There is widespread scepticism about the constructive results flowing from this latest phase of Israel/Palestine peace talks: the Netanyahu government does not seem willing to offer the Palestinians a state based on 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital; the Palestinian Authority writ to represent the Palestinian people does not meaningfully extend to either Gaza or the Palestinian diaspora; and the United States seems incapable of providing neutral auspices. The preconditions for a positive outcome do not appear to exist. It raises the question, ‘why now?’
Richard Falk is Albert G Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University and Visiting Distinguished Professor in Global and International Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. He is also the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. In 2001 he served on a UN Human Rights Inquiry Commission for the Palestine Territories, and previously, on the Independent International Commission on Kosovo. He serves as Chair of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Board of Directors and as honorary vice president of the American Society of International Law. Professor Falk also acted as counsel to Ethiopia and Liberia in the Southwest Africa Case before the International Court of Justice.
Professor Falk is author or coauthor of numerous books, including: Legality and Legitimacy in Global Affairs (edited with Mark Juergensmeyer & Vesselin Popovski (2011); Achieving Human Rights (2009); The Costs of War: International Law, the UN, and World Order after Iraq (2008); Human Rights: Critical Concepts in Political Science, 5 vols. (edited with Hilal Elver and Lisa Hajjar, 2008); At the Nuclear Precipice (edited with David Krieger) (2008); Israel-Palestine on the Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East (with Howard Friel, 2007); Crimes of War: Iraq (edited with R.J. Lifton, Irene Gendzier, 2006); International Law and World Order (ed. with Burns Weston, Hilary Charlesworth, and Andy Strauss, 4th ed, 2006); The Declining World Order: America’s Neoimperial Geopolitics (2004); The Great Terror War (2003); Unlocking the Middle East (edited by Jean Allain, 2003).