cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, and arbitrary arrest and
illegal imprisonment during Apartheid South Africa, and in the West Bank, the
Gaza Strip and in Israel.
Acts of apartheid: Exploitation of labour of members of a racial group or groups
17.00 Rafeef Ziadah will discuss this topic in relation to the facts
that Israel has raised barriers to Palestinian employment inside Israel since
the 1990s, and that Palestinian labour is now used extensively only in the
construction and services sectors of Jewish-Israeli settlements in the
Occupied Palestinian Territories while Zwelinzima Vavi will remind people of the conditions of
employment under Apartheid South Africa.
17.30 Closing remarks

End of Day One
Sunday 6 November – Day Two
09.30 Doors open.
10.30 Opening remarks.
Acts of apartheid (continued)
10.45 Luciana Coconi, Shawan Jabarin and Lea Tsemelwill give testimonies over the denial of
the right to freedom of movement, of residence, to leave and return to one’s
country, to a nationality, to work, to form recognised trade unions, to
education, to freedom of opinion and expression, and to freedom of peaceful
assembly and association.

11.30 Coffee Break
Acts of apartheid: Measures designed to divide the population along racial lines
12.00 Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, Jeff Halper and Jamal Juma'a
will speak of the creation
of separate reserves and ghettoes, the prohibition of mixed marriages, and
the expropriation of landed property in Israel/Palestine as well as in former
Apartheid South Africa.

Acts of apartheid: Persecution of organizations and persons, by depriving them of
fundamental rights and freedoms, because they oppose apartheid
12.45 Haneen Zoabi and Shawqi Issa will testify about the arrest, imprisonment, travel bans and the
targeting of Palestinian parliamentarians, national political leaders and
human rights defenders, the closing down of related organisations, and the
current legislation being enacted to punish those who initiate or promote
boycott measures for opposition to Israeli domination.

13.15 Lunch
Persecution
14.45 Rafaelle Maison will set out and explain the status
of persecution as a crime against humanity and Raji Surani, Mohammed Khatiband Jazi Abu Kaf will present evidence pursuant to the above with
regard to the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the
Palestinian citizens of Israel.
16.10 Coffee Break
Presentation by Israeli Government
16.40 Speaker to be confirmed by the
Israeli Government.

Third Party Responsibility and Remedies
17.00 François Dubuisson will elaborate on the third party responsibility and remedies if Israel were to be proved guilty of
apartheid.
17.30 Closing remarks.
17.45
Jury Retires to Deliberate.
End of Day Two
Monday 7 November – Day Three
Press Conference Cape Town
The Homecoming Centre
11.00 The Jury of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine will set out its conclusions for
the Third Session of the Tribunal at an International press conference.