Press Releases
BADIL Resource Center
23 September 2003
For Immediate Release
Experience in housing and property restitution during repatriating and assimilating refugees will be the focus of a BADIL-IUED seminar in Geneva, 2-5 October. This is the second BADIL Expert Forum in 2003 organized in the framework of a rights-based approach to the Palestinian refugee question.
Some 35 legal experts, researchers, politicians, refugee law practitioners, human rights activists and media will meet at the Graduate Institute for Development Studies (IUED), University of Geneva. The seminar will look at the almost complete absence of research, public debate and political efforts on behalf of Palestinian refugees’ right to housing and property restitution. The exclusive focus on financial compensation for Palestinian refugees will be analyzed in the light of international law and comparative practice and strategies to promote Palestinian restitution will be formulated.
Public invited
The public is welcome to attend the Public Session on Thursday 2 October from 19:00 to 21:30 at the Institute universitaire d’etudes du developpement (IUED), 24 rue Rothschild, Geneva (Salle Bungener).
The program includes a presentation of the work of BADIL and the IUED on the Palestinian refugee issue, a BADIL video on Palestinian refugees visiting Bosnia to experience the process of return and restitution and a report on lessons learned from the international effort at refugee return and restitution in former Yugoslavia by Paul Prettitore, Legal Advisor, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
For more information, please contact:
Marise Pegat-Toquet at the IUED Research Department, tel. 022-905-59-03 or
e-mail: [email protected]
The next BADIL seminar is scheduled for March 2004 in Cairo on international and regional mechanisms for Palestinian refugee protection, hosted by the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.
2...Geneva seminar
Papers from the May 2003 seminar in Ghent, Belgium on the role of international law in peacemaking and crafting durable solutions for refugees are available from [email protected]. Proceedings and additional working papers are on: www.badil.org/Campaign/Expert_Forum.htm.
BADIL is a community-based Palestinian organization providing alternative information on Palestinian refugees and the search for a durable solution for Palestinian refugees based on the right of return.
In addition to BADIL’s partners in Geneva and the University of Ghent Department of Third World Studies, the BADIL Expert Forum is supported by: Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs, Oxfam Solidarity Belgium, APRODEV NGO Network; Stichting Vluchteling and ICCO, Netherlands, Flemish Palestine Committee; CFD and the Swiss Human Rights Forum.