Report advises against statehood bid

A British professor and expert in international law warned the Palestinians against their statehood bid next month at the United Nations. A seven-page document from Guy Goodwin-Gill, obtained by Ma'an news agency, states that an initiative to transfer Palestinian representation from the Palestinian Liberation Organization to a new state, will terminate the legal status the PLO has had at the United Nations since 1975. The document asserts that if the Palestinians are recognized as a state, there will no longer be an institution that can represent the rights of all the Palestinian people in the United Nations and other international institutions. Goodwin-Gill, a professor at Oxford University, says a change in status would severely deprive the right of refugees to return to their homes and properties from which they were displaced. Goodwin-Gill was a member of the team that gained a 2004 non-binding ruling by the International Court of Justice that declared the security wall constructed by Israel that straddles the West Bank is illegal.