There has been a growing trend in recent years towards the adoption of evidence-based policy in a variety of fields, including criminal justice. The purpose of evidence-based policy is to guide the activities of organisations based on scientifically verified facts, enabling the development of effective and efficient policies. In this article, we introduce the commitment of the Israel Prison Service (IPS) to the implementation of evidence-based policy by detailing the processes and development of a large-scale research programme in the IPS. We illustrate how the cooperation and commitment of key individuals, including successive IPS Commissioners, have enabled the implementation of evidence-based policy in a hierarchal organisation. Within this context, we demonstrate how human agency is a key factor in the successful implementation of the policy in criminal justice settings. By following the different stages of development and implementation, the example of the IPS also highlights the importance of agencies taking ownership of science. We conclude by arguing that the road to evidence-based policy is a ‘winding road’, highlighting the key turning points that influenced the institutionalisation of the policy in the IPS.

The enactment of Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom marks the beginning of a new era in Israeli law. This is a fitting opportunity to sketch an initial outline for the relationship between the constitution and the substantive criminal law, and the effect of constitutional principles on penal law. The truth be told, the constitutional principles already existed prior to the enactment of the Basic Law. And if, for example, we examine Prof. Feller's approach to criminal law, we cannot but be impressed by the highly developed constitutional element. Nevertheless, Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom does provide an excellent excuse for addressing the subject. Moreover, its enactment paves the way for certain interpretive changes in Israeli penal law, and because it allows for judicial review of the legislature of the future, some clarification is called for as to the limits of legislative power in the field of criminal law in light of fundamental constitutional principles.

Basic to constitutional law and criminal law is a shared image of human beings. It is a conception of human beings as “morally” autonomous, with the basic faculty to understand reality and distinguish right from wrong, able to contribute to developing social norms and to understand and internalize them, competent to decide how to act and capable of realizing that decision.

In an epoch of inflation of the kind in which we are now living, the question of the correct date for assessing damage has come to be widely discussed. Should it be the date when the tort or breach of contract was committed, as the crystallisation doctrine urges? Or instead of the “date of the tort” or the “date when the damage occurs” should some other point of time be chosen, either the date of judgment or the date of payment? Or, more radically, should no particular date be adopted but subsequent events be taken into account in determining the existence and scope of the damage and assessing it, in so far as these events affect the damage, in the light of the proper interest of the injured party? (see infra, part 3).

This Article discusses the normative basis for the protection of human rights in Israel and discusses various effects of the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty enacted in 1992. The Article points out that this “constitutional revolution” affected not only the judiciary, which enforces the protection of human rights, but both the executive and the legislative branches that have also internalized the constitutional revolution, by carefully evaluating every bill proposed and every other government action to ensure that it passes constitutional muster. Additionally, the Article discusses the effect of the constitutional revolution on public discourse in Israel. A central part of the discussion is devoted to the role of the protection of human rights in the territories occupied by Israel since 1967, and to the role of the protection of human rights during periods of terror activities.

This article is primarily concerned with the issue of the justification for objection to service in the Occupied Territories and the claims made against such objection by those who share the objectors' opposition to the continuation of the Occupation, especially those who have, or at least purport to have, professional authority on the subject of disobedience. However, I will also discuss the question of the appropriate attitude towards such an objection from the perspective of the State and the courts, mainly because many people confuse the considerations that should inform the State's approach towards objectors with those that should guide the objectors themselves.

The arguments against disobedience are divisible between those purporting to demonstrate that there are absolutely no legitimate reasons for refusal, and those purporting to show that despite the existence of reasons for refusal, such acts should not be committed since the reasons militating against them are even stronger. Two main arguments are invoked in rejecting the legitimacy of disobedience. First, it is claimed that such disobedience cannot be justified by a universal and ideologically-neutral principle. Secondly, it is argued that such disobedience undermines the democratic regime. These arguments will be discussed in the first section of the article.

The relationship between transitional justice and democracy is fraught and complex, and nowhere more so than in Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. Iraq has experienced a range of transitional justice initiatives, including the trial and execution of its former leader, purges of the civil service and the military, and a series of reconciliation conferences. Yet democracy has not fully taken root and violence continues to plague many parts of the nation on a regular basis. This article argues that initiatives aimed at changing the structure of society – including but not limited to constitutionalism, frequent elections and the development of an independent judiciary – are more likely than purely symbolic efforts to contribute to the consolidation of democracy in the long term. It is these structural developments that have the greatest potential to transform society into a true democracy under the rule of law.

Until a few decades ago the opinion prevailed in England and in the United States, as also in continental Europe, that a contract is an agreement, although certain additional requirements were necessary to distinguish contract from other classes of agreement (see infra, para. 6). More recently, however, many leading American and English scholars have tended to substitute “promise” (or “aggregate of promises”) for “agreement”.

What characterizes the new view is not the mere use of the term “promise”: such use was widespread before and still continues among opponents of this view, and it is hard to deny that an obligatory contract is a promise or an aggregate of promises. The followers of the new view are distinguished by the fact that they prefer to define contract solely in terms of promise and sometimes even go so far as to reject agreement as an element of contract.

A consequentialist holds that systems of criminal punishment must be justified, if they can be justified at all, by their consequential benefits. It is a contingent fact, if it is a fact at all, that these benefits are most efficiently attained by a system of punishment, and by punishments which ordinary moralists would regard as just; and a thorough-going consequentialist must be ready in principle to justify punishments which many would condemn as unjust. A retributivist, on the other hand, insists that the justice of a system or instance of punishment is essential to its justification; and that the demands of justice cannot be reduced to those of consequential utility.

Retributivist accounts of punishment come in a variety of forms: we must distinguish those who insist only that guilt is a necessary, not a sufficient, condition of justified punishment from those who insist that punishment must be fully justified by reference to a past offence; and amongst the latter we find various accounts of how it is that an offence justifies or requires punishment. But essential to any retributivist account is the claim that an adequate justification of punishment must cite not, or not only, its consequential benefits, but its relationship to a past offence: it is a non-consequentialist requirement of justice that punishment must be of an offender, for an offence; that only the guilty may be punished, and that the severity of their punishments should be limited, if not completely determined, by the seriousness of the offences for which they are punished.

As far as we can determine from papyri and from Greek and Roman historians, circumcision was practiced among various nations in the Roman Empire, particularly in Egypt and Arabia. A few of the most important examples will suffice.

Herodotus addresses circumcision in Egypt and elsewhere:

… but my better proof was that the Colchians and Egyptians and Ethiopians are the only nations that have from the first practised circumcision. The Phoenicians and the Syrians of Palestine acknowledge of themselves that they learned the custom from the Egyptians, and the Syrians of the valleys of the Thermodon and the Parthenius, as well as their neighbours the Macrones, say that they learnt it lately from the Colchians.

The main purpose of this paper is, first, to consider the nature of psychopathic personality disorder, and then, to consider the capacity for criminal culpability of psychopaths and whether it is justified to hold them culpable. Initially, a description of the disorder of psychopathy shall be presented, highlighting those character traits deemed relevant for findings of criminal culpability. There follows a brief discussion of the main theories justifying punishment and their position on punishing persons incapable of effective participation in moral reasoning. Lastly, a discussion of the importance for moral condemnation of the capacity to feel empathy and the absence of that capacity in the psychopath, leading to the conclusion that these persons should not be regarded as blameworthy.

Recent philosophical writing about punishment has been devoted mainly to the “why punish?” question. While a variety of theories — utilitarian, reciprocity based, and expressive — have been put forward to answer this question, there has been wide agreement among philosophers that the institution of legal punishment should be retained. Proponents of the various theories disagree chiefly why institutionalized punishment is necessary.

The philosophical writings have paid comparatively little attention to the criteria for distributing punishments — particularly to the criteria for deciding how much to penalize convicted offenders.

Lawyers in general, and international lawyers in particular, seem to suffer from what may be termed “the Latin formula syndrome”. In almost every branch of international law, one is faced with well-known epigrams of sententiousness drawn from the cornucopian source of ancient Latin phraseology. These venerable maxims, a legacy of the immense influence that Roman and Ecclesiastical law wielded on the fathers of modern international law, are in many respects very useful. In a few choice words, they epitomize fundamental ideas that may otherwise require verbose explanations, and they serve as a beacon for those groping their way in the legal dark. Unfortunately, however, laconic adages in general tend to be over-simplified, and, what is worse, as a result of constant and mechanical repetition, they are apt to lose their contact with reality and become petrified. If the law of nations is to be not merely “the law of notions”, but also the law of motion and animation, the epitaphs reflecting its major precepts must be reexamined every so often, else the mortmain of once flourishing but now barren concepts will keep it in a strangle-hold.

One of the more important of the Latin maxims that abound in international law is the general principle par in parem non habet imperium. This principle is commonly regarded as the starting-point for any venture into the field of State immunities, and it has even been said that

This Article explores the specificity of constitutional interpretation. It cannot be found in its object, but in the quality of the interpreters, the augmentative techniques it applies, and the standards it produces. The interpreters are not only courts, but also non-judicial authorities such as the Executive or the Parliament. Constitutional interpretation by these authorities tends to be exercised collectively. Although the methods that may be used for constitutional interpretation are the same as those used for statutory interpretation, one notices that there is more frequent use of certain types of arguments. But the most important distinctive character of constitutional interpretation lies in the nature of what it produces. Its output is the constitution. This is true first because by deciding what the meaning of the constitutional text is, the interpreter decides on the substance of the constitutional norm. But the interpreter also decides that a particular text, which until the moment of the decision had no legal value or had the value of a statute, has the meaning of a constitutional norm. At the same time he decides that by being a constitutional norm it prevails over other norms and decides what this supremacy entails. It can therefore be said that constitutional interpretation constitutes the Constitution.

This article explores the developing ‘right to live in the community’ for people with disabilities under international law and the domestic laws of two countries: the United States and Israel. In 2006, the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Rights of People with Disabilities (CRPD). This Convention embraces a human rights approach to disability, based on the principles of equality, dignity, freedom and inclusion. Based on these principles, Article 19 of the CRPD includes a specific right of all people with disabilities ‘to live in the community, with choices equal to others’. The author argues that the mandate of community living in Article 19 supports an explicit legal right of all people with disabilities not only to live in the community, but to choose where to live and with whom, and with supports, as needed. This new international legal right to live in one's home in the community also advances the goals and principles of the domestic laws of the US and Israel.

In the US, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) protects the right of people with disabilities to receive services in ‘the most integrated’ setting. Relying on this ‘integration mandate’, the US Supreme Court, in 1999, upheld a limited right of people with disabilities to live in the community in Olmstead v LC and EW. In Israel, the Parliament (Knesset) enacted a law similar to the ADA in 1998. This law, the Equal Rights of Persons with Disabilities Law (‘Equal Rights Law’) includes a general right of people with disabilities to equality and non-discrimination. Although the current version of the Equal Rights Law does not include a specific article on the right to live in the community, the basis for such a right may be found in other articles of the law as well as other Israeli laws. In addition, in the recent case of Lior Levy et al., the Israeli High Court of Justice was asked to consider the right to live in the community under Israeli law. While the Court in this case recognised a limited right to live in the community, it failed to invalidate as discriminatory the Israeli government's policy of placing people with disabilities in large institution-like hostels rather than in homes in the community. The author concludes the article with a discussion of the scope and meaning of community living and the extent to which institutions, as well as community housing that functions just like institutions, should be prohibited under the CRPD as well as under US and Israeli law.

1.1 On 31 May 1987, The Government of Israel resolved:

“That the matter of the GSS methods of interrogation regarding Hostile Terrorist Activity (HTA) is – in the wake of Criminal Appeal 124/87 (Nafsu) – a subject of vital public importance at this time which requires elucidation.”

Therefore the Government decided:

“To establish a Commission of Inquiry, in accordance with Sec. 1 of the Commissions of Inquiry Law, 1968, regarding the investigation methods and procedures of the GSS on HTA, and the giving of testimony in court in connection with these investigations.

“The Commission will make recommendations and proposals, as it sees fit, also regarding the appropriate methods and procedures concerning these investigations in the future, while taking into account the unique needs of the struggle against Hostile Terrorist Activity.”

In recent years reform of the Law of Evidence has been the subject of renewed interest in many common law countries. Since the adoption of the Federal Rules, debate about wholesale reform has been relatively muted in the United States. But this is exceptional. Major reports have been produced in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Scotland, and England. With the exception of Canada, most of these have led, or are likely to lead, to significant legislative changes. This period of reformist activity has coincided with a greatly increased interest in theoretical aspects of evidence and proof, sometimes referred to as “The New Evidence Scholarship”. The historical origins of these two movements are rather different, but their ways of talking and thinking about the subject are, of course, intimately connected.

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.

Why should fairness be a dominant interest of criminal proceedings? Such questions are shocking, and asking them arouses perplexity. Fairness is quite an obvious value, unquestioned in law, criminal proceedings, in human rights and in everyday life.

It is certainly not the purpose of this paper to cast any doubt upon the basic assumption that trials must be fair. However, there is a certain attractiveness in looking for an answer to a question when the answer appears to be obvious. There is also a chance that an analysis of the background of a norm will strengthen that norm and the motivation to respect it. Such a study may even add colour and contour to the norm and assist in its interpretation.