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Legal Issues Surrounding Population Transfers in Conflict Situations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 May 2009
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Today, Machiavelli's words have lost none of their accuracy. Population transfer still serves as an effective means to secure the fruits of conquest or aggression to the detriment of the civilian population. With nationalist sentiments rising alarmingly, population transfer is bound to be one of the issues figuring high on the international agenda in the decade to come.
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References
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70. See also UN Sub-Commission res. 1992/28 which recognised ‘the implantation of settlers and settlements in certain countries, including occupied territories, with the aim of changing the demographic structure and the political, cultural and religious characteristics of those countries’ and that ‘population transfer may constitute part of a general policy… aimed at imposing effective control…’
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80. Section 6.3 below deals with the chances for prosecution of perpetrators of population transfer at the International Tribunal.
81. Art. 1, para. 4 of Additional Protocol I (1977).
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102. UNGA res. 217(111), Part A. The UDHR provides an authoritative guide to the interpretation of provisions of the UN Charter; it has been invoked by the GA on many occasions and has influenced the adoption and interpretation of national and treaty law. The UDHR has been cited by the International Court of Justice and the European Court of Justice and forms the basis of implementation mechanisms at the UN level. On the UDHR see ‘The Universal Declaration on Human Rights: Its Significance in 1988’, SIM Special no. 9 (1988)Google Scholar.
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119. As of 31 July 1992, there were 132 States Parties to the CERD.
120. Art. 1(1) CERD.
121. Art. 5(e)(iii) CERD.
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124. UNGA res. 2200 A (XXI) (16 Dec. 1966), entered into force 23 March 1976.
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126. UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1992/58.
127. Ibid. pp. 21–22.
128. The right to freedom of movement is contained in additional human rights instruments: UDHR, Art. 13; Protocol IV to the European Convention, Arts. 2, 3; Inter-American Convention on Human Rights, Art. 22; CERD, Art. 5; African Charter, Art. 12.
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132. UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1992/23, para. 86.
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134. The right to work and the right to education cannot but be impaired by the process of transferring populations (Arts. 6 and 13). Moreover, systematic denial of means of employment and education to specific groups, and, at the same time, instituting favourable employment or education conditions for a particular group within the total population under a State's jurisdiction are means commonly used to coerce certain groups to move away from an area and alter the demographic character of the territory concerned.
135. Sachar, , op. cit. n. 122Google Scholar. See on the right to adequate housing Leckie, S.From Housing Needs to Housing Rights: An Analysis of the Right to Adequate Housing under International Human Rights Law 1992Google Scholar.
136. UN Sub-Commission res. 1991/12,1992/14, 1993/41 and UN Commission res. 1993/77 have recognised that ‘practices of forced evictions constitute a gross violation of human rights in particular the right to adequate housing’.
137. Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, ‘Report on the Sixth Session’, in ECOSOC Official Records, Suppl. no. 3, UN Doc. E/1992/23 and UN Doc. E/C.12/1991/14, Annex III, para. 7Google Scholar.
138. Committee on ESC-Rights, General Comment no. 4 (1991)Google Scholar.
139. Also Limburg Principles 46–57.
140. In 1983, the European Commission dealt again with the legality of population transfers of Greek Cypriots. The conclusions of the Commission on displacement of persons, separation of families and discrimination were identical to the cases discussed above. Case no. 8007/77 Cyprus v. Turkey, supra paras. 124–165, at pp. 34–48.
141. Report on an Additional Protocol on the Rights of Minorities to the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, ADOC 6742 (1403–15/1/93–2–E), Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (19 01 1993)Google Scholar.
142. UNGA res. 177(II), 1947.
143. ILC Rep. (1991), UNGA Official Records (1992) Suppl. no. 10, A/46/10.
144. Ibid. p. 268.
145. Ibid p. 271.
146. ILC Draft Art. 5. The ILC commentary explains that ‘the State may thus remain responsible and be unable to exonerate itself from responsibility by invoking the prosecution or punishment of the individuals who committed the crime. It could be obliged to make reparation for injury caused by its agents’. ILC Rep. (1991), supra n. 141, p. 255Google Scholar.
147. Declaration of Minimum Humanitarian Standards, adopted by an expert meeting convened by the Institute for Human Rights, Abo Akademi University Turku, Finland, 30 November-2 December 1990, submitted as a working paper to the UN Sub-Commission, 43rd session, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1991/55.
148. Ibid. See also Art. 3(2)(a) and (b) on humane treatment of persons, prohibiting in particular ‘violence to life, health and physical and mental well-being of persons … and other outrages upon personal dignity’ and ‘collective punishments are against persons and their property’.
149. The Draft Articles are divided into three parts: Part I deals with the origin of international responsibility; Part II with the content, forms and degree; and Part III with settlement of disputes and implementation. So far, the ILC has provisionally adopted on first reading Part I (Arts. 1–;35) and Part II (Arts. 1–5).
150. Draft Articles, Art. 3.
151. Ibid. Part I, Art. 19.
152. Ibid. Part II, Art. 14(2)(a) and (b).
153. Harris, , op. cit. n. 5, p. 460Google Scholar.
154. UNSC res. 808 (22 February 1993)Google Scholar.
155. UN Doc. S/25266 (10 February 1993) pp. 20–21Google Scholar.
156. From the report of the Secretary-General pursuant to UNSC res. 808, we learn that both existing conventional and customary humanitarian law will be applied. UN Doc. S/25704, at p. 6.
157. Art. 4,5 Statute of the International Tribunal.
158. UN Doc. S/25704, at p. 12.
159. Not elaborated here but of pertinence to questions of population transfer are also the Declaration on the Rights of Persons Belonging to National, Ethnic, Religious and Linguistic Minorities, adopted by UNGA, 18 December 1992. Art. 1(1) relates the status of minorities to their territory providing that: ‘States shall protect the existence and the national or ethnic, cultural, religious and linguistic identity of minorities within their respective territories, and shall encourage conditions for the promotion of that identity’. See also the Draft Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/28 (23 June 1992)Google Scholar, recognising practices of ethnocide (cultural genocide) and addressing questions of loss of land.
160. Pallieri, , ‘Les Transfer Internationaux de Populations’, loc. cit. n. 36Google Scholar.
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162. van Asbeck, F.M., in Pallieri report, loc. cit. n. 36, p. 162Google Scholar.
163. Kraus, ibid. p. 173.
164. G. Scelle, ibid, at p. 180.
165. Ibid, at p. 178.
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167. IIHL European Seminar on ‘Central and Eastern Europe: The Challenge of Becoming Refugee-Receiving Countries’ (Prague, 6–8 04 1993)Google Scholar.
168. Ibid, at pp. 26, 27, 29.
169. Statement by Cornelia Sommaruga, ICRC, at the opening of the International Meeting on Humanitarian Aid for Victims of the Conflict in the Former Yugoslavia, under the auspices of the UNHCR (Geneva, 29 July 1992)Google Scholar.
170. Sommaruga, C., ICRC, Address at the London Conference on the Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia(26–27 August 1992)Google Scholar.
171. Statement by ICRC to the 49th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (23 02 1993)Google Scholar.
172. Statement by Ogata, Sadako, UNHCR, to the 49th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights (3 March 1993) pp. 3–4Google Scholar.
173. In her speech ‘Refugees and World Peace’, Ogata stated in relation to the former Yugoslavia that ‘displacement is not so much the consequence as the objective of a tragic conflict which has uprooted or affected more than 3 million persons’ (Tokyo, 7 01 1993)Google Scholar.
174. UNCHR Statement to the 49th session of the UN Commission for Human Rights, supra n. 171, at p. 11Google Scholar.
175. See also UN Sub-Commission res. 1992/28 and 1993/34.
176. See Palley, C., ‘The Relevance of Population Transfers to Minority Rights’, paper submitted to the UN expert Seminar on Minorities (Geneva: 22 03 1993) p. 17Google Scholar.
177. See also UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/17, at p. 79.
178. See UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/NGO/6, at p. 3.
179. Paper submitted to a human rights conference on ‘The Problem of Demographic Manipulation in International Law’ (Nicosia, 21 05 1990) p. 8Google Scholar.
180. UN Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/1993/17, at p. 82.
181. Ibid. p. 82.
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