Al-Haq was established in 1979 by a group of Palestinian lawyers following an extended debate over how best to address the lack of human rights protection mechanisms in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). When it was founded, Al-Haq became one of the first human rights organisations established in the Arab world.
Al-Haq’s focus during its first years was largely limited to analysing the legal status of Israel as an Occupying Power in the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, and the structures imposed by its military and governmental authorities in the OPT. Al-Haq produced some of the first studies applying principles of international humanitarian law to the Israeli occupation. Al-Haq’s early studies on topics such as administrative detention and Israel’s resort to the British Defense Emergency Regulations were essential in shaping the debate on what laws and regulations are applicable in the OPT. During this period, Al-Haq established its Legal Unit, which together with the Legal Research Unit developed Al-Haq’s positions and legal arguments.
By 1986 Al-Haq began taking on special projects regarding human rights issues of particular concern such as women’s and labour rights. During this time, Al-Haq’s work and contributions in the field of human rights began to gain international recognition.
When the first intifada broke out towards the end of 1987, Al-Haq again began expanding its staff to meet the challenge of addressing violations occurring as a result of this uprising. Although Al-Haq established its fieldwork department in 1983, and the information gathered by its fieldworkers became the backbone of its work, it wasn’t until the first intifada erupted and the resultant demands for information by concerned human rights organisations and activists, media, and others at the national and international level, that the fieldwork department grew to include staff throughout the OPT.
Undoubtedly, the first intifada proved to be a peak period for Al-Haq’s work, activities, and accomplishments. A number of important Al-Haq campaigns were started during this time and Al-Haq continued to grow, expanding to cover the situation in the Gaza Strip. By the early 1990s, Al-Haq had approximately 40 members on staff. Al-Haq’s size and its increased professional and human resource capacity helped it to successfully raise awareness of human rights abuses in the OPT and gained Al-Haq international recognition.
The signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 ushered in a new period in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The changes in the political situation that had resulted in the establishment of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) required that Al-Haq reassess its mission. Despite internal disagreement over how to approach the new situation created by Oslo, Al-Haq began to move forward in work with the PNA, and began, amongst other activities, to monitor the first Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) elections held in 1996; analyse legislation to ensure that it incorporated human rights standards; and to provide training to PNA law enforcement officials on fundamental human rights principles.
However, some disputes were never resolved, and came to a head during late 1996 and early 1997, requiring Al-Haq’s board to intervene and terminate all staff contracts, thereby leaving the future of the organisation in doubt.
In 1998 Al-Haq began to rebuild. Al-Haq’s Board of Directors hired new staff and took over many of the organisation’s administrative responsibilities. The organisation’s focus was also changed, with the board taking the decision that Al-Haq should focus on legal research and little attention on monitoring and documentation activities. Work following up on draft PLC legislation and Israeli human rights violations moved forward.
Towards the end of 1999 Al-Haq was granted special consultative status with the UN Economic and Social Council, thereby enabling it to work once more at the international level, and at the UN level in particular. Financially stable and with its departments rebuilt, by the time the second intifada began in September 2000, Al-Haq was prepared to face the challenges that this uprising, and the increased Israeli violations in response to it. had brought.
In 2002, Israeli occupying forces stepped up the violations of the rights of the Palestinian civilian population by carrying out large scale military incursions into much of the West Bank, including Ramallah. During these incursions, Israel targeted the social, economic, and political infrastructure of the PNA, and raided and destroyed hundreds of governmental and non-governmental offices. On 31 March 2002, Israeli forces broke into Al-Haq’s office and destroyed much of its equipment.
From 2002 onwards, Al-Haq continued to focus its efforts on restructuring its programmatic, financial, and administrative systems, and undertook an extensive revision of its fundamental goals and objectives, and how its various activities relate to the organisation’s vision and mandate. In addition, Al-Haq became increasingly active on lobbying the PLC to include human rights standards in Palestinian legislation, and spearheaded activities by human rights organizations and other civil society organizations to ensure their active participation in the process for the passage of key legislation on issues of concern, and strengthen their capacity to do so.
By the beginning of 2004, the organization completed the process of adjusting its legal status, and was able to register as a non-governmental society under the Palestinian NGO law (No. 1 for the year 2000).
In 2004, coinciding with the 25th anniversary of the establishment of Al-Haq, the organisation launched a campaign against Israeli measures of collective punishment and intimidation in the OPT. In addition to the campaign, Al-Haq marked its 25th anniversary with Waiting for Justice, a report that provided in-depth legal analysis of violations of human rights by the Israeli authorities, based on first hand information gathered by its fieldworkers.
In August 2005, Al-Haq commissioned an in-depth external evaluation of its organizational structure and policies to identify overall strengths, weaknesses and major challenges facing Al-Haq, and to asses the relevance and quality of its various programs and activities.
Other than considering the organization’s administrative and financial structure, the final evaluation report drew up recommendations for Al-Haq’s future development to improve its effective operation at the programmatic and structural levels and ensure its institutional sustainability. This evaluation facilitated and fed recommendations into the development of a subsequent five year strategic plan (2006-2010) in September 2005, concerning the future direction of Al-Haq’s mandate and work.