When Dean Feller did me the honour of inviting me to give the Lionel Cohen lecture for 1973 one of the subjects I submitted, and the one accepted by him, was “Reforming the Law of Evidence—The English Experience”. For me those were the halcyon days before the publication of the 11th Report of the Criminal Law Revision Committee; the law of evidence in civil cases had been modernised by the Civil Evidence Acts of 1968 and 1972, and I pictured the draft Criminal Evidence Bill annexed to the 11th Report going merrily through Parliament, if not without some protest and amendment, at least with celerity and the certitude of becoming law. Alas, this was not to be. To describe the reception of the Report as “unenthusiastic” would be the understatement of the century; but, although I must confess to considerable pessimism concerning the questions when and to what extent the draft Bill will become law in England, I am pleased that it should continue to be the subject of my lecture, although the title of the latter had perforce to undergo some change in order to cater for the fact that the English experience of reforming the law of evidence is too incomplete to allow for profitable discussion.

One of the most significant recent developments in the law of extradition is the serious consideration that courts are willing to display to the punitive consequences of an extradition order, if capital punishment is the specific penalty that the requested person is liable to have imposed on him if convicted. At the same time, this development serves also as one of the most dramatic examples of the manner in which the subject of human rights has become a factor in international relations, which nation-states can disregard only by exposing themselves to negative assessments linked to reluctance to respond to formal requests. For the most part the “linkage” has been focused mainly on economic aid, where donor countries would approve requested aid contingent on positive accounting in human rights, but now, as a result of a number of novel judicial decisions, it seems that similar factors will be examined, when requests for extradition are submitted. At the moment, the focus is on the use of the death penalty, but the very reasoning process used may well open up further possibilities.

It has been asserted by Gunnar Myrdal, the renowned Swedish economist, that one of the three major obstacles to the satisfactory progress of international economic cooperation and integration is that the methods of settling international disputes are ineffective and primitive.

That the lack of adequate institutional facilities for the settlement of investment disputes has in particular hampered the flow of capital from the affluent to the developing nations (at a time when the revolution of rising expectations so extensively depends upon it) cannot be seriously doubted. As pointed out by one writer: “It does not appear realistic to expect a foreign investor to allow adjudication of his grievance before a tribunal of the nation in which the grievance arises, or before a tribunal of a nation allegedly causing the grievance… For similar reasons, a nation which is a party to a grievance will not normally allow its rights to be adjudicated by a tribunal of a nation of which a complaining foreign investor is a national.”

The advent of the principle of complementarity under the Statute of the International Criminal Court has shifted the focus on prosecuting international crimes to the national courts. One of the potential difficulties in this shift is that there is no uniform standard for incorporating and applying international legal norms in the national systems. This article examines how two very distinct national courts – the state Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the military courts of the Democratic Republic of Congo – have implemented and applied international legal norms. Despite the differences between these particular courts in the methods of implementation and application, international courts have had an impact on the national systems that have helped the latter to follow international criminal legal norms.

In December 2006 the Israeli High Court of Justice delivered its ruling in the Targeted Killing case (HCJ 769/02). The Court laid out four criteria that must be met for operations conducted as part of Israel's targeted killing policy to be performed legally, and imposed on the state two safeguards to ensure that each operation complies with these criteria. This research examines whether Israel has complied with the ruling in its post-2006 targeted killing operations. The article presents strong evidence which suggests that Israel complies with the Court's four requirements, although there is insufficient information to render a definitive conclusion regarding requirement 3, the principle of proportionality. However, the evidence also casts doubt on Israel's conformity with the two safeguards. The most significant issues revolve around Israel's implementation of and compliance with safeguard 1, the independent ex post facto investigative committee, which should review operations that cause civilian casualties. These concerns include the composition of the committee, its objectivity and independence. In addition, Israel's evolving understanding of the legal status of terrorists has significantly narrowed the jurisdiction of the committee and the HCJ's ruling more generally. These issues are exacerbated by the absence of evidence that safeguard 2, judicial oversight, has occurred.

In times of crisis there is an unmistakable tendency to augment and extend the powers of the executive branch. This centralizing tendency has been exhibited in numerous legal systems and through varied kinds of crisis. More recently, similar trends have been much in evidence in the United States, and a corresponding academic discourse defending and extolling the virtues of such augmentation has emerged. This Article is skeptical of the virtues of such advice and its ultimate policy benefits. We assert that there are substantial dangers to the centralization of crisis powers in times of emergency. These tendencies hold particular perils for the democratic state. Moreover, the rush to create or cement decision and review making hierarchies can be antithetical to the project of utilizing the strengths of rule of law based societies to respond to the challenges posed by violent actors. The purported benefits of excluding, or at best sidelining, the courts from review of executive actions of crisis regulation are particularly ill-conceived. Such proposals consistently fail to engage with the importance of across-the-board institutional legal engagement with state action in times of crisis. The success and value of such engagement cannot be measured from the crisis vantage point. Rather it requires an assessment beyond the moment of exception, factoring in a return to normalcy and the impact on law and legal institutions in the post-crisis phase. We assert that scholars advocating for exclusive executive supremacy in times of crisis fail to measure the harms that may be caused by inept or illegal state action, not only as experienced by individual victims but to the broader project of discouraging and dissuading the resort to group based violence.

The question of Palestinian refugees has long been recognised as one of the core issues that would need to be addressed in any eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. This article examines compensation for property seizure and forced displacement, an aspect that has figured in every round of major peace talks on permanent status issues for the past quarter of a century. Drawing upon research, informal ‘track two’ discussions and official negotiations, it highlights the challenge of crafting arrangements that would be both politically and practically feasible.

Two decisions were rendered recently by Israeli courts of lower instances which concern the field of diplomatic immunities. The first, delivered by the Magistrate Court in Petah Tikwa, deals with the inviolability of diplomatic premises and with the waiver thereof; and the second, by the District Court in Jerusalem, refers to the question of state immunity from attachment and execution, and seems to constitute a clear diversion from the accepted international norms and rules on this issue. Both decisions, rendered in the matter of the residence of the Ambassador of Côte d'Ivoire to Israel, will be examined separately, following the factual background relevant to each.

The question of the inviolability of diplomatic premises, as well as that of a diplomat's immunity from jurisdiction, is a separate issue from that of state immunity. The first considers the treatment given to diplomats in foreign countries, and is codified in the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (the “Convention”), while the latter consists only of customary international law, and deals with the concepts of acts of state and the immunity of sovereign states from jurisdiction by the courts of another state. In the following survey we will show that in some instances, the two issues have been confused and conclusions drawn from one to the other without consideration of the differences between the two.

Some fifteen years ago, an address on the subject of judicial review of the actions of the Knesset would have been extremely short and quite familiar to English jurists. Our practice was basically the same as in England: the Parliament is sovereign, its laws inviolate, and its inner proceedings immune from review.

Beginning with two decisions in the early 1980s, Flato-Sharon and Sarid, the Court has gradually recognized the justiciability of a limited range of Knesset decisions. While the precise level of review varies according to the type of decision at issue, the Court's review has been motivated in all cases by the need to preserve the rule of law and the integrity of our democratic regime.

I. Survey of Transplant Techniques

The kidney is one of the few organs which today can be successfully transplanted from a living donor to an ailing recipient. A healthy donor can function satisfactorily with a single kidney; therefore the removal of one kidney for transplantation does not significantly endanger the donor's life. However, removal, or even partial removal, of other organs, such as the heart, lungs, or pancreas, will present a serious risk to the health and life of the donor.

In addition to organs, skin, bone marrow, blood and other body parts can be transplanted from living donors.

A. Kidney Transplants

The kidneys function to regulate the body's electrolyte and water balance and eliminate various wastes. Severe kidney dysfunction endangers the patient's life, and requires treatment by dialysis or kidney transplant. Up until a decade ago, the life expectancy of patients treated by dialysis exceeded that of patients who underwent kidney transplants. Over the past decade, the life expectancy of patients who have undergone kidney transplants from deceased donors has increased to a point where it is now comparable with the life expectancy of patients on dialysis.

Bill No. 1306 of 25 July 1977 would amend the Extradition Law of 1954 so as to preclude entirely the possibility of extraditing to foreign States any nationals of Israel. Sec. 1 of the Extradition Law would be replaced by the following section: “A person who is in Israel may only be extradited to another State if he is not an Israeli national and only in accordance with this Law”. A (majority) report of a committee established by the Minister of Justice and chaired by Judge Nathan proposed in October 1976 to amend the Extradition Law so that in the future Israeli nationals would be extradited only to States which extradite their nationals to Israel. The Committee proposed also that Israeli courts be granted jurisdiction to try, under Israeli law, Israeli nationals who have committed abroad offences covered by the Extradition Law. A minority recommendation submitted by Judge Nathan proposed that a total prohibition be imposed on the extradition of Israeli nationals. The Government Bill is based on the recommendation of Judge Nathan. The object of this article is to consider some of the questions to which this Bill gives rise.

Market overt deals with the conflict between the bona fide purchaser of a chattel and the person whose rights in the property are injured by the sale. Schematically there are three people involved in this situation: the original owner, the seller and the purchaser. The most simple illustration is the case in which A steals goods belonging to B and sells them to C, who does not know of their origin. On the common assumption that A disappears or is insolvent (and even on the assumption that his whereabouts are known and it is possible to file a claim against him) the question arises, who is entitled to the goods, B or C, and who must bear the loss. In the absence of special circumstances, one is unable to say which of the two has a more “just” claim to title — both have an absolutely valid claim. The layman and the legalist are confounded by this situation, and are without even a clear intuition of whom to favour.

The large variety of solutions to this dilemma offered by different legal systems is testimony to this conundrum. As in other questions, the Israeli legislature did not adopt a solution drafted by any particular foreign system, but drafted an original and independent rule. Elements of this rule are similar to the constituent elements in comparative rules in other systems, but the compilation of all these constituents is unique and different from all other rules.

This short article deals with two of the Deuteronomic laws: the law of the tithe (Deut. 14:22–28; 26:12–16) and the law of the Hebrew slave (Deut. 15:12–18). It is not intended to present a comprehensive study of these two laws, but to limit the investigation to the uncovering of those ancient laws referred to only by the author of Deuteronomy and not by the authors of the other Biblical codes, including that of the Covenant Code.

I. Bashanah hashlishit shnat hama'asar “in the third year, which is the year of tithing” (Deut. 26:12).

The reader of the law of the declaration of the tithe will quickly discern a contradiction: the tithe of the third year is given to the Levite, sojourner, orphan, and widow, bisharekha, literally, “within your gates” (within which there are no cultic places according to the laws of Deuteronomy—Deut. 26:2b). On the other hand, the tithe is declared in the Temple lifnei adonai “before the Lord” (Deut. 26:1s). Another surprising point is that the law creates an impression of unfamiliarity with the annual tithe. Apparently, only the triennial tithe is known: “in the third year, which is the year of tithing”.

The problem of personality in international law is destined, apparently, to remain an obstacle to development, control and responsibility-norms binding on international non-State and non-IGO entities. In short, is this international social phenomenon still subject to the dogma of “States only” in international law? Or, conversely, is international law still the law for inter-State relations only? This writer's views are on record with an analysis of the NGO-phenomenon; he would like to add a few observations on the subject of International Corporations (IC), and on the impact they might possibly have on the general problem of personality of the non-State international entity.

When, thirty-six years ago, the structure and organization of the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), Basle, had been settled by a team of noted draftsmen, Sir John Fischer Williams noted in a paper on this subject: “We theorists have to take heed to build our doctrines on tendencies rather than on ‘facts’; otherwise, when we have finished constructing our systems, it may happen that the facts are no longer what they were when we started building, and the system is out of date before it is established.” In the meantime, several other corporations of a similar nature have been set up but in spite of a number of valuable papers on this subject, we are still without a systematic integration of what has gone on around us—although it is now clear that the traditional pedagogic categories have become unsatisfactory.