Earlier this week, Al-Marsad – Arab Human Rights Centre in Golan Heights (“Al-Marsad”) presented its joint report to the United Nations Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“Committee”) during its periodic review of Israel. Al-Marsad’s joint report, written with Al-Haq and Cornell Law School’s International Human Rights Clinic, discusses how Israel unlawfully exploits energy resources in all the territories it occupies through common policies and practices. Al-Marsad’s presentation to the Committee similarly addressed how Israel abuses natural resources in the occupied Syrian Golan to the detriment of the region’s indigenous population.

Al-Marsad’s presentation focused on two Israeli industrial projects in the occupied Golan: Afek Oil and Gas’s exploratory oil drilling and Energix Renewable Energies’ Clean Wind Energy Project, both of which Al-Marsad has investigated in reports. The presentation discussed how these projects, licensed, supported, and advanced by Israel’s government, violate the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (“Covenant”), the foundational legal framework for the Committee’s review process.

Al-Marsad’s presentation emphasized how Israel’s exploitation of the occupied Golan’s energy resources violates Syrians’ rights to sovereignty over their natural resources under Article 1 of the Covenant. Additionally, it addressed how Israel’s targeted discriminatory manipulation of natural resources violates Article 2 of the Covenant. Also highlighted was Israel’s violations of the following Articles: Article 6 by undercutting the right to work; Article 11 by stifling the right to development; and, Article 15 by the willful destruction of Golani Syrians’ cultural attachment to their land and agriculture.

The presentation concluded by asking the Committee to condemn Israel’s widespread violations of international human rights law in the occupied Golan. Al-Marsad stressed that the Committee has yet to ever address the situation in the occupied Golan, despite Al-Marsad’s repeated submissions during the Committee’s reviews of Israel. Al-Marsad hopes that in this, Israel’s fourth review, the Committee will finally confront Israel’s violations of the Covenant in the occupied Golan.