In the increasingly legalized landscape in which armed conflicts are now waged, international humanitarian law has become an integral and ever more central part of military strategy. States can and do use it to gain advantage over their adversaries, but must also contend with challenges that arise when it is wielded against them. In their efforts to respond to these challenges official and unofficial advocates of State powers have advanced modes of argumentation which question the fundamental structure of international humanitarian law. This Article takes issue with one such argument that mobilizes the theologico-political principle of the “lesser-evil” to conclude that acts which are absolutely prohibited under international humanitarian law should nevertheless be deemed legally permissible when their foreseen consequences are less harmful than lawful alternatives. The Article demonstrates that this argument threatens to blur IHL's sharp boundaries and expand its zone's of elasticity thereby undermining its structural principles. More specifically, the Article maintains that the argument in question rests on exaggerated faith in the judgment of belligerent parties, that it fails on its own utilitarian logic and that it ignores deontological reasoning fundamental to international humanitarian law. The Article contends that accepting this argument would severely compromise IHL's capacity to limit violence and preserve human dignity and therefore advocates that it be rejected.

Immigration often involves the migration of people of specific cultural and religious background to countries in which the predominant cultural and religious background is quite different. This may result in attempts by receiving countries to restrict the new immigrants ‘cultural and religious practices. The Article uses the debate surrounding the wearing of the veil in Europe as a test case for the way in which recognition rights may be affected by the process of immigration. First, the Article maintains that the balance of rights and interests involved in conflicts over immigrants’ rights changes along the process of immigration, and divides this process into three stages—the entry application, the application for citizenship, and the life as an immigrant in the receiving country. Subsequently, it lays out the conflicting rights and interests involved in the veil controversy—the conflict between immigrant and local cultures; the conflict between immigrants’ religious liberty and state interests such as maintaining religious neutrality/laïcité, and protecting from the perceived threat of radical political Islam; the conflicting claims regarding the effects of veiling on women's equality. Finally, the Article analyzes each of these conflicts along the three stages of immigration and offers an assessment of the validity of the conflicting claims surrounding the veil in Europe on the basis of this analysis, claiming that the restrictions on wearing the veil in the public sphere are not justified, but that a much narrower restriction pertaining to some instances of the wearing of the full face burqa can be justified.

In 2003 Israel adopted the Nationality and Entry into Israel (Provisional Measure) Law, 5763-2003. The Provisional Measure deals generally with entry into Israel; at first it dealt only with entry into Israel of residents of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, and later it was extended also to nationals and residents of Iran, Iraq, Lebanon and Syria. It is particularly relevant for cases of unification of families and immigration for the purpose of marriage.

The following article offers a short summary of the law as it has been amended in 2005 and 2007, as well as its interpretation by the government (since 2008) and then examines its conformity with international law. The Provisional Measure involves a clash between the right of the individual to marry the person of his choice and establish a family on the one hand, and the right of the state to regulate freely immigration and entry into its territory on the other hand. Since international law has not established a right to family unification nor to immigration for the purpose of marriage, the right of the state prevails in this matter. Yet, the Provisional Measure deviates from international law in a different aspect, as it leads to a de facto discrimination, mostly of Israeli Arabs. This discrimination is not permitted by the Convention for the Elimination of all Forms of Racial Discrimination, to which Israel is a party. It is recommended that Israel amends the law in order to bring it into conformity with international law.

The Law of Return grants every Jew the right to immigrate to Israel; this also applies to non-Jewish relatives of Jews. The Citizenship Law grants every such “returnee” automatic citizenship. The wave of immigration from the former Soviet Union in the 90s brought a large number of immigrants not considered Jewish under the definition accepted in Israel. Is this large group of Israeli citizens—who do not, at least formally, belong to the Jewish people—an emerging second substantial national minority in Israel? This Article argues that regardless of formal definitions based on Orthodox religious law under which a religious conversion is the only way for a non-Jew to become Jewish, these immigrants, through their successful social and cultural integration in the Hebrew-speaking Jewish society in Israel, are joining, de facto, the Jewish people. It is no longer true that religious conversion is the only way to join the Jewish people.

First let me say that I regard it as a great honour and a privilege to be asked to give this year's Lionel Cohen Lecture. I am very grateful to Professor Menahem Ben-Sasson as President and Professor Barak Medina as Dean of the Faculty for hosting this event here at the Hebrew University. It is a pleasure to be giving this lecture in a city of such central importance to three great religions; a city steeped in historical significance; but also a city which—through institutions such as the Hebrew University—is preparing today's youth for a bright future. Whilst I recognize and celebrate the University's distinguished heritage, it is particularly gratifying to find an institution not resting on the past but actively preparing for the future through its outreach projects such as those of the Clinical Legal Education Center for Human Rights and Social Responsibility. I am very interested in the work being done through the clinics on domestic violence and on youth justice through initiatives such as the “Street Law” program. This work chimes with many of my own priorities and concerns, and I was therefore very grateful to learn more about this work from Sharon Sionov Arad. I confess that I will steal every good idea I heard, but I also promise that I will give every credit where it is due for those that I do!