Al-Haq

Al-Haq combines field documentation of alleged human-rights violations with the use of international law in advocacy for Palestinian rights.[1] Its stated mandate covers individual and collective rights regardless of the perpetrator, and its activities include research and representations before local, regional, and international bodies.[1] The organization has addressed conduct by Palestinian authorities as well as Israel, publishing material on Palestinian Authority prisons and legislation alongside reports on Israeli military actions, demolitions, and shootings.[5]

Founded in Ramallah, in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — Al-Haq originally operated under the name “Law in the Service of Man.”[6] Its founders sought to apply international legal principles during military occupation without making their application dependent on a political settlement.[6] Affiliation with the Geneva-based International Commission of Jurists formed part of its institutional development from October 1979.[6]

International legal advocacy has become a prominent component of its work, including submissions to the International Criminal Court, or ICC, and campaigns concerning companies with business connections to Israeli settlements.[5][7] Its institutional relationships also include special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council and membership in Palestinian civil-society networks.[1][8]

Raja Shehadeh, Charles Shammas, and Jonathan Kuttab founded Al-Haq in 1979 under its original name, Law in the Service of Man.[6] Shehadeh established the organization after returning from England and served as a co-director into the beginning of the 1990s.[9] Al-Haq emerged as one of the first politically independent Palestinian human-rights organizations and as a non-partisan affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists.[9] Its founding approach held that agreed international rules remained applicable during belligerent occupation, regardless of how distant a negotiated settlement might be.[6]

The organization's earliest legal research concentrated on collecting and indexing Israeli military orders affecting local law.[6] Its first publications addressed charitable organizations in 1979, followed in 1980 by material on educational institutions and West Bank courts.[6] An indexed collection of military orders appeared in 1982.[6] The 1980 publication The West Bank and the Rule of Law, published by the International Commission of Jurists, offered a systematic analysis of Israeli authorities' use of law in the territory.[6] These publications accompanied the organization's broader production of reference works concerning the Israeli occupation and alleged violations of international law.[9]

A fieldwork unit established in the mid-1980s linked legal analysis to information gathered directly from witnesses.[6] Researchers initially worked in the West Bank and subsequently in Gaza, receiving training in taking testimony and sworn affidavits, gathering data, and corroborating evidence.[6] Documentation was entered into a database, and by the late 1980s the organization regularly received requests for information from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.[6] The development of field documentation therefore accompanied, rather than replaced, its legal research and publication work.[6]

During the first intifada, the fieldwork unit expanded to employ fifteen fieldworkers at one point.[6] During the uprising, all but one were detained without charge or trial, according to Al-Haq.[6] By the early 1990s, fieldworkers had also received paralegal training, enabling them to provide legal advice and intervene with authorities in selected cases.[6] Five fieldworkers were in administrative detention during 1988.[10]

In 1988, Al-Haq hosted an international conference on administration of the occupied territory, launched an “Enforcement Project” encouraging international implementation of international law, and published its first annual report.[10] Its lawyers also established a right for Palestinian representatives to attend autopsies where people had been killed by Israeli forces in unclear circumstances.[10] These initiatives extended its activities beyond documenting particular incidents to questions of legal procedure and international enforcement.[10]

The 1993 Oslo Accords and establishment of the Palestinian National Authority prompted a reassessment of Al-Haq's mission.[10] The organization monitored the first Palestinian Legislative Council elections in 1996, evaluated proposed legislation against human-rights standards, and trained Palestinian Authority law-enforcement officials.[10] Internal conflicts subsequently led the board to terminate all staff contracts in late 1996 and early 1997.[10] Rebuilding began in 1998, initially emphasizing legal research and later advocacy concerning Palestinian legislation.[10]

Al-Haq received special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council toward the end of 1999, and its monitoring and documentation unit was revived in 2000.[10] Israeli forces entered its Ramallah office on March 31, 2002, destroying much of its equipment during military operations.[10] The organization subsequently continued research, documentation, and international advocacy.[1][8]

Shawan Jabarin became director in 2006.[7] He remained director general in 2021, when Israel designated Al-Haq and five other organizations as terrorist organizations.[11] Following that decision, the organizations announced that their offices would remain open and their activities would continue.[11] Israeli forces closed Al-Haq's office in August 2022, but Jabarin said staff returned and resumed work after the forces departed.[12]

Al-Haq's stated mission is to defend Palestinian human rights through international law, strengthen the rule of law, and pursue accountability regardless of the nationality of alleged perpetrators.[13] Its goals include influencing legislation and policy, contributing to effective remedies, and shaping international legal jurisprudence.[13] Its bylaws define it as a nonprofit civil-society organization with independent legal personality under Palestinian Law No. 1 of 2000, based in Ramallah.[14] They provide for a General Assembly and a nine-member elected Board of Directors, and include protection of civilians during war and occupation within its mandate.[14]

The organization's stated principles apply human-rights standards irrespective of the identity of an alleged perpetrator or victim.[15] Its research and documentation mandate expressly includes violations by both Israeli and Palestinian authorities, alongside a broader commitment to developing civil society.[15] Its publications have addressed torture in Palestinian Authority prisons, Palestinian Authority legislation affecting civil society, Israeli demolitions of homes and infrastructure, and shootings of Palestinians by Israeli forces.[5] It has also criticized Palestinian Authority arrests of members of rival political factions.[16]

A specific example of its scrutiny of Palestinian authorities followed the June 2021 death in custody of anti-Palestinian Authority activist Nizar Banat.[5] Jabarin and others called for a transparent investigation after allegations that Palestinian Authority forces had beaten Banat following a raid on his Hebron hideout.[5] This activity accompanied Al-Haq's continuing documentation of alleged Israeli violations rather than constituting a separate institutional mandate.[1][5]

Field documentation includes collecting affidavits from people identified as victims or eyewitnesses, with trained fieldworkers gathering testimony.[17] Its Monitoring and Documentation Department issued quarterly reports from 2005 concerning alleged abuses in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.[17] The organization's earlier fieldwork model combined testimony, corroboration, data collection, and legal analysis, while paralegal training enabled selected interventions with authorities.[6] Its work therefore encompasses both incident-based documentation and analysis of the legal frameworks governing the incidents it records.[6][17]

Al-Haq has submitted written material within the United Nations system.[18] A four-page statement dated March 3, 2006, submitted under the name Law in the Service of Man, addressed Palestinian self-determination in the occupied territory, including East Jerusalem.[18] Its international activities have also included meetings between Palestinian NGO leaders and ICC officials in The Hague, together with public events advancing allegations of Israeli war crimes and human-rights violations.[2]

In February 2013, Jabarin traveled to France and advocated Palestinian participation in the ICC.[19] During a televised interview, he called for a boycott of goods manufactured in settlements and asked France to impose sanctions on Israel.[19] By 2021, Al-Haq had worked on submitting dossiers in connection with the ICC investigation into alleged war crimes in Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza since 2014.[5] The Israeli government strongly condemned that investigation, while Palestinian representatives welcomed and encouraged it.[5]

Al-Haq's economic advocacy has included campaigns directed at companies, banks, and transportation projects connected to Israeli settlements.[7] It participated in a 2015 campaign opposing Orange's presence in Israel and, with French organizations, issued a 2017 publication urging French banks to withdraw financing from Israeli companies and banks connected to settlement development.[7] It signed a November 2017 declaration calling for a UN Human Rights Council list of companies with settlement connections, followed by a November 2018 letter urging publication of the database.[7]

A 2018 report produced with French organizations addressed a transportation-infrastructure project and urged companies to cancel contracts with Israeli authorities.[7] It also called on France to prevent French-company participation or investment in Israeli settlements.[7] Al-Haq called for sanctions against Israel in June 2018, and other publications urged companies or banks to end specified business ties.[7] The organization has additionally supported hunger strikes by Palestinian administrative detainees and participated actively in the Durban conferences.[16]

In November 2023, Al-Haq and two other Palestinian organizations requested an ICC investigation into Israel's military operations in Gaza.[20] Its legal advocacy also extended to British courts: in May 2025 it challenged the British government's continued supply of F-35 components to the Israel Air Force's supply chain.[21] On June 30, the court ruled that continuing to supply those parts was lawful.[21]

International public funding has supported the organization's activities.[2] Between 2005 and 2020, it received funding from at least 13 governments.[2] Funding tables identify a €296,600 European Union grant through the European Instrument for Democracy and Human Rights for 2017–2020.[2] A separate table lists a €300,000 grant for the same period for “Righting the Wrong,” a project intended to empower Palestinian civil society to promote reporting and implementation of international rights instruments to which Palestine acceded in 2014.[2] The €296,600 award was also identified as a three-year European Commission grant under project EuropeAid/154-602/DD/ACT/PS.[7]

Al-Haq and the Israeli organization B'Tselem jointly received the French Republic's 2018 Human Rights Prize.[22] The annual award recognizes human-rights defenders, particularly those facing pressure or harassment for their work.[22] Jabarin described the two organizations as partners seeking “justice and a better future free from oppression and occupation.”[22]

The organization's longevity places it among the oldest Palestinian rights groups operating in the West Bank.[5] Its institutional development brought together several methods: collecting military orders, publishing legal reference material, establishing field documentation, training paralegals, and advocating internationally.[6] Its methods have been analyzed in terms of promoting the rule of law under military occupation, building confidence in legal protections, educating overseas allies, and using international law in defense of Palestinian rights.[23]

Its international relationships extend beyond individual grants and legal submissions.[1][8] Al-Haq has been an affiliate of the International Commission of Jurists and a member of the Palestinian NGO Network and the Palestinian Human Rights Organizations Council.[1] Its UN consultative status provides an institutional connection to the Economic and Social Council, and its work encompasses advocacy before local, regional, and international bodies.[1]

Al-Haq's development also reflects an expansion from analysis of Israeli military administration to scrutiny of Palestinian institutions.[10] Following the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, it monitored elections, examined draft legislation, and trained law-enforcement officials.[10] Its later reporting on Palestinian Authority prisons, restrictions affecting civil society, factional arrests, and the death of Nizar Banat continued that aspect of its mandate.[5][16]

Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz announced on October 22, 2021, that Al-Haq and five other Palestinian organizations were designated terrorist organizations, alleging connections to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, or PFLP.[3] Israel alleged that PFLP officials controlled the organizations, that they employed operatives, and that foreign funding was diverted to support the PFLP.[24] The designation operated in Israel under the 2016 counterterrorism legislation and in the West Bank through a military order.[3] Jabarin denied that Al-Haq was a PFLP front and described the decision as political retaliation intended to damage the organizations' reputations, international work, and funding.[11][25]

Israeli officials said key evidence was classified, while reporting at the time noted that supporting evidence had not been publicly presented.[25] European officials questioned the evidentiary basis, and EU ambassadors subsequently said they would continue funding the organizations because Israel had not provided substantial information warranting a policy change.[2][26] The United States requested the basis for the designations and said it had received no advance warning.[24] Human-rights groups, UN experts, and 22 Israeli NGOs criticized or opposed the 2021 decision; a 2022 statement of solidarity carried support from 53 Israeli NGOs.[3][27]

Jabarin's personal legal history has also attracted scrutiny. INSS reports that he was convicted in the 1980s for arranging PFLP training and again in 1994 for continued involvement with the PFLP; an Israeli government report says he was held in administrative detention numerous times in the 1990s.[2][7] A U.S. State Department report released on March 11, 2010, said Israel's High Court had refused to lift a military travel ban imposed in 2006, relying on evidence unavailable to Jabarin and his lawyer.[28] NGO Monitor reports that in a 2008 decision the Supreme Court identified him as among the PFLP's senior activists.[8] These proceedings concerned Jabarin and do not themselves establish Al-Haq's institutional conduct.[8][28]

In February 2022, Al-Haq joined four organizations seeking reversal of the designation, arguing that classified evidence prevented a fair appeal.[29] Their lawyers froze the process in July while seeking assurances against threats arising from their representation.[29] Central Command rejected Al-Haq's appeal in August, and Israeli forces raided its Ramallah office, declared it unlawful, and welded the entrance shut.[12][26][27] Al-Haq alleged confiscation of client files, while other accounts described equipment removal, property damage, and tear gas during operations against the organizations' offices.[12][27]

The European Commission suspended project funding in May 2021 but lifted the suspension in June 2022 following an anti-fraud assessment.[30][31] The Commission's quoted conclusion found no suspicion of irregularities or fraud affecting the EU-funded project; Al-Haq's account specified that there were insufficient grounds to open an investigation.[30][31] This funding review addressed the project rather than resolving the broader dispute over Israel's designation.[31]

On September 4, 2025, the United States sanctioned Al-Haq and two other organizations under Executive Order 14203, concerning the ICC.[4] The stated basis was their direct engagement in efforts to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute Israeli nationals without Israel's consent.[4] The Treasury added Al-Haq to its Specially Designated Nationals List under “AL HAQ - LAW IN THE SERVICE OF MANKIND.”[32] The organizations condemned the sanctions as an “attempt at silencing Palestinian voices.”[20]

Al-Haq's political and legal advocacy has generated further criticism.[33][34] Jabarin linked the Israeli designation to its use of “apartheid,” a characterization Israel rejects.[33] In 2024 congressional testimony given in a personal capacity, NGO Monitor's research director characterized Al-Haq as a leading promoter of that label and alleged anti-Zionist, boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaigning; these were the witness's claims, not congressional findings.[34] Israel has also accused the Durban conferences, in which Al-Haq participated, of antisemitism and targeting Israel.[16]