In recent years there has been a constant increase in the number and significance of administrative contracts, that is, contracts to which the public administration is a party. Contracts between private individuals and government are a daily occurrence. Such contracts are essential to the performance of the executive's various actions and functions, and apart from their practical importance, they raise theoretical questions.

From a philosophical point of view, an administrative contract can be considered as a contract in which a person is party to a contract with himself, since the State embodies the entire community of its citizens.

The subject of administrative contracts has so far not received sufficient legal-academic attention. Discussion of this issue becomes more and more essential with the rapid increase of administrative contracts regulating complex transactions.

Another spreading phenomenon which is closely linked to administrative contracts is administrative promises (when such promises do not crystalize into administrative contracts).

The first problem arising in connection with administrative contracts and promises is the question of the substantive law to be applied. The problem of the substantive law gives rise to secondary problems as to legal remedies and jurisdiction.

It appears that administrative contracts are to be governed by one of three systems of rules: contract law, administrative law or a system which combines elements of the two systems.

However, no solution is clear-cut. The applcation of the law of contract causes a confrontation between the fundamental principles of the law of contract, mainly the principles of freedom of contract and sanctity of contract, and the needs of the administration, the powers of the sovereign and its duties.

The United Nations Security Council's recent involvement in the protection of children in armed conflict, particularly by seeking to prevent the recruitment and use of child soldiers, has attracted little attention from international lawyers. However, the process, initiated by Council Resolution 1612, has interesting parallels with non-compliance mechanisms in international environmental law and can be seen as an innovative attempt to harness the Security Council's “soft power” to engage both State and non-State parties to conflicts.

Various political realities influence the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip and, more generally, the vitality of the international law of occupation. The law of occupation—though ill-suited to modern international relations and ill-equipped for prolonged occupation—has been almost universally invoked as applicable to the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). At the same time, international human rights law is increasingly viewed as applicable to occupation. This creates a dilemma for Israel because international humanitarian law and international human rights law contain conflicting prescriptions and policy goals with respect to the administration of occupied territory. In many instances, occupants seek United Nations Security Council action in order to reconcile this tension and to secure legal and political cover for their actions. By acting under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter; the Security Council can create a select legal patchwork applicable to a particular occupation. This use of Chapter VII resolutions by the Security Council to create international law by fiat is an important trend in modern occupation. Yet geopolitics determines access to—and the content of—such resolutions, and the sensitive political context of the OPT currently makes this avenue unavailable to Israel. For the same reason, opponents of the Israeli occupation are unable to secure Security Council action to clarify and enforce Israeli legal obligations in the OPT. This Article considers these issues from the perspectives of both Israel and Palestinians in order to examine why the relative gain and loss in each case is not immediately clear. This Article also discusses how the legality of Israeli conduct in the OPT may be gauged in light of the conflicting international legal obligations imposed by human rights law and the law of occupation. A broader exploration of the impact of these phenomena reveals that these political realities serve to increase the influence of the Security Council while further undercutting the utility and relevance of the international law of occupation.

The tension between the norms of gender equality and religious freedom is a major focus of international human rights debate. States that adopt religious law contend that gender discriminatory religious practices are protected under international law guaranteeing rights of cultural autonomy and religious freedom. Others argue that only discriminatory practices that are not the product of State action but, rather, take place in the private realm of civil society should be accorded such protection. Many women's rights activists, on the other hand, urge the State to actively reform religious law and restructure cultural practices even in the private realm, “not only as a means of ending gender-based restrictions on specific human rights but also as an essential step toward dismantling systematic gender inequality” perpetuated in traditionalist cultures. The larger philosophic issue underlying this debate, how to reconcile universal human rights and multiculturalism, understood as the primacy of group cultural identity as a morally and politically significant category, is complex, but not new. It is the age-old one, as Joseph Raz has put it, “of how to combine the truth of universalism with the truth in particularism.”

Members of the United Nations have conferred upon the Security Council “primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security” and have agreed “that in carrying out its duties under this responsibility the Security Council acts on their behalf” (article 24 of the U.N. Charter). The question may be asked whether the Security Council lived up to this responsibility during the May 1967 crisis in the Middle East which preceded the Six Day War. Did the Security Council do everything in its power to avoid the clash, and what were the reasons for its failure to avert the crisis?

In order to be able to evaluate the Council's stand, it will be necessary to recall summarily the developments which led up to the hostilities of June 1967, as well as the Security Council's powers under the Charter of the U.N.

The Israeli-Palestinian Declaration of Principles of September 13, 1993 (the “DOP”), which establishes the framework for the settlement of the conflict between the parties, sets the stage for a gradual transition towards a peace settlement, or the “permanent status” as referred to in the DOP. The interim arrangements outlined in the DOP provide for a step-by-step assumption of responsibilities by Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. The Agreement on the Gaza Strip and the Jericho Area, signed in Cairo on May 4, 1994, prescribes at length the arrangements for the first steps to be taken towards that goal. During the period of the interim arrangements, the Gaza Strip (excluding Israeli settlements and military installations) and the “Jericho Area” are to be administered by a “Palestinian Authority” (PA), a body established under the Cairo Agreement, which is distinct from the PLO.

Over-burdening of the prison system and serious reservations as to the usefulness of the prison sentence as a means of reducing crimes rates have led penologists and policymakers to seek ways to broaden the repertoire of criminal punishments available to the courts. In the search for effective and affordable sentencing policies, there has been increasing interest in the development and elaboration of intermediate sanctions as part of a menu of sentencing choices that match the severity of punishment to the seriousness of the crime.

This trend is clearly reflected in the development of the penal system in Israel. In elaborating alternatives to imprisonment, an integrated model, incorporating welfare and rehabilitation considerations, has emerged. Nevertheless, Israeli judges have remarkably few sentencing alternatives at their disposal, and the penal sanctions available to them can be counted on the fingers of one hand, namely, imprisonment, suspended prison sentence, probation, community service, and the fine.

L'internationalisation du crime terroriste ne pouvait laisser indifférents les criminalistes et les internationalistes pas plus que les gouvernements, d'autant que, souvent, des crimes d'une telle gravité restent impunis, car à l'internationalisation du terrorisme ne répond encore l'internationalisation de la répression.
Antoine Sottile, 1938

The great upbuilding of international law which set in with the end of World War II did not overlook the penal aspects affecting the social substratum and organizational assignments of international law. Matters were no longer envisaged in the rather simplistic manner of Art. 231 of the Treaty of Versailles which had, authoritatively though not arbitrarily, decreed that “Germany accepts the responsibility … for causing all the loss and damage to which Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals had been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed on them by the aggression of Germany and her allies”, and, not less authoritatively, though more arbitrarily, decided “publicly [to] arraign William II for a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties”. More realistically, Art. 228 postulated the “right of the Allied and Associated Powers to bring before military tribunals persons accused of having committed acts in violation of the laws and customs of war”. To the great loss of mankind, these provisions were in time eroded to the point of becoming less than meaningless.

1. General: The topic under discussion relates to the incidence of the criminal laws of more than one state applying to the same offence, committed by the same person, and the question with which we are confronted is how—if at all—this phenomenon may be prevented, and, if it is inevitable, and if remedies are called for, what are the available remedies.

The topic falls within the orbit of international criminal law as a branch of law comprising the system of norms of domestic criminal law, which regulates matters containing a foreign element, and of international law, which regulates matters containing a criminal element. And indeed, concurrent incidence of criminal laws as aforesaid is the fruit of the regulation by norms of this nature.

In order to provide answers to the questions concerning concurrent jurisdiction as a consequence of the concurrent incidence of the criminal laws of several states, it is necessary to answer a preliminary question, i.e., is the problem of concurrent jurisdiction a procedural problem of distribution of the judicial functions amongst the courts of a number of states, or, rather, is it a fundamental, substantive problem, of which judicial competence is only the result?

The sanctioning policy of a given society may be analysed on a number of levels. It may focus on the actions of the legislative body in the adoption of statutes, or on the legislative and administrative measures taken by the ministers and policy-makers who derive their formal powers from such statutes. Alternatively it may focus on the decisions of the courts, either by examining these on a statistical level or by analysing the content (the rhetoric as well as the substance) of their decisions. The present article will focus primarily upon the legislative policies of the Knesset in the matter of sanctions since the establishment of the state.

Before beginning the analysis of legislative policy in this area, two preliminary observations may be made regarding the informal constraints influencing the formulation of legislative policy in relation to the penal system during the formative years of the state.

This article is built around three general observations. The first is that, in the current stage of the development of constitutional theory and practice, there is a need to create procedures allowing the review of constitutional amendments. The second is that traditional mechanisms, in particular the “internal” review of constitutionality of constitutional amendments, may not always be able to provide sufficient protection against amendments that run counter to the existing constitutional structure. The final observation is that, in the current state of globalization, international law—in particular international human rights law—may play a significant role in an “external” assessment of the legitimacy of constitutional amendments. This role of international law is particularly well developed in Europe, and most of our conclusions therefore focus on the European perspective. Given the universal nature of human rights, however, at least some of these conclusions may also be validfor other regions of the world.

Cities in Israel are regulating religion and controlling religious liberty. They decide whether to close down roads during the Sabbath, whether to limit the selling of pork meat within their jurisdiction, whether to prohibit sex stores from opening, and whether to allocate budgets and lands to religious activities. They do all that by using their regular local powers as well as special enablement laws which the Israeli parliament enacts from time to time. The immediacy of these issues, the fact that the traditional powers – business licensing, traffic and road control, spending, and more – of local authorities touch upon many of them, and the inability of central government to obtain a nationwide consensus over religious matters have caused the localisation of religious liberty in Israel. In addition, some legal rules induce and even force religious-based residential segregation, thus resulting in a relative religious homogeneity of local populations. Hence, cities are able to decide to advance a religious – or a secular – agenda much more easily than the national councils. This process, however, has gone unnoticed by most scholars and courts. As a result, religious liberty doctrine has failed to live up to the challenges Israel is now facing: growing religious and national extremism and the ensuing risk of fragmentation and oppression of minorities. This article shifts the focus from the role of central government in regulating religion to that of cities. I argue that the particular form of decentralisation of religious liberty in Israel has a mixed outcome: it has helped to weaken the monopoly of orthodox Judaism in some locations and enabled diverse communities to flourish and express their unique religious vision; but it has also radicalised some religious practices, exacerbated tensions among competing religions and denominations, heightened religious-based residential segregation and jeopardised minorities.

Since the end of the Cold War, international law has increasingly been challenged by states and other actors. Specific norms have also been challenged in their application by new realities and obstacles. This article focuses on these challenges as they arise from the development of cyberspace and cyber operations, and offers an overview of the main questions arising with regard to the application of international law to cyber operations. By analysing the application of the existing norms of international law to cyber operations as well as identifying their limits, the article offers an accurate lens through which to study the contestation or process of reinterpretation of some norms of international law. The objective of the article is not to deliver a comprehensive analysis of how the norms of international law apply to cyber operations but to provide an overview of the key points and issues linked to the applicability and application of the norms as well as elements of contextualisation, notably after the failure of the 2016–17 United Nations Group of Governmental Experts on Developments in the Field of Information and Telecommunications in the Context of International Security. The article comprises three parts. The first part focuses on the applicability of international law to cyber operations. The second part identifies challenges that affect the applicability and application of international law in general, while the third part analyses challenges that affect specific norms of international law, highlighting their limits in dealing with cyber threats.

Human dignity is constitutionally protected in both the German and the Israeli legal system. This article examines to what extent respect for victims' human dignity has influenced the development of victims' rights within the criminal process in Germany and Israel, bearing in mind the differences between the two legal systems regarding the definition of “human dignity” and the scope of constitutional protection. Following a detailed examination of the role and rights of victims within each jurisdiction and a short comparative analysis, this article concludes that, in both countries, the concept of human dignity has played a relatively minor role in the context of victims' procedural rights. The main, albeit tentative, explanation for this conclusion is that, although their trial rules differ considerably, both legal systems share common concerns and difficulties regarding the participation of victims in legal proceedings.

In several rulings from 1962, 1992, and 2003, the French Constitutional Court (Conseil constitutionnel) has denied jurisdiction over constitutional amendments. This article shows that this solution can only be understood in the light of the doctrinal background that provides its intellectual justification. While refusing to judicially review constitutional amendments, the Constitutional Court is in fact deeply involved in the ongoing process of altering the Constitution. Also, while the quasi-official doctrinal analysis insists on the absence of material limits to the amendment of the Constitution, and on the absence of any “supra-constitutional” rules, an analysis of the language used by the Court in these rulings offers reasons to diverge from this view. While the Court has refused to review constitutional amendments, it has done so in a way that comes very close to the language used by those courts that stated that such amendments were justiciable. Far from adhering to a mere policy of neutrality and self-restraint, the Constitutional Court speaks a “language of eternity” with a rich substantive content.

The Knesset recently authorized privatized prisons in Israel. The rationale is primarily economic, based on claims of savings as high as 25%. However various studies contradict each other with regard both to cutting costs and to the efficacy of privatization. Not all agree that quality of life, daily functioning, and the quality of educational and rehabilitative activities are better in privatized than public prisons. The Ministries of Finance and Internal Security decided on privatization for financial reasons without holding a meaningful public debate on the social, value-based and moral aspects. One such question is whether it is appropriate for the state to transfer coercive power over prisoners lacking autonomy to private parties motivated by economic interests who could possibly exploit their power to profit at the expense of the prisoners' living conditions, treatment, training and rehabilitation upon return to the community. The notion of justice will likely suffer when subordinated to private profit motives. The Privatization of Prisons Law in Israel partially discusses these problems by means of various clauses that restrict the possibility of harming prisoners rights and require care, education and rehabilitative activities, in addition to requiring strict supervision over activities in privatized prisons. However, in Israel, public supervision of privatized entities is inadequate. The rigor of the law is seldom invoked with private parties who violate laws or the terms of contracts they themselves have signed. Hence, the effectiveness of supervision is also somewhat suspect. The disadvantages of privatization render its merits questionable when compared with Israel's current public prisons system. Despite extreme overcrowding and substandard facilities in some Israeli prisons, these function reasonably well. There is relatively little violence, and prisoners enjoy care, education, and vocational training. We may conclude that it is preferable to improve facilities in public prisons, expanding them and strengthening their rehabilitative orientation. This can be done by partially privatizing the care, education and rehabilitation components as well as the services and maintenance, while leaving the security and administration in the hands of the Prison Service.

In the absence of a written constitution in Israel, the protection of fundamental rights of the citizens depends upon a variety of legal sources. In the course of resolving questions concerning individual rights, the courts rely upon statutory law as well as basic principles of democratic government and concepts of individual freedoms as expressed in the Israel Declaration of Independence and in international covenants.

In the Draft Basic Law: Rights of the Man and the Citizen (hereinafter referred to as the Draft Basic Law), which has passed the first reading in the Knesset, the fundamental rights will be embodied into a written Basic Law. This Basic Law together with the Basic Laws already enacted and those in preparation will eventually become the Constitution of Israel. The chapter by chapter legislative policy for enacting Israel's Constitution was laid down in 1950 by the Knesset in what has become known as the Harari Resolution. In the last eight years the drive for legislating Basic Laws, i.e., the chapters of the future Constitution, has gained momentum. It is hoped, therefore, that the day when the State of Israel will have a Constitution is not very far off.

The Draft Basic Law extends its protection over the basic civil rights commonly recognized by civilized nations and their constitutions and by international covenants. But social rights, except for the freedom of workers to “associate in labour unions for the protection and furtherance of their economic and social interests”, which is explicitly provided, are not dealt with in the Draft Basic Law.