The International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights United Nations Economic and Social Council E/C.12/PSE/Q/1 Distr.: General 16 November 2021 Original: English Arabic, English, French and Spanish only Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights List of issues in relation to the initial report of the State of Palestine9* I. General information 1. Please clarify the status of the Covenant in the domestic legal order, explaining the effect of the Constitutional Court’s decisions No. 4 (2017) of 19 November 2017 and No. 5 (2017) of 12 March 2018. Please provide examples of cases in which the provisions of the Covenant have been invoked before or directly enforced by the courts in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Please provide updated information on any plans by the State party to publish the Covenant in the Official Gazette. 2. .Please provide detailed information on the obstacles to the exercise of the Covenant rights in the context of the occupation, bearing in mind the advisory opinion rendered on 9 July 2004 by the International Court of Justice on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, in which the Court held that Israel, as the occupying Power since 1967, was bound by the provisions of the Covenant in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and that it was under an obligation not to raise any obstacle to the exercise of the rights enshrined in the Covenant in those fields where competence had been transferred to Palestinian authorities. More precisely, please provide information on how the occupation affects the State party’s fulfilment of its human rights obligations under the Covenant in East Jerusalem, Area C, the H2 area of Hebron, and the Gaza Strip. Please describe any efforts undertaken by the State party to alleviate the negative impact of the continued blockade of the Gaza Strip on the enjoyment of economic, social and cultural rights by the population living therein, including through international cooperation and humanitarian assistance. 9 * Adopted by the pre-sessional working group at its sixty-ninth session (18–22 October 2021). 17