A/HRC/RES/43/31
United Nations
General Assembly
Distr.: General
29 June 2020
Original: English
Human Rights Council
Forty-third session
24 February–13 March and 15–23 June 2020
Agenda item 7
Human rights situation in Palestine and other
occupied Arab territories
Resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council
on 22 June 2020
43/31.
Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East
Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan
The Human Rights Council,
Guided by the principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and affirming the
inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,
Reaffirming that all States have an obligation to promote and protect human rights and
fundamental freedoms, as stated in the Charter and elaborated in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights, the International Covenants on Human Rights and other applicable
instruments,
Recalling relevant resolutions of the Commission on Human Rights, the Human
Rights Council, the Security Council and the General Assembly reaffirming, inter alia, the
illegality of the Israeli settlements in the occupied territories, including in East Jerusalem,
Recalling also Human Rights Council resolution 19/17 of 22 March 2012, in which
the Council decided to establish an independent international fact-finding mission to
investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the human rights of the Palestinian
people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem,
Noting the accession by the State of Palestine to several human rights treaties and the
core humanitarian law conventions, and its accession on 2 January 2015 to the Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court,
Reaffirming the applicability of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of
Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, to the Occupied Palestinian Territory,
including East Jerusalem, and to the occupied Syrian Golan,
Recalling the declarations adopted at the Conferences of High Contracting Parties to
the Fourth Geneva Convention, held in Geneva on 5 December 2001 and 17 December 2014,
and reaffirming that States should not recognize as lawful a situation arising from breaches
of peremptory norms of international law,
Affirming that the transfer by the occupying Power of parts of its own civilian
population to the territory it occupies constitutes a breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention
GE.20-08528(E)