A/HRC/25/67 analysing whether allegations of apartheid in occupied Palestine are well founded. He discusses Israeli policies and practices through the lens of the international prohibition of ethnic discrimination, segregation and apartheid. Legal framework 52. Apartheid is prohibited under international law, and Israel, as a State and an occupying Power, is bound by this prohibition. Under Protocol I additional to the Geneva Conventions, which is declaratory of international law and therefore widely regarded as universally binding, “practices of ‘apartheid’ and other inhuman and degrading practices involving outrages upon personal dignity, based on racial discrimination” are included as grave breaches.56 Further, the International Law Commission has noted that Governments at the United Nations Conference on the Law of Treaties (1968) generally agreed that the prohibitions constituting peremptory norms included apartheid.57 In addition, article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination provides that “States Parties particularly condemn racial segregation and apartheid and undertake to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature in territories under their jurisdiction”.58 At the second universal periodic review of Israel in October 2013, South Africa recommended that Israel “prohibit policies and practices of racial segregation that disproportionately affect the Palestinian population in the OPT” (A/HRC/25/15, para. 136.202). 53. Apartheid involves the domination of one racial group over another, and some may argue that neither Israeli Jews nor Palestinians constitute racial groups per se. However, article 1 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, in its definition of racial discrimination, makes it clear that race is in fact not the sole factor, but that racial discrimination may be based on “any distinction, exclusion, restriction or preference based on race, colour, descent, or national or ethnic origin”. The Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination has stressed that under the definition in article 1 “the Convention relates to all persons who belong to different races, national or ethnic groups or to indigenous peoples”.59 54. The International Convention on the Suppression and Punishment of the Crime of Apartheid, in article 2, provides a detailed definition of the crime of apartheid, providing that it “shall include similar policies and practices of racial segregation and discrimination as practised in southern Africa”, and applies to “inhuman acts committed for the purpose of establishing and maintaining domination by one racial group of persons over any other racial group of persons and systematically oppressing them”. The Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court echoes these core elements (art. 7, para. 2(h)) and further specifies that for such acts to constitute “crimes against humanity” they must be “committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population, with knowledge of the attack” (art. 7, para. 1). Without prejudice to any possible differences in the elements of apartheid as an international crime and an internationally wrongful act, apartheid will be treated as a single concept for the purpose of the present report, which will be framed around the inhuman acts laid out in article 2(a)–(f) 56 57 58 59 Art. 85(4)(c), A/HRC/16/72. Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with commentaries (2001), arts. 40–41 and commentaries. Regardless of the possibility that the Convention’s inclusion of apartheid applies exclusively to South Africa, the Convention prohibits all forms of racial segregation. See Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, general recommendation No. 19 (1995). General recommendation No. 24 (1999), para. 1. 15