BREAKING NEWS

Mary McGowan Davis to head UNHRC Gaza probe

Former New York Supreme Court Judge Mary McGowan Davis will replace Canadian legal expert William Schabas, as the head of the United Nations Human Rights Council Gaza probe.
The three member commission of inquiry appointed in August had included Schabas, McGowan Davis and Senegalese legal expert Doudou Diene.
Schabas resigned from the commission on Monday after Israel complained to the council that brief work as a paid consultant for the Palestine Liberation Organization in 2012 constituted a conflict of interest.
A third legal expert will not be appointed to the committee which is wrapping up its investigation into Israeli and Hamas actions during their conflict in the summer of 2014. The commission plans to present the report to the UNHRC on March 23.
McGowan Davis also served on a 2010 three person panel to monitor Israeli and Palestinian compliance with the UNHRC’s Goldstone Report, which probed human rights violations during the IDF's incursion into Gaza in January 2009, known as Operation Cast Lead.