Cuneiform sources, of different periods and places, contain a wealth of information concerning the activities of the merchant (tamkarum). Especially noteworthy is the Old-Babylonian material, which has recently been the subject of a detailed monograph. No less important is the Old-Assyrian material from the trading centre of Kaniš, discovered in ever-growing quantities in the course of excavations which continue up to the present. All these are private documents, both legal and non-legal, giving a varied and detailed picture.

When one turns to the various collections of legal rules, the results are rather disappointing. The only significant block of provisions is that in the Code of Hammurabi, commencing in the damaged part of the stele (sections U and V), and continuing in sections 100–107. They all concern, one way or another, trading operations; they purport to regulate the relations between a person who supplies capital or goods (the tamkarum), and his agent, acting on his behalf, going abroad to buy and to sell. One characteristic feature stands out at once: as a rule, though not necessarily always, the law merchant concerns itself with activities abroad, beyond the borders of the city-state. This general impression is confirmed also by such provisions as that of CH 32 (merchant ransoming prisoner of war), and CH 281/282 (purchase abroad of slave).

In the comparative constitutional field relating to backsliding democracies, it is difficult to find an example of a single constitutional event that undermines the basic principles of democracy. Democracies die in a slow and gradual process. Each of the laws passed is not in itself fatal for democracy but when the measures are examined together, cumulatively, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. It is the big picture, the whole series of legal moves, that brings about a fundamental change in the state's regime until it is no longer a liberal democracy. In these situations of gradual erosion there is no single law that can reveal the magnitude of the change inherent in it. To understand the risk, it is therefore necessary to refer to its overall institutional context. The proposed reform in Israel may result in serious harm to the principle of separation of powers. Moreover, given the importance of imposing limits on governmental power as a tool for protecting human rights and the ‘rules of the game’ in democratic regimes, the reform would seriously harm the protection afforded to these rights and principles, and constitute a clear and present danger to Israel's liberal democracy.

Self-defence and necessity are central institutions of the General Part of German Penal Law. Numerous problems of considerable practical and theoretical relevance are connected with them. How to deal with “self-defence” and “necessity” is also an indicator of liberality or, on the other hand, of the minimum solidarity and public spirit which a State can concede to its citizens or demand of them. In German criminal theory, “self-defence” and “necessity” are closely connected with the release of the distinction between justification and excuse and all conclusions derived thereof.

Instead of elaborating on fundamental or purely theoretical problems concerning self-defence and necessity, an illustration of the contents of the German provisions of self-defence and necessity from a more technical, but nevertheless practical, point of view will be discussed. In the course of the discussion, some differences between the Israeli Draft law and the German law will be pointed out, and some problems which are unsolved in German law and may possibly confront Israeli law in the future will be brought to your attention.

This Essay considers the 2006 Sri Lankan Supreme Court case, Singarasa v. Attorney General, which declared unconstitutional the state's eight-year-old accession to the Protocol permitting the Human Rights Committee to examine complaints of violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It places the decision in the context of the Committee's earlier findings of Covenant violations by Sri Lanka resulting from actions by the Court. This forms the basis of a discussion of problems of identifying questionable judicial conduct and the relevance of the Bangalore Principles of Judicial Conduct.

Generally speaking, the definition of the mental element in crime does not even strive to encompass all the varieties of the psychological processes which accompany the commission of an offence, but sorts out only such components of it which legal policy dictates to be useful and workable. For instance, generally speaking, no notice is taken of the motive or of the intensity of passion, or whether the mental element was spontaneous or premeditated. In sorting out what parts of the psychological process should form part of the definition of the mental element, many considerations come into play, such as the ability to verbalize and define such processes, difficulties of proof, etc. One of the components of the psychological processes which is disregarded in the definition of the mental element is knowledge of the existence and scope of the criminal norm, and the existence and scope of “defences” (as they were called in the old Penal Law, 1977) or “limitations to penal liability” as they are now called in the new Preliminary Part and General Part of Penal Law (hereinafter the New Code).

There can be no quarrel with Prof. Pinhas Shifman's essential thesis. The attempt to have two kings rule the same kingdom at one and the same time has undoubtedly failed. The “mixed marriage” between two legal systems, having different — and at times contradictory — philosophies of law, world outlooks and social goals, has given birth to a child which neither parent is eager to acknowledge. As is usually the case in failed marriages, here too each side blames the other for the failure; the civil system points an accusing finger at the religious system, and the Rabbinical Courts blame the civil courts. Prof. Shifman is certainly correct in his claim that the complexity of this situation has given rise to a certain tendentiousness among both the civil and the Rabbinical Court judges, with each group zealously seeking to enlarge its own kingdom.

Although I do not find fault with the general picture sketched by Prof. Shifman, I cannot agree with some of the finer details; in particular, with certain examples cited by Prof. Shifman in support of his conclusions, which are correct in and of themselves.

In these hints Galsworthy the artist describes the attitude of English society in 1886. Galsworthy the member of Lincoln's Inn writing in 1906 also knows it as the attitude of English law: a married person has the right of connubium at any time, not dependent on his spouse's love or willingness, and nothing a husband does to compel his wife to have with him normal sex relations will be considered as rape upon her.

In the wake of the UN General Assembly's recent recognition of Palestinian statehood, the Palestinian government has made clear its intention to challenge in the International Criminal Court (ICC or the Court) the legality of Israeli settlements. This article explores jurisdictional hurdles for such a case. To focus on the jurisdictional issues, the article assumes for the sake of argument the validity of the merits of the legal claims against the settlements.

The ICC only takes situations of particular ‘gravity’. Yet settlements are not a ‘grave breach’ under the Rome Statute. No modern international criminal tribunal has ever prosecuted crimes that do not involve systematic violence and physical coercion. The ICC's gravity measure involves the number of persons killed; for settlements it would be zero. Indeed, the ICC Prosecutor triages situations by the numbers of victims; settlements do not appear to have direct individual victims. Finally, the ICC would at most have jurisdiction over settlement activity only from the date of Palestine's acceptance of jurisdiction. Settlement activity in this time frame would not immediately cross the ICC's gravity threshold.

Sentencing reform has been the subject of much debate over the past two decades in North America, Europe and Australia. Among the concerns spurring this widespread reconsideration of sentencing principles and practices, there is the need to promote consistency in sentencing, the crisis in public confidence in the criminal justice system, and the constitutional argument for more legislative intervention in the area of sentencing. The reforms implemented in various jurisdictions to address these concerns have taken numerous forms: at the federal level in the United States, “base sentences” were assigned to each offense category, the final sentence being fixed in the light of the offender's prior criminal history and aggravating and mitigating circumstances; at the state level, several jurisdictions adopted a less detailed system of numerical guidelines, schematized by a two-dimensional grid of sentence ranges defined by classes of offenses and the offender's criminal record. Other jurisdictions, such as Canada, Britain and Sweden, eschewed the use of numerical guidelines as a vehicle to structure judicial discretion in favour of simpler statutory statements of principles in sentencing.

Israel's Civil Wrongs Ordinance, and the statutory immunity provided in it from liability in torts for strike action, was enacted at a time when the strike was regarded simpliciter as a “sacred tradition” and when no distinction had yet been drawn by statute or the courts between legitimate and illegitimate strikes. Since that time there has been an evolution of restrictions on the liberty to strike both in statutory provisions and in judicial doctrine.

In the public services, by statutory provision, all strikes which are not authorised by the statutorily designated trade union and nearly all strikes during the duration of a collective agreement are now considered to be “unprotected strikes”. Unprotected strikes are divested of the statutory immunities generally bestowed upon strikers or strike organisers for breach of their employment contract or for causing breach of contract; however, under the statutory provisions only the primary employer may sue. By judicial doctrine, formulated in the National Labour Court, strikes which are held for the purpose of enforcing legal rights rather than for the fixing of economic rights are not a legitimate exercise of the liberty to strike.

Israel's environmental problems have grown increasingly severe over the past decade, bringing contamination of the air and water to crisis levels and scarring a landscape that has particular historic and religious value internationally. A comprehensive report prepared by over 100 leading scientists and professionals about present environmental trends in the country was particularly discouraging. Israel's former Minister of Environment Rafael Eitan also began an international report about the country's environment with an unusually frank appraisal of the situation: Damage to natural and landscape resources, deteriorating air and groundwater contamination have reached a level where it “threatens to rob us and our children of our right to quality of life and the environment.”

This article examines the changes in the encounter between sexual assault victims and representatives of the law enforcement and judicial systems in Israel as perceived by workers and volunteers in the sexual assault crisis centres. After more than four decades of action in legal contexts – from spurring changes in legislation, through the training of professionals within the legal system, up to escorting victims – it is still hard to find studies that describe any change beyond legislation and procedures in the forms that this encounter assumes in Israel and in the world.

For the purpose of the study, this interaction was separated from the other aspects of the procedure, observed in depth and, with the interviewees' help, broken down into its relevant components. Data gathered and processed using quantitative and qualitative methods show that, according to the impression of the critical and experienced interviewees, representatives of the legal system truly endeavoured during the first decade of the second millennium to provide victims with better conditions than in the past, encouraging them to speak out in criminal proceedings.

As a possible background for the changes in the interpersonal encounter, the article suggests focusing on two mutually related processes, historical but also ongoing. The first is a change in the modes of thought and action in the crisis centres that dealt with this matter and promoted specific changes in the interpersonal encounter. The second process is reflected in the way in which legislators chose to intervene in the interpersonal encounters through four sections in the Rights of Victims of Crime Law. These processes influenced one another and still largely accompany the developments in this sphere, teaching important lessons about change in systems that are not easily amenable to change.

Human rights defenders (HRDs) are subjected to serious human rights violations through legal and extralegal actions. Notably, most of the abuses against them remain unpunished, perpetuating a vicious cycle of violence against them. There is room for doubt that international human rights law has failed to provide efficient protection for HRDs, and this article considers the international refugee regime as an alternative system of protection. In this sense the article first discusses the intersection between the terms ‘refugee’ and ‘human rights defender’ to establish that defenders fall within the protection of the 1951 Refugee Convention. Following an inductive reasoning, the article considers the most well-trodden defects of the refugee regime and the reluctance of HRDs to adopt refugee status; it concludes that this alternative may not be suitable for defenders. Besides a doctrinal approach, the article employs a socio-legal approach, which is enhanced by interviews with HRDs.

The role of the victim within the public criminal justice process has traditionally been one of supporting public prosecution. Without the victim's cooperation, police and prosecutors would neither be informed about the occurrence of crimes, nor be able to bring sufficient evidence to secure convictions or extra-judicial settlements. In Germany, for instance, about 90% of all prosecutions are initiated by private complaint.

Compared to what the victim gives the state, the state traditionally gives little to the victim. While the victim's procedural position has been strengthened in Germany in recent decades, namely by the expansion of the right to join the prosecution as a collateral complainant, procedural participation alone has not been sufficient to satisfy the victim's need to be made whole. Victimological research indicates that the victim has a profound interest in compensation of damages. However, since according to our traditional understanding, the victim's claims and the State's claims against the offender are inherently different in nature, they ought to be governed by different types of principles and proceedings. Doctrinally, the criminal courts settle the State's conflict with the offender, while the victim's conflict with the offender is a matter for the civil law and the civil courts. Therefore, the legal consequences of crime, it is believed, reflect primarily the needs of the general public and not the “private” interests of the victim (whether defined as to receive: compensation; reparation; satisfaction; vindication).

In modern evidence theory two main theories of legal factfinding have emerged. One of these is the mathematical probabilistic approach, which claims that the universal rules of mathematics apply to legal factfinding as to any other rational decision-making. The opposite approach, of Tribe, Nesson and others, contests this view. Those opposing the mathematical theory have done so mostly on grounds of legal policy, which I shall not be concerned with. However, some of the sharpest criticism, at least from the point of view of the adherents of the mathematical explanation, has been of the soundness of the mathematical explanation. In certain instances typical to the legal process, the mathematical approach has been claimed to lead to absurd results which contradict common sense and legal doctrine.

In this paper I will claim that the rules of mathematical probability must apply to legal factfinding and if fallacies in its application are exposed, their existence must be due to error in the way in which the rules have been applied. I will argue and try to prove that the concept of relevance, an essential concept to any theory of legal factfinding, has been disregarded in mathematical probability theory.