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Abstract
Taking Palestine as the focus of inquiry, and drawing on our experiences as co-directors of Karamah, a judicial education initiative focused on dignity, we reflect on the attributes of colonisation and the possibilities of decolonisation in Palestine through development aid. We conclude that decolonisation is possible even within development aid frameworks. We envision the current colonial condition in Palestine as a multi-faceted, complex and dynamic mesh that tightens and expands its control over the coveted colonial subject but that also contains holes that offer opportunities for resistance or refusal. We turn to Karamah to illustrate how some judges have insisted on a professional identity that merges the concepts of human dignity and self-determination and ultimately rejects the colonial condition inherent in both occupation and development aid. We conclude that in this process of professional identity (re)formation, members of the Palestinian judiciary have helped reveal the demands of decolonisation by demonstrating their commitment to realising human dignity through institutional power, and bringing occupation back into international development discourse.
Notes
1. Sachs, The Development Dictionary, 10.
2. Escobar, Encountering Development; Cowen and Shenton, Doctrines of Development; and Cooke, From Colonial Administration to Development Management, 8.
3. Woolford, This Benevolent Experiment.
4. “Occupied Palestinian Territories Homepage”; Playfair, International Law; Kretzmer, The Occupation of Justice; Shehadeh, “The Lucrative Arms Trade,” 25; Weizman, Hollow Land; and “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
5. Nafi and Purkiss, “Palestinian Security Cooperation.”
6. International Legality of the Security Fence.
7. Sedley et al., Children in Military Custody.
8. Rayyes, “The Rule of Law and Human Rights”; Kelly, Access to Justice; Weill, “The Judicial Arm of the Occupation”; Military Court Watch, “Fact Sheet”; Bahdi, “Phosphorus and Stone,” 171; and Hajjar, Courting Justice.
9. Said, Orientalism; Said, Culture and Imperialism; and Cohen, States of Denial.
10. Zanotti, US Foreign Aid to the Palestinians.
11. See ibid., 4 for an uncritical illustration.
12. Ben-Ari, “Israel’s Statement.”
13. Engler, “Aid to Palestine or Israel?”; and Ziadah, “What Kind of Palestinian State?”
14. Wildeman, “Why Aid Projects in Palestine are doomed to Fail.”
15. Al-Haq, “Briefing Note I.” See also Shlaim, “How Israel brought Gaza to the Brink.”
16. Kennedy, “The Harper Doctrine”; and “PM Stephen Harper urges World Leaders.” On increasing aid to Palestine, see Goodman, “Stephen Harper offers $66 million in New Aid.”
17. See, for example, Canadian Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development, “West Bank and Gaza.”
18. Easterly, The White Man’s Burden.
19. Kothari and Wilkinson, “Colonial Imaginaries and Postcolonial Transformations.”
20. Cohen, States of Denial.
21. Easterly, “The Ideology of Development,” 32.
22. Kothari, “Authority and Expertise.”
23. For a discussion of current activities and priorities generally, see the website of the Palestinian High Judicial Council at http://www.pcpsr.org/.
24. Rocard and Siegman, Strengthening Palestinian Public Institutions; Gompert et al., Building a Successful Palestinian State; and Bouris, The European Union and Occupied Palestinian Territories.
25. Nicholson and Low, “Local Accounts of Rule of Law Aid.”
26. See, for example Gompert et al., Building a Successful Palestinian State, 23.
27. The World Bank links justice-sector reforms to economic growth. World Bank, Sustaining Achievements in Palestinian Institution-building.
28. Samuels, Rule of Law Reform; and United Nations, Rule of Law Development.
29. Bouris, The European Union and Occupied Palestinian Territories, 15, n. 28.
30. Fayyad, Ending the Occupation.
31. Institute of Law, ‘Al’Kada’ Gayrel Nethamee, 8, 41; and Khalil, “(Rule of) Law and Development in Palestine.”
32. Allen, The Rise and Fall of Human Rights.
33. Woolford, This Benevolent Experiment.
34. For example, see NETHAM, Rule of Law Program.
35. Easterly, The White Man’s Burden, Chap. 1; Sayer and Campbell, The Science of Sustainable Development, 77–78; and Cooke and Kothari, Participation.
36. Allen, The Rise and Fall of Human Rights.
37. Just Governance Group, Evaluation of the Project on Judicial Independence.
38. Ibid.
39. Uma Kothari reminds us that the political narrative is often stripped away from development undertakings, thus rendering them colonising rather than liberating. See Kothari, ‘Authority and Expertise’, describing how participatory approaches to development discipline and co-opt those who believe themselves to be acting outside the mainstream.
40. Cover, “Violence and the Word.”
41. Just Governance Group, Evaluation of the Project on Judicial Independence, 55.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid.
45. Presentation by Judge Mahmoud Jamous, Head of the First Instance Court, Ramallah and Head of the Judges’ Panel on Criminal Cases, at Karamah’s closing conference. The full text of Justice Jamous’ presentation is available on the website of the Palestinian High Judicial Council.
46. Judge One, interviewed by Karamah, March 2012.
47. Judge Two, interviewed by Karamah, March 2012.
48. Just Governance Group, Evaluation of the Project on Judicial Independence, 54.
49. Ibid.
50. See Weizman, The Least of All Possible Evils.
51. See, for example, the remarks of former Chief Justice of Israel, Aaron Barak. Barak, Human Dignity.
52. See Jordaan, “Autonomy as an Element of Human Dignity.”
53. Arab World Centre for Research and Development, Perceptions of the Palestinian Authority Judiciary; and Turner, Public Perceptions.
54. ‘Findings of the third quarter of 2015 indicate that two thirds of the public demand the resignation of president Abbas and two thirds do not believe his current resignation from the PLO Executive Committee is real.’ “Palestinian Public Opinion Poll No. 57, October 6, 2015.” Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, http://www.pcpsr.org/.
55. Vigour, “Professional Identities and Legitimacy Challenged.”
56. Agamben, Profanations, 77.
57. Cooke and Kothari, Participation, 15, n. 47; Sium and Ritskes, “Speaking Truth to Power”; and Kohn and McBride, Political Theories of Decolonization.