Professor Ben Saul & Chris Sidoti, will Address the National Press Club of Australia on “Palestine recognition: necessary but insufficient”.
Australia has finally recognized the State of Palestine, almost 80 years after Australia recognized the State of Israel and after three quarters of the world had already accepted Palestinian statehood. Recognition acknowledges the legal and factual reality that Palestine is already a State, but also that the current Israeli Government has pledged to never negotiate to allow Palestinian independence or respect the right to Palestinian self-determination, at a time when Palestinian territory has been ravaged by the war in Gaza and illegal settler expansion in the West Bank.
BIOS
Professor Ben Saul is the Challis Chair of International Law at The University of Sydney, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms while Countering Terrorism, and a Fellow of the University of Sydney Senate. He has published 20 books and hundreds of articles and his research has been awarded by the American Society of International Law. Ben has taught at Oxford, Harvard, The Hague and Xiamen Academies of International Law, and in Europe and Asia; practised in international tribunals; advised governments, militaries, security agencies, NGOs and the United Nations; and undertaken missions in over 45 countries. He is an elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and the Australian Academy of Law, and formerly an Associate Fellow at Chatham House and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism. He has a doctorate from Oxford and honours degrees in Arts and Law from Sydney. He appears frequently in the international media, including writing for The New York Times.
He has been Australian Human Rights Commissioner (1995-2000) and Australian Law Reform Commissioner (1992-1995). In 2007-08 he was the independent chair of the United Kingdom Government’s Northern Ireland Bill of Rights Forum. He has worked extensively with national human rights institutions in the Asia Pacific region, on behalf of the Asia Pacific Forum of National Human Rights Institutions. He has also worked in non-government organisations, including as director of the International Service for Human Rights, based in Geneva, Switzerland, and for the Human Rights Council of Australia and the Australian Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace.
