summarily covered in Chapter One, it is not addressed in detail in this Handbook. Palestinian Nationality/citizenship is the heart of the issue for refugees, however, as it is the basis for their connection to the territory of Israel/Palestine on which their rights to return, to restitution of their properties and to compensation for all of their losses are grounded. Palestinians as a people were recognized as the ‘Nationals’ of the territory of Mandate Palestine in 1924 as an international matter, and this status was codified by the 1925 British Citizenship Orders. Israel formally repealed Palestinian nationality in its 1952 Nationality (Citizenship) Law as a domestic matter, but this act fundamentally violated international law on state succession, which both requires granting all habitual residents of territory the citizenship of a successor state and categorically prohibits discriminatory denationalization on the basis of race, religion, ethnic or national status. Palestinian nationals recognized as such under the terms of the 1924 Treaty of Lausanne and the subsequent British Mandate Citizenship laws remain as an international legal matter nationals of the territory of Palestine, regardless of its current territorial configuration. They, and their descendants, lay claims to their rights in and to their original homes and lands on the basis of this unbroken territorial connection regardless of the length or breadth of the diaspora. For this reason, Palestinian statehood can only be meaningful if it addresses the status of Palestinians as nationals of the entire territory. This requires urgent efforts to turn the recognition that states have afforded Palestine into action for a sanctions regime, in the same way as South Africa and Namibia were successful in achieving.11 As the International Court of Justice has called for in the context of declaring the Israeli Wall and its regime illegal, it is critical to demand that the community of states shoulder their erga omnes obligations to bring about viable statehood for Palestinian, including legitimate rights for the refugees. The advocacy necessary for this to come about has not been taken up by the Palestinian leadership; it is up to civil society to make the promise of statehood a reality using the legal tools and mechanisms that have only become more robust as lawyers and activists have used and tested them. The adoption of the 2011 Directive on Standards of Protection for Refugees and Stateless Persons by the European Council that incorporated Article 1D of the Refugee Convention was the foundation for two groundbreaking cases decided by the European Court of Justice, Bolbol and El Kott on Palestinian asylum claims.12 Relying on a series of UNHCR interpretations of the meaning and application of Article 1D that, in turn, were brought about by persistent advocacy by BADIL and other Palestinian refugee experts, the ECJ has undertaken a careful and considered 11 xvi For a comparison of Namibia’s successful use of international legal strategies to bring an end to apartheid and achieve independence with the situations of Palestine, Western Sahara and Tibet, see Susan Akram, Still Waiting for Tomorrow: The Law and Politics of Unresolved Refugee Crises, ed. Tom Syring (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2014). 12 See Court of Justice of the European Union, “Bolbol v. Bevándorlási És Állampolgársági Hivatal,” June 17, 2010, C-31/09, http://www.refworld.org/docid/4c1f62d42.html; Court of Justice of the European Union, “Mostafa Abed El Karem El Kott and Others v. Bevándorlási És Állampolgársági Hivatal,” December 19, 2012, C-364/11, http://www.refworld.org/cgi-bin/texis/ vtx/rwmain?docid=50d2d7b42. Handbook on Protection of Palestinian Refugees