Inheriting the Right of Return

Abstract This Article assesses one kind of argument for an intergenerational right of return in the context of the Israel/Palestine conflict. The question is whether descendants of those who were made refugees in the 1948 War can acquire occupancy rights from their parents through inheritance and bequest over territory that they have never lived on. Standard arguments for their inheriting such rights fail for a range of reasons. However, a less familiar argument for inheritance or bequest succeeds—descendants can acquire such rights because their parents have an interest in their being able to live the kind of life that, due to the violation of their rights, they were deprived of.