Critically examine any one recent World Bank Research Paper or one recent Oxfam Policy Paper.

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Critically examine any one recent World Bank Research Paper or one recent Oxfam Policy Paper.

In March 2002, Oxfam International published the Policy Paper, Foundations for Peace: Urgent steps to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The paper confronts the current situation in the Middle East with a number of political, social and economic approaches to a possible peaceful outcome to the conflict. These approaches include not only resolutions of peace and respect for international human rights laws (which many global organisations agree are being grossly violated in the region), but also proposed reforms of international trade agreements and domestic infrastructure in order to combat economic downfall and the desperate social needs. Oxfam believes that the conflict is an international issue and therefore should be addressed by the whole world and resolved by international law.

This essay will ascertain the ethical values (implicit or explicit) portrayed in the document and consider whether they are appropriate and what alternative values could or should be applied.

Oxfam has authored four major priority actions to sustain lasting peace and development in the region. These actions are:

  1. Protection for civilians
  2. Foundations for peace
  3. Immediate humanitarian need
  4. Livelihoods development for long-term poverty reduction

The charity considers the situation in Israel and Palestine to be war and therefore should be treated as such, hence the call to respect the articles of the Geneva Convention. One of the priority actions introduced by the paper, “Protection for civilians”, states directly that all parties to the conflict must uphold international humanitarian law and human rights law, particularly relating to civilians as stated in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 relating to the protection of civilians in times of war, in particular those living under occupation. Actions by both Israelis and Palestinians have and continue to violate numerous articles of the Convention. Indeed, the conflict is characterised by such violations as military attacks on civilians, emergency personnel and over-crowded refugee camps. Extra-judicial executions are also known to take place, as is the demolition of civilian homes and movement restrictions. Palestinians in particular are known be ruthless in there targets for suicide bombings; civilian women, children and elderly people are often killed by such attacks. The Geneva Convention, the “only globally accepted instrument for the protection of civilians” as quoted by the document, outlaws all these things.

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But by whose ethics was the Geneva Convention and additional laws of human rights conceived? John S. Mill says that “A ‘right’ is something that society ought to protect me in the possession of”. But different societies, cultures and religions abide by very different rules and morals. What is seen by one party to be ethically wrong may be equally respected by another party to be absolutely the right thing to do. Examples of such ethics other than that of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are the attacks on the World Trade Centre and the Pentagon in the United States on ...

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