On 22 March 2012, at its 19th session, the Human Rights Council (HRC) adopted resolution 19/17 entitled “Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan” by which the HRC decided to “dispatch an independent international fact-finding mission, to be appointed by the President of the Human Rights Council, to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem.”
On 6 July 2012, the President of the Human Rights Council appointed the following as members of the international fact-finding mission: Ms. Christine Chanet (chair), Judge of the Court of Cassation of France and member of the United Nations Human Rights Committee; Ms. Unity Dow, Commissioner of the International Commission of Jurists and practicing lawyer in Bostwana, and Ms. Asma Jahangir, leading Pakistani human rights lawyer and Trustee of the Board of the UN Voluntary Fund on Contemporary Forms of Slavery.
The International Fact-Finding Mission (FFM) convened for the first time in Geneva from 27 -31 August 2012. During that week, the FFM held meetings with concerned representatives of Permanent Missions and other relevant stakeholders. The Fact-Finding Mission agreed on its overall methodology and established a first outline for its programme of work. The Terms of Reference are available here.
