Global Policy Forum

At the beginning of June 2011 Global Policy Forum associate Harpreet Paul interviewed UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk. Falk is an international law and international relations scholar who taught at Princeton University for forty years. Since 2002 he has lived in Santa Barbara, California, and taught at the local campus of the University of California in Global and International Studies and since 2005 chaired the Board of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

In 2001 Falk served on a United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestinian territories with John Dugard, who was then the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967.

In 2008, Falk replaced John Dugard as the Special Rapporteur and has been outspoken in his criticism of Israeli policy in Gaza, the West Bank and the occupied territories.  He has called for sustainable peace that realizes the rights of all Palestinians, and is broader and deeper than ending the occupation or establishing a Palestinian state.

The interview is split into four sections. The interview, together with descriptions of the four parts, can be found below.

A transcript of the full interview is available in PDF format here.

Falk provides a brief historical outline of the Israel/Palestine conflict, suggests that the situation in the Palestinian occupied territories is similar to apartheid South Africa and discusses his relationship, as UN Special Rapporteur, with the state of Israel.

This section covers the UN Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (also known as the "Goldstone Report"), the inability of the UN to enforce the findings contained within this report and the sending of peaceful flotillas to the Gaza Strip. Falk says the UN Secretary General’s statements encouraging governments to refrain from allowing flotillas (carrying peaceful humanitarian assistance to be sent to Gaza in order to challenge the Israeli blockade of Gaza) “is to take the side of the unlawful collective punishment of the people of Gaza and to deny civil society the democratic prerogative of non-violent humanitarian solidarity.” The interview took place before the Greek Costal Guard prohibited the US flotilla (“The Audacity of Hope”) from embarking on its journey to Gaza at the end of June 2011.

This section looks at the relationship between the US and the UN, the "Responsibility to Protect Doctrine" and the rule of law. Permanent membership and veto powers within the UN Security Council for China, Russia, US, UK and France allow such countries to further their own geo-strategic politics.

Richard Falk suggests that there is no legitimate peace process, discusses the impending unilateral declaration of Palestinian statehood, expected in September 2011, and outlines his hopes for the future.