Challenges and Reforms in the Palestinian Authority

This Article looks at the legal structure of the agreements signed between the Palestine Liberation Organization (“PLO”) and Israel from 1993 to 1995 (the “Agreements”). They consist of the Declaration of Principles signed in 1993 (“DOP”), the Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area signed in 1994 (“Gaza-Jericho Agreement”), the Protocol on Economic Relations signed in 1994 (“Paris Protocol”), and the Interim Agreement on the West Bank and Gaza Strip signed in 1995 (“Interim Agreement”). The Article examines the impact of the Agreements on the Palestinian economy and the development of a viable private sector. The Article also addresses the political factors affecting the implementation of the Agreements. The Article illustrates how the nature of the signed Agreements, premised on functional and quasi-territorial jurisdiction without any territorial integrity between the PA areas, as allocated under the Interim Agreement, limited Palestinian ability to engage in effective economic planning and institutional development. This Article concludes with a look at the recently introduced Palestinian Reforms, which, in light of the deteriorated state of affairs and mutual distrust between the Palestinians and the Israelis since the stalled Camp David negotiations in July 2000, have become the newest dimension of the Palestinian struggle towards Statehood. The Palestinian Reform program, along with the speech of the President of the United States, George W. Bush, Jr., who, on June 24, 2002 articulated the U.S. vision for the establishment of a Palestinian State in 2005, have injected the ailing peace process with much-needed optimism