Thursday May 15 from 12-1pm on the Museum Lawn.

Staff, students, and graduates are encouraged to sign the Otago Declaration.

To sign the declaration, click here.

THE OTAGO DECLARATION ON THE SITUATION IN PALESTINE

We, the staff, students and graduates, being members of the University of Otago, make the following declaration.

We fully and completely recognize that:

– The Palestinian people have a right under international law to national self-determination;
– The Palestinians have the right to security and the full enjoyment of all human and social rights as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights;

And furthermore that:

– Israel is committing a genocide against the Palestinian nation, according to experts, official bodies, international lawyers and human rights organizations;
– Israel operates a system of apartheid in the territories it controls, and denies the full expression and enjoyment of human rights to Palestinians, according to international courts, human rights organizations, legal and academic experts;
– Israel is committing scholasticide, thereby denying Palestinians their right to education;

We recognize that:

– Given the International Court of Justice has ruled that there is a plausible case that Israel has been committing genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza, that all states that are signatory to the Genocide Convention, which includes Aotearoa New Zealand, have a responsibility to take all necessary measures to prevent acts of genocide;

We also acknowledge that as members of a public institution with educational responsibilities:

– We hold a legal and ethical responsibility to act as critic and conscience of society, both individually as members of the University and collectively as a social institution;
– We have a responsibility to follow international law and norms and to act in an ethical manner in our personal and professional endeavours;
– We hold an ethical responsibility to act in solidarity with oppressed and disadvantaged people, including those who struggle against settler colonial regimes or discriminatory apartheid systems and the harmful long-term effects of colonisation;
– We owe a responsibility to fellow educators who are victimised by apartheid and scholasticide;

Therefore, we, the under-signed, do solemnly commit ourselves to:

– Uphold the practices, standards and ethics of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign in terms of investment and procurement as called for by Palestinian civil society and international legal bodies; until such time as Palestinians enjoy freedom from genocide, apartheid and scholasticide, national self-determination and full and complete enjoyment of human rights, as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
– Adopt as part of the BDS campaign an Academic Boycott, as called for by Palestinian civil society and international legal bodies; until such time as Palestinians enjoy freedom from genocide, apartheid and scholasticide, national self-determination and full and complete enjoyment of human rights, as codified in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

References

Statement on Why We Call the Israeli Attack on Gaza Genocide, The Lemkin Institute for Genocide Prevention, 29 December 2023, at https://www.lemkininstitute.com/_files/ugd/0c3372_5bb3a5a7afd44559acf316dba73794bd.pdf

Anatomy of a genocide, Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, 1 July 2024, at https://documents.un.org/doc/undoc/gen/g24/046/11/pdf/g2404611.pdf

‘You Feel Like You Are Subhuman’: Israel’s Genocide Against Palestinians in Gaza, Amnesty International, 5 December 2024, at https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/12/amnesty-international-concludes-israel-is-committing-genocide-against-palestinians-in-gaza/

Apartheid in the Occupied West Bank: A Legal Analysis of Israel’s Actions, International Human Rights Clinic Harvard Law School, 28 February, 2022, at http://hrp.law.harvard.edu/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/IHRC-Addameer-Submission-to-HRC-COI-Apartheid-in-WB.pdf

Israel’s Apartheid Against Palestinians: Cruel System of Domination and Crime Against Humanity, Amnesty International, February 1, 2022, at https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/

A Threshold Crossed: Israeli Authorities and the Crimes of Apartheid and Persecution, Human Rights Watch, April 2021, at https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/media_2021/04/israel_palestine0421_web_0.pdf.

UN experts deeply concerned over ‘scholasticide’ in Gaza, United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner, 18 April 2024, at https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/04/un-experts-deeply-concerned-over-scholasticide-gaza

Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel) Request for the indication of provisional measures, International Court of Justice, 26 January 2024, at https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240126-sum-01-00-en.pdf

Order of 28 March 2024: 192 – Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel), International Court of Justice, 28 March 2024, at https://www.icj-cij.org/sites/default/files/case-related/192/192-20240328-ord-01-00-en.pdf

BDS movement, at https://bdsmovement.net/

To sign the declaration, click here.