{"id":1900,"date":"2022-04-07T16:35:23","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T14:35:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cms.elsc.support\/?post_type=resource&#038;p=1900"},"modified":"2022-04-11T18:15:01","modified_gmt":"2022-04-11T16:15:01","slug":"the-euro","status":"publish","type":"resource","link":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/nl\/resource\/the-euro\/","title":{"rendered":"The European Commission &#8220;Handbook&#8221; Promoting the Controversial IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism: A Legal Analysis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>On 7 January 2021, the European Commission (\u201cEC\u201d) published a \u201cHandbook for the practical use of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism\u201d (hereafter: Handbook), notwithstanding the <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/fmep.org\/resource\/challenging-the-ihra-definition-of-antisemitism-expert-views-resources\/\" target=\"_blank\">widespread criticism and concerns<\/a> surrounding the International Holocaust Alliance\u2019s Working Definition of Antisemitism (hereafter: IHRA-WDA) in the last years. As also reflected in its title, the Handbook aims to promote Good Practices in the application of the IHRA-WDA. It contains sections on the IHRA-WDA, presents the 11 Contemporary Examples of Antisemitism attached to it (hereafter: Examples) and lists (alleged) antisemitic incidents. It also offers Good Practices on the use of the IHRA-WDA in various policy areas, including law enforcement, the judiciary and education; and contains a Good Practices checklist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The ELSC welcomes the critical and comprehensive analysis of the Handbook published by the Belgian NGO coalition 11.11.11 in its briefing paper titled <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/11.be\/sites\/default\/files\/2021-03\/11briefingpaper_EC_IHRA_handbook.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">\u201cEuropean Commission \u2018Handbook\u2019 entrenches controversial IHRA definition of antisemitism\u201d<\/a>. The ELSC\u2019s legal brief presented here builds on and complements this 11.11.11 briefing paper by adding relevant legal analysis to the debate about the Handbook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Section I<\/strong> of this legal brief provides an overview of the main facts that render the Handbook problematic, namely: <strong>a)<\/strong> the use of the controversial IHRA-WDA Examples to delegitimise criticism of Israeli Government policies; <strong>b)<\/strong> the false equation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism; <strong>c)<\/strong> the designation of boycotts and the BDS movement as inherently antisemitic; <strong>d)<\/strong> the promotion of an agenda of defunding organisations and activities perceived as supporting anti-Zionism and\/or the BDS movement; and <strong>e)<\/strong> the use unreliable, biased and unverifiable sources to report alleged antisemitic incidents. <strong>Section II<\/strong> will analyse these problematic facts in the light of the relevant legal framework and demonstrate that <strong>a) <\/strong>the content of the Handbook amounts to misinformation, according to the definition adopted by the EC itself, as it provides inaccurate and misleading information. Consequently, <strong>b) <\/strong>the authors of the Handbook violated the European Code of Conduct of Research Integrity and the EC failed to properly review the author\u2019s work and prevent these violations; and <strong>c) <\/strong>as the publisher and owner of the Handbook,the EC bears the duty and the ability to correct the erroneous and imprecise content.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/elsc\/images\/v1649690519\/ELSC-IHRA-Handbook-Legal-Analysis\/ELSC-IHRA-Handbook-Legal-Analysis.pdf?_i=AA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">READ THE LEGAL ANALYSIS<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/res.cloudinary.com\/elsc\/images\/v1649690768\/Executive-Summary-ELSC-IHRA-Handbook-Legal-Analysis\/Executive-Summary-ELSC-IHRA-Handbook-Legal-Analysis.pdf?_i=AA\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Read the executive summary of the legal analysis<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Visual: Cc <a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/libereurope\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">LIBER Europe<\/a>, European Commission<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On 7 January 2021, the European Commission (\u201cEC\u201d) published a \u201cHandbook for the practical use of the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism\u201d (hereafter: Handbook), notwithstanding the widespread criticism and concerns surrounding the International Holocaust Alliance\u2019s Working Definition of Antisemitism (hereafter: IHRA-WDA) in the last years. As also reflected in its title, the Handbook aims to promote Good Practices in the application of the IHRA-WDA. It contains sections on the IHRA-WDA, presents the 11 Contemporary Examples of Antisemitism attached to it (hereafter: Examples) and lists (alleged) antisemitic incidents. It also offers Good Practices on the use of the IHRA-WDA in various policy areas, including law enforcement, the judiciary and education; and contains a Good Practices checklist.<\/p>","protected":false},"featured_media":1905,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":""},"country":[49],"resource_type":[102],"class_list":["post-1900","resource","type-resource","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","country-eu","resource_type-legal-analysis"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"country":[{"value":49,"label":"EU"}],"resource_type":[{"value":102,"label":"Legal analysis"}]},"featured_image_src_large":["https:\/\/elsc.support\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/04\/EU-handbook-1-1024x535.jpg",1024,535,true],"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource\/1900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/resource"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=1900"},{"taxonomy":"resource_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elsc.support\/nl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/resource_type?post=1900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}