Permanent Sovereignty over National Resources in the Occupied Territories

At its thirty-eighth session, the United Nations General Assembly adopted Resolution 38/144 of December 19, 1983, condemning Israel "for its exploitation of the national resources of the occupied Palestinian and other Arab territories" and invoked both The Hague (1907) and Geneva (1949) conventions a confirmationf the right of an occupied people to maintain control over their national resources. In the same resolution, the General Assembly called upon the Secretary-General to submit a detailed report on the subject at its thirty-ninth session through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC). A fact-finding mission led by noted authority on water legislation Dante Caponera conducted the field research in March 1984, which resulted in the following report.