2023 Theses Master's

Negotiating Palestinian-Israeli Peace through a Human-Rights Framework

Corbisiero, Sophia

In 1994, US President Bill Clinton, Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization (“PLO”) Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin won the Nobel Peace Prize for the signing of the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements, also known as the Oslo Accords I. What happened from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize to the collapse of the peace-process?

The failure to implement the peace agreement has led to generations of ongoing armed conflict and a need to adapt new forms of foreign policy. The world has witnessed brutality and violence in Gaza and Israel and no one is certain what the next steps should be. It is paralyzing and those in foreign service are on global alert. I realized this: foreign service is service to mankind.

This study examines the need to use international human rights law and customary law within international bargaining in order to reach final status agreements. Building on international negotiations parameters, I write a Human Rights Framework (“HRF”) that inserts international human rights law as a guiding force within the core issues of Jerusalem, security, borders and Palestinian refugees.