A/HRC/16/72 I. Introduction 1. Unfortunately, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967 needs to again call to the attention of the membership of the Human Rights Council the continuing refusal of the Government of Israel to allow the Rapporteur to visit the occupied Palestinian territories. Repeated attempts have been made to engage the Government of Israel in discussion with the hope of reversing the policies that led to the detention and expulsion of the Special Rapporteur from Ben-Gurion Airport on 14 December 2008, but so far without any response. Efforts will be made to seek the necessary cooperation of the Government of Israel in relation to the obligation of the Special Rapporteur to discharge official undertakings of the United Nations. Such cooperation should be understood as a fundamental legal obligation incident to membership in the Organization. 2. As repeated efforts to call this situation to the attention of the Human Rights Council and the General Assembly have to date produced no positive results, the Special Rapporteur appeals on the occasion of this report for a more robust attempt to secure the cooperation of the Government of Israel. It should be recalled that Article 104 of the Charter of the United Nations declares that the Organization “shall enjoy in the territory of each of its Members such legal capacity as may be necessary for the exercise of its functions and the fulfilment of its purposes”. Article 105, paragraph 2, specifies that those who represent the United Nations shall enjoy in the territory of State Members: “such privileges and immunities as are necessary for the independent exercise of their function in connexion with the Organization”. These provisions were elaborated in the Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the United Nations, adopted by the General Assembly on 13 February 1946, and then implemented via the Agreement between the Swiss Federal Council and the Secretary General of the United Nations, dated 19 April 1946. Article VI, Section 22, thereof, entitled “Experts on Missions for the United Nations”, is particularly relevant, setting forth the rather extensive duties of Members to cooperate with such representatives as special rapporteurs and to avoid interfering with their independence. 3. It should be pointed out that the Government of Israel has also not cooperated with other recent important initiatives of the Human Rights Council relating to the occupied Palestinian territories, including the report of the United Nations Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict (A/HRC/12/48) and the report of the independent international factfinding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance (A/HRC/15/21). This pattern of non-cooperation with official undertakings of the Human Rights Council should produce a concerted attempt by this organ and the Office of the Secretary-General to do what can be done to obtain the future cooperation of the Government of Israel. 4. Closely related to issues associated with non-cooperation are several outstanding matters bearing on non-implementation. The report of the International Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict on the basis of its findings of severe and systematic violations of international humanitarian law recommended that several steps be taken to assess the accountability of the perpetrators of criminal acts committed during the Gaza conflict (2008/09). There is currently no sign of any attempt to mobilize effective support for the implementation of these recommendations. Moreover, evidence of an Israeli willingness to impose credible levels of accountability for criminal acts of its soldiers and leaders in accordance with international standards remains absent. These conclusions were reaffirmed by the report of the Committee of independent experts that assessed investigations by Israel and the Palestinian sides into the Gaza conflict (A/HRC/15/50). In addition, the same 3