Unsettled: A global study of settlements in occupied territories

Abstract

This article provides the first comprehensive examination of international practice bearing on Article 49(6) of the Fourth Geneva Convention. This provision is the basis for legal criticism of Israeli settlement policy. This article closely examines the international community's treatment of settlers in all situations governed by the Geneva Conventions, to test the broad view of 49(6) advanced in the Israeli context against state practice regarding the rest of the world. It finds that the growth of settler populations is a ubiquitous feature of long-term occupations of contiguous territory, but one that is not characterized as violating the Geneva Convention.