Membership

The Minster Lovell Process

Chatham House Project on the Palestinian Refugee Issue

The Middle East Programme's current work on the Palestinian refugee issue builds on work conducted in this field by Chatham House (the Royal Institute of International Affairs) and the Centre for Lebanese Studies (CLS) in the 1990s. This included a Chatham House project on Palestinian-Jordanian relations and a CLS project on Lebanese-Palestinian relations.

Mill and Old Swan, Minster Lovell In March 2000, a workshop was held at the Mill and Old Swan (pictured with kind permission of Historic UK Ltd) in the picturesque Oxfordshire village of Minster Lovell which included experts and officials from the international community and the host countries, as well as representatives from the PLO and the refugee communities. A partial, bilateral Israeli-PLO peace agreement was widely believed to be imminent with final status negotiations about to start. This was the beginning of the Minster Lovell Process, a project instigated to address the potential repercussions of such an agreement for the refugee issue.

The Minster Lovell Process aims to provide an informal mechanism to bridge some of the communication gaps that exist between parties directly concerned with the Palestinian refugee issue, regional players and international policy-makers. It seeks to facilitate dialogue and substantive discussion on the Palestinian refugee issue. By seeking to raise awareness of the key issues and promote better understanding among regional players of their respective concerns through workshops, scenario-building exercises and in-country consultations, the project enables regional stakeholders and the refugees themselves to air their concerns and exchange information.

The project works to allay refugees' fears that a solution will be imposed on them without consultation. The logic behind this approach is that, for a solution to the refugee issue to be successful and comprehensive, it must be discussed and reached in an inclusive manner. When parties feel that they have been consulted and involved, they are more likely to support the outcome of the negotiations. Correspondingly if they are not consulted, they are likely to feel that their concerns have not been addressed and may end up resisting or rejecting a deal reached without them.

The purpose of the project has therefore been to:

Alert the international community and the Palestinian leadership to the regional dimension of the Palestinian refugee problem;
Help avert the possibility that an agreement on the refugee issue would founder as a result of the exclusion of refugees and other Arab stakeholders from the negotiations, and the absence of a mechanism for consultation with refugees and Arab host countries;
Remedy the absence of channels of communication between Arab host countries, the PLO and PA and refugees;
Create better understanding of the hopes, aspirations, needs and concerns of the refugees and the host country nationals. These need to be taken into account for a lasting resolution of the issue;
Engender more creative thinking about the possibilities and options potentially available for resolving the Palestinian refugee issue, including the international legal dimension relating to individual rights and host country positions.

The Chatham House/CLS project was sustained through the collapse of the Oslo process, the creation of the Road Map, the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli confrontation and conflict including the re-occupation of the West Bank, the election of Hamas, unilateral withdrawal from Gaza and the beginning of the Annapolis process. By the time the project concludes in 2008, there will have been 28 meetings held in Minster Lovell and in the region. In addition, continuous consultation with key actors in the region has been sustained throughout the project. A wide network of participants involved in these meetings has been built over the years. The process responds to the need at the international level for maintaining continuous dialogue on these issues in the absence of, in preparation for, and during formal negotiations.

This section of the Chatham House website outlines the three phases of the project which ran between 2000 and 2008. It also contains the agendas and reports of the various meetings. These reports were originally only circulated to participants and certain interested parties. The meetings were all held under the Chatham House Rule which facilitated an open and free debate. By posting these reports on the web, we aim to disseminate the information more widely. It should be kept in mind that these are not coherent academic or technical publications but rather aide memoires that summarize the sometimes contradictory ideas presented.

Project Phases

Stage One (May 2000 to December 2001)

Palestinian Refugees in the Middle East Peace Process

Project by: The Middle East Programme, Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) and The Centre for Lebanese Studies (CLS).

Stage Two (May 2002 - September 2005)

Palestinian Refugees in the Search for Middle East Peace

Project by: The Middle East Programme, Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs) and The Centre for Lebanese Studies (CLS).

Stage Three (January 2006 - December 2008)

The Regional Dimension of the Palestinian Refugee Issue

Project by: The Middle East Programme, Chatham House (Royal Institute of International Affairs).