Dr Wilson led us through case studies of nation states Brazil and South Africa, wherein the human right to health is a judicial right. However, with respect to a region where the concept of statehood is characterised by impermanent borders as a result of growing land annexation, what doctrine should be used to determine whether the state of Israel should vaccinate Palestinians?
The West Bank and Gaza, areas declared in the Oslo Agreements as parts of the official state of Palestine, are currently still occupied by Israeli armed forces and the state of Israel controls access to the region for Palestinians. Several humanitarian organisations, including Medecins Sans Frontieres, and the United Nations have expressed that by International Law and the Fourth Geneva Convention, Israel should be vaccinating all Palestinians within the tumultuous region.
Residents of East Jerusalem have been offered doses but as for the blockaded West Bank and Gaza, whose citizens suffer from a water crisis, a lack of electricity and severe unemployment as a result of occupation, the Minister of Health’s unwillingness to disseminate the vaccine speaks volumes for the dismal fate that awaits Palestinians (Lynk, 2021).
The judicialization of the human right to health
Amidst an illegal occupation that has been decried across the globe and a refugee crisis of over 5.5 million displaced Palestinian people (Jewish Virtual Library, 2021), the Israel-Palestine conflict is one that I have chosen to highlight because in this instant, among many others within the region, the human right to health, irrespective of how much international and judicial weight it carries, is an ignored one. In what is the dystopian region of historic Palestine, positive, negative, ethical, moral and legal rights (and their various intersections) cannot be debated because they simply do not exist.
Instead, millions are forced to endure a purgatorial existence with no state protection or health provisions among other necessities – not to mention the looming burden that refugee host countries, which are mostly third-world countries, will now have to endure to vaccinate their own citizens as well as Palestinian refugees.
I don’t really have any catharsis to offer about the matter and I don’t really need to explain the ethical conundrums that we’re dealing with over here. I just hope that our generation will be conscientious and driven enough to find solutions to this issue.
Bibliography
Jewish Virtual Library, 2021. Total Palestinian Refugees (1950 – Present). [Online]
Available at: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/total-palestinian-refugees-1950-present
[Accessed 2021].
Lynk, M., 2021. Israel/OPT: UN experts call on Israel to ensure equal access to COVID-19 vaccines for Palestinians. [Online]
Available at: https://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=26655
[Accessed 2021].