Israel Law Review

The journal is recorded as a refereed periodical available in online and print formats.[1][2] A print catalog record identifies Jerusalem as the place of publication, the Israel Law Review Association as publisher, and the Hebrew University of Jerusalem Faculty of Law as an associated creator.[2] The online record also lists Cambridge University Press in Cambridge, UK as a co-publisher. The separate entries appear to describe the print and digital formats rather than a substantive institutional disagreement.[1][2]

Recorded title variants include Israel law review and the abbreviation Isr. L. Rev.[1] The print record describes an English-language periodical with physical volumes measuring 24 centimeters.[2] Both records state that it appears three times a year, while the online record dates that frequency from 2000.[1][2]

Volume 1, number 1 of the Israel Law Review was dated January 1966, and the online periodical record catalogs publication from 1966 onward.[1] The same record associates the journal's full and abbreviated titles with its initial volume and subsequent online publication history.[1]

Cataloged examples demonstrate a broad disciplinary range, including constitutional and legal-philosophical theory and environmental regulation.[3][5] Other contributions address the interaction of Israeli and Jewish law, religious affiliation, conversion, and personal-status law.[6][7] The journal has also carried work on international humanitarian law and historical questions of public international law.[4][8]

Alon Harel and Ron Shapira's article "Civil Disobedience and Conscientious Objection" appeared in volume 36, issue 3 (2002), pages 181–217.[3] Dan Avnon's "The Israeli Basic Laws' (Potentially) Fatal Flaw" appeared in volume 32, issue 4 (1998), pages 535–566, and was assigned in a syllabus on Israel's judicial branch and constitutional setting.[9] Frances Raday's "On Equality: Judicial Profiles," published in volume 35 (2003) at page 380, was cited in a discussion of women and Israeli law.[10]

Volume 24 (1990) carried B. Lifshitz's "Israeli Law and Jewish Law – Interaction and Independence" and E. Shochetman's "Israeli Law and Jewish Law – Interaction and Independence: A Commentary," both listed at pages 507–524.[6] G. Blidstein's "Who is Not a Jew?" appeared in volume 11, issue 3 (1976), pages 369–390, and was cited in a study of halakhic approaches to conversion and Jewish identity.[11] Pinchas Shifman's "Religious Affiliation in Israeli Interreligious Law" was published in January 1980 and cited in a discussion of Israel's allocation of personal-status matters to religious courts.[7]

Environmental and regulatory law has also featured in the journal. A. Rosenthal (Tal)'s "Measuring Noise: Towards an Optimal Judicial Policy" appeared in volume 20, number 1 (1985), pages 4–98, while O. Marom-Albeck and A. Tal's "Towards a More Effective Model of Public Interest Environmental Citizen Suits" appeared in volume 34, number 3 (2000), pages 373–424. Both are listed under a bibliography heading for peer-reviewed journal articles.[5]

A recurring strand of the journal's output engages with international legal questions arising from Israeli history and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Yehuda Blum's "The Missing Reversioner: Reflections on the Status of Judea and Samaria" was published in volume 3 (1968), beginning on page 279.[12][13] The work is cited in discussions of the status of the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — Jordan's 1950 annexation, and the applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to areas captured by Israel in 1967.[12][13] Shabtai Rosenne's "On Multi-Lingual Interpretation," published in volume 6 (1971) at page 360, has been cited in discussions of the official-language versions of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242 and its wording on boundaries and Israeli withdrawal.[12] The same volume carried "The Six-Day War and the Right of Self-Defence" at pages 65–80.[14]

Nissim Bar-Yaakov's "The Applicability of the Laws of War to Judea and Samaria (the West Bank) and to the Gaza Strip" appeared in volume 24 (1990), pages 485–487. It is cited in connection with statements by senior Israeli officials rejecting the de jure applicability of the Fourth Geneva Convention to Israel's administration of areas captured in the 1967 War.[13] Moshe Drori's "Municipal Elections in Occupied Judea and Samaria" appeared in volume 9 (1974) at page 97 and was cited in a study of Israel and the United Nations.[15]

Volume 49, issue 3 (2016), pages 287–308, carried an article examining what the League of Nations mandate system and the Palestine Mandate said, and continue to say, about international law and Palestine.[4] Volume 52 (2019) published Yutaka Arai-Takahashi's "Unearthing the Problematic Terrain of Prolonged Occupation" at page 129, while volume 54 (2021) carried Anne Herzberg's "Lex Generalis Derogat Legi Speciali: IHL in Human Rights Regulation of Military Courts Operating in Situations of Armed Conflict" at page 84.[8]

Several contributions concern disputed interpretations of international law rather than settled legal consensus. Volume 38, numbers 1–2 (2005) was devoted to a special issue titled "Domestic and International Judicial Review of the Construction of the Separation Barrier." The issue contained detailed analyses of different aspects of the International Court of Justice process concerning Israel's security barrier.[16]

Gerald M. Steinberg's contribution, "The UN, the ICJ and the Separation Barrier: War by Other Means," appeared on pages 331–347.[16] Steinberg, who was a member of the Israel Law Review's advisory board, addressed the roles of the United Nations and the International Court of Justice in the controversy surrounding the barrier.[17] The special issue gathered multiple analyses around a single politically and legally contested subject.[16]

The journal has published scholarship examining fact-finding by international non-governmental organizations involved in conflict monitoring and international humanitarian-law enforcement. Gerald Steinberg and Anne Herzberg's "NGO Fact-Finding for IHL Enforcement: In Search of a New Model" appeared in volume 51, issue 2 (2018).[17] The article examined methodologies employed by organizations including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International and expanded on a presentation delivered by the authors in 2016 at the 11th Annual Minerva Center–International Committee of the Red Cross Conference on International Humanitarian Law at the Hebrew University.[18]

An earlier article, "IHL 2.0: Is There a Role for Social Media in Monitoring and Enforcement," was published in the journal in 2012 and was listed alongside the 2018 Steinberg-Herzberg article among publications concerning international humanitarian law, human-rights law, and the Arab-Israeli conflict.[19] Cordula Droege's "The Interplay between International Humanitarian Law and International Human Rights Law in Situations of Armed Conflict" appeared in volume 40 (2007), beginning at pages 310–311.[8]

Volume 54 (2021), issue 3, pages 305–323, included "Israeli Pre-Transitional Justice and the Nakba Law" (DOI: 10.1017/S0021223721000157). An erratum published in volume 55, issue 1 on March 24, 2022 corrected incomplete references in footnotes 15 and 17, and the online version was updated.[20]