Ben & Jerry's – the famous ice cream brand known for its quirky flavours and social justice ethos – announced in 2021 that it would withdraw its products from Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). This announcement sparked controversy, with an impact on the company and its parent, Unilever. While the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (2011) (UNGP) have established themselves as the leading international governance framework for the social responsibilities of businesses, their application to conflict-affected areas lacks clarity. Questions remain, including when is a company legally complicit in violations of international humanitarian law (IHL), and when is a corporate exit from an area under military occupation the appropriate and responsible thing to do. This article uses Ben & Jerry's withdrawal from the OPT as the basis for investigating these questions. It finds that while it is unlikely that Ben & Jerry's would be exposed to any legal liability for violating IHL through its product sales in Israeli settlements in the OPT, its withdrawal aligns with its responsibilities under the UNGP as a reasonable and prudent corporate action in response to its activities being linked to enduring and severe IHL violations.

The ‘constitutional reform’ planned by the government that assumed power in Israel in December 2022 is not an end in itself. Its aim is to provide the basis for planned policies and actions of the government that are incompatible with Israel's present constitutional order, and that are unlikely to stand up to judicial review before the present judges of the Supreme Court. This article discusses the connection between various parts of the reform and the plans to make a radical change in Israel's policies in the occupied West Bank. It examines the coalition agreement between PM Netanyahu's Likud party and the Religious Zionist Party, and exposes the connection between the commitment in that agreement to the policies regarding the occupation and the planned ‘reform’.

This article explores the legal obligations of Occupying Powers with regard to climate change adaptation for local populations and their environment under the law of occupation, specifically in the context of prolonged belligerent occupations. It focuses on the critical matter of water and food security, in light of the increasing frequency and severity of extreme weather events. After shedding light on the intricate issues that arise at the intersection of climate change and belligerent occupation, the article argues that the general obligations incumbent upon the Occupying Power under occupation law, when viewed through a climate lens, can be construed as addressing the heightened climate vulnerability faced by occupied populations.

This article invites the reader on a journey through the legal arguments that would confirm the application of the United Nations (UN) climate change regime to belligerent occupations. Although the regime is silent on this issue, its application should not be limited to peacetime due to the seriousness of global climate change and its adverse effects on the environment and living entities. A harmonious interpretation and application of the UN climate change regime and the law of occupation would allow Occupying Powers to ensure the safety and well-being of the civilian population and contribute to the protection of the Earth's climate system.

Both in its advisory and contentious jurisdiction, the International Court of Justice has made considerable contributions to the evolution and interpretation of international humanitarian law (IHL). The judgments and advisory opinions of the Court in various cases have also developed the regulation of armed conflicts by showing the interplay of other bodies of international law and have shaped the development of non-binding IHL norms. The purpose of this short article is to consider the role of the International Court of Justice in the development of IHL.

International humanitarian law (IHL) categorically prohibits all types of collective punishment. However, neither treaty nor customary sources provide a clear definition of what should be deemed a collective punishment. Given this lack of clarity, it is no surprise that little attention has been paid to the way in which resorting to different forms of collective punishment during a belligerent occupation might lead to additional violations of international law, including IHL and international human rights law (IHRL). This article explores the notion of collective punishment under the law of occupation and connects it with other relevant rules of international law. Based on this analysis, and using the Occupied Palestinian Territory as a case study, the article argues that violating the prohibition of collective punishment in a situation of belligerent occupation in all likelihood will trigger the breach of other concomitant rules of IHL and IHRL, thus shedding light on the scope of the prohibition contained in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

In 2019, media investigations revealed that Israel had added facial recognition technologies (FRTs) to the panoply of security and surveillance technologies deployed in its administration and control of the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). Despite growing academic and judicial scrutiny of the legal implications of these technologies for privacy and freedom of assembly in domestic contexts, scant attention has been paid to their uses by militaries in contexts where international humanitarian law (IHL) applies. This article seeks to establish the international legal framework governing an Occupying Power's deployment of FRTs, particularly in surveillance, and apply it to Israel's uses in the oPt. It is demonstrated that IHL provides flexible, but incomplete, provisions for balancing an Occupying Power's right to employ surveillance technologies within its measures of control and security against the imprecisely defined humanitarian interests of the population under occupation. The relevant legal framework is completed through the concurrent application of an Occupying Power's international human rights law (IHRL) obligations. What is known of Israel's use of FRTs in surveillance appears prima facie not to satisfy the cumulative IHRL criteria for limitations on the right to privacy – legality, legitimate aims, necessity and proportionality – even where these are broadened by reference to IHL. Consideration is also paid to corollary human rights impacts of these technologies, and the potential that they may entrench an Occupying Power's control while simultaneously rendering this control more invisible, remote and less reliant on the physical presence of troops.

It has long been recognised that ‘non-consent’ is a fundamental element of the law of occupation. Under modern international humanitarian law (IHL), the consensual presence of foreign military forces is generally not seen as belligerent occupation.

However, if we accept the principle that the application of IHL should rely on the objective situation on the ground and not on the subjective judgment of the situation of parties to the conflict, it may be natural to diminish the significance of consent by the territorial states in relation to the application of the law of occupation. It may be somewhat harmful to deny such protection based solely on the existence of the territorial states’ consent without considering the relationship, in reality, between the occupier and the population in the occupied area. According to a teleological interpretation of IHL, especially when it is obvious that the latter has no allegiance to the former, the tense relationship between them should be regulated by the law of occupation.

This article discusses whether and how state consent could be a humanitarian ground to negate the legal protection for its own people, and highlights situations where the local population needs protection by the law of occupation (or comparable rules) in consensual military occupations.

The occupation of Iraq in 2003 involved a wide-ranging set of interventions in the domestic legal, political and economic structures of the state, interventions that provoked a debate about whether the law of occupation should recognize a category of ‘transformative’ occupation.

While the occupation itself has often been decried as an imperial venture, its administration involved a diffusion of power among international institutions as well as ratification by the Security Council through Resolution 1483. This article pursues the intuition that the transformation of norms and practices elsewhere in the international order underwrote the idea that it was the law of occupation that was problematic, at the same time facilitating the transmutation and preservation of practices that might be identified as imperial. Two developments are key: The first is the pervasive normalization of intervention in the domestic policy and legal orders of states; the second is the dissemination of norms about domestic regulation within the international order, those that touch on economic governance in particular. The orders of the occupying were infused in both form and substance with ideas of ‘normal governance’ traceable to myriad projects, policies and practices of other international institutions: development agencies, financial institutions, trade organizations. Iraq then might be a revealing case with which to consider the character and locations of contemporary imperialism, as well as the role of international law and international institutions in its unfolding.

Yehuda Blum's article, ostensibly devoted to an examination of the lawfulness of a military order under the law of occupation, actually explored a preliminary question – whether Jordan had valid title to the West Bank (referred to as ‘Judea and Samaria’). Concluding that Jordan had no title, Blum concluded that the law of occupation did not apply. This reflection revisits Blum's thesis. It suggests that Blum's argument failed to elucidate the relevant legal questions and therefore his conclusion was hasty. It would be distressing to think that it was Blum's article that convinced Israeli decision-makers to deny the formal applicability of the law of occupation to the West Bank and Gaza.

Applying human rights beyond state borders is thorny. Which law governs the property rights of a Palestinian whose orchard lies across the Israeli border, or the cross-border shooting of a Mexican citizen by a United States border control agent? This article explores the relationship between constitutional law and international law in the extraterritorial enforcement of human rights by offering a typology of models: the American, European and Israeli models. These models are analysed comparatively, highlighting their chosen legal source of rights: the American model applies constitutional law, the European model uses international law, and Israel combines the two.

The article argues that the choice between constitutional and international law is important as it affects the nature and scope of rights, and reflects the relationship between the state and the territory it controls or within which it acts. The dynamic formation process of the Israeli model demonstrates the multiple possible ways to combine these two sources of law and formulate the relationship between them.

All three models share a ‘constitutional mindset’: the use of basic legal concepts and reasoning in legally grey zones. However, these transnational processes are not deterministic and could result in original concepts, contradictions and discrepancies, as well as serve different political visions.

The article deals with the effect of the time factor in the application of international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) in ‘prolonged belligerent occupations’. It demonstrates that IHL applies in its entirety to such situations and that the adjustments necessary can be made through the interpretation of existing IHL norms. As for IHRL, the protracted character of an occupation reinforces the importance of respecting and applying human rights. It cannot, however, be invoked in order to influence the interpretation of the notion of a state of emergency leading to the adoption of derogations from IHRL rules.

This article examines the historical evolution of the law of occupation from two angles. First, it analyses scholarly discourse and practice with respect to the general prohibition on the Occupying Power making changes to the laws and administrative structure of the occupied country, as embodied in Article 43 of the 1907 Hague Regulations. Many Occupying Powers and scholars have endeavoured to rationalize exceptions to this ‘general principle’ governing the entire corpus of the law of occupation. Their studies support the contingent nature of the law of occupation, with its interpretation being dependent on different historical settings and social context. The second part of the article focuses on how the law of occupation that evolved as a European project has rationalized excluding the system of colonialism from the framework of that law. The historical assessment of this body of jus in bello would be incomplete and biased if it did not address the narratives of such structural exclusivity.

This article explores the compatibilities and tensions between the human right to education and occupation law. In 2004, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued an advisory opinion stating that Occupying Powers must extend their international human rights treaty obligations to the people in the territories they occupy. This finding reaffirmed what many human rights and occupation law scholars and judicial and quasi-judicial bodies have long claimed. While occupation law and human rights law are largely compatible tensions between the two can arise however. This is not surprising given the basic premises that each body of law is based upon. While occupation law largely works to restrict the occupant from tampering with the laws and institutions of the occupied territory, there are significant portions of human rights law that work hard to press states to amend or change laws and develop infrastructure to accommodate the welfare of their populations. This tension is not merely theoretical. It has been the case since at least World War I that occupants have taken an interest in making changes to the education of youth and educational institutions in the territory they control. Relying primarily on the core obligations of the right to education, this study looks at the extraterritorial and positive human rights obligations that occupants have with regard to the primary education of children inside an occupied territory. It also sets out an approach that helps mediate the areas where the two are less than compatible.