ABSTRACT
The article examines the application of the UN Declaration on Indigenous Rights (UNDRIP) beyond the confines of a State entity. Specifically, it explores the potential integration of indigenous housing, land and property protections into an occupation setting – where sovereignty is suspended and the responsibility to protect the population’s rights is vested in an external governing power. Can and should indigenous protections be integrated into the law of occupation? What implications would that entail vis-à-vis the limits that the law of occupation imposes on the occupant to introduce new legal obligations into occupied territory? The need to address this theoretical inquiry arises from the dire conditions of indigenous Bedouin in the West Bank, a Palestinian territory occupied by Israel since 1967. Historically and culturally, the West Bank Bedouin have close ties to Bedouin within Israel, the latter acknowledged internationally as indigenous people. Therefore, arguably, the West Bank Bedouin are also entitled to indigenous protections – the relevant difference being that the latter live in occupied territory. The case study of the West Bank Bedouin offers thus a unique opportunity to examine the potential relationship between the law of occupation and the indigenous rights regime as embodied in UNDRIP.
