The Palestinian Refugee Problem: An Overview 1. Palestine and Palestinians Geopolitically and historically, Palestine is one of the Arab territories detached from the Ottoman Empire after the First World War. The total area of historical/ Mandate Palestine, which consists of what is known today as Israel and occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), is 27,009 km2. Generally, Palestinians are the habitual residents of Palestine, of whom two thirds are displaced. Article 5 of the Palestinian National Charter stipulates “[t]he Palestinians are those Arab nationals who, until 1947, normally resided in Palestine regardless of whether they were evicted from it, or have stayed there. Anyone born, after that date, of a Palestinian father13 – whether inside Palestine or outside it – is also a Palestinian.”14 This article still governs the self-identity of Palestinians. The term “displaced Palestinians” refers to two main groups: first, Palestinians who were displaced from their places of origin in British Mandate Palestine, including their descendants; and second, displaced Palestinians who are still living in Mandate Palestine (Israel and oPt). In the period from the British occupation of Palestine (December 1917), through the adoption of the Palestine Mandate by the League of Nations on 24 July1922 and the ratification of the Treaty of Peace (Treaty of Lausanne of August 1923), to the enactment of the Palestinian Citizenship Order in 1925, the international status of Palestine and its inhabitants’ nationality and citizenship have undergone several stages of de facto and de jure changes. Those changes are still relevant and have current legal and political significance. They constitute the roots of the current complexity of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and crucially affect the ongoing Palestinian plight, in particular the predicament of Palestinian refugees. Citizenship and nationality are not precisely the same concepts as a legal matter. Nationality is a human right defined under international law; citizenship is a matter of domestic law, on which international law does not have much to say unless citizenship provisions violate one of the core obligations of states under international law. The legal distinction between these two concepts is critical to understanding how nationality and citizenship particularly affect Palestinian refugees, and for this study. However, nationality in this context “must be distinguished from nationality 13 2 According to Article 12 of the Palestine Constitution (draft, available at http://www. palestinianbasiclaw.org/basic-law/2003-permanent-constitution-draft) and article 1/11 of Palestinian Nationality Law (unpublished draft) both Palestinian fathers and mothers can pass their nationality/citizenship to their descendants. 14 “Palestine National Charter of 1968,” Permanent Observer Mission of the State of Palestine to the United Nations, accessed September 23, 2014, http://www.un.int/wcm/content/site/ palestine/pid/12362, Article 5; see also BADIL, “One People United: A Deterritorialized Palestinian Identity - BADIL Survey of Palestinian Youth on Identity and Social Ties - 2012” (BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights, 2013), 43, http://www.BADIL.org/en/pressreleases/144-2013/3654-press-eng-1. Handbook on Protection of Palestinian Refugees