Elena Chachko is an SJD candidate at Harvard Law School. She previously completed the LLM program at Harvard Law as a Fulbright scholar. Before coming to Harvard, she clerked for Chief Justice Asher D. Grunis on the Supreme Court of Israel, and worked on national security issues at the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She holds an LL.B in Law and International Relations from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where she served as editor in chief of the Hebrew University Law Review.
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A leaked letter from the heads of Israel’s major security agencies reveals tensions between the government and the security establishment over the allocation of powers and responsibilities in the cyber realm.
Can the acts of armed forces in the framework of an armed conflict governed by International Humanitarian Law constitute terrorist acts? According to a new judgment of the Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) the answer is yes, at least for the purposes of the EU counterterrorism sanctions regime.
The Israeli Knesset has passed an amendment to ban entry of foreign nationals who have publically called to boycott Israel, or act on behalf of organizations that have done so. This is not the first time Israeli law has imposed sanctions on the basis of speech in the framework of Israel’s anti-BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign. Previous legislation in this vein—part of Israel’s anti-BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) campaign—has largely survived judicial review and it is likely this new amendment will as well.
A primer on new legislation that purports to “legalize” illegal settlements in the West Bank.
While the resolution’s immediate practical significance is limited, it revitalizes the legal case against settlements under international law and provides a basis for states and organizations to act against Israeli settlements in the future.
If the Israeli Parliament (Knesset) eventually passes legislation that aims to "legalize" many settlements in the West Bank, it is difficult to see how the law could survive a constitutional challenge in court. It is also unclear who will defend it.
We provide an up-to-date list of the States that have expressed support for the “unwilling or unable” test (explicitly or implicitly), with the aim of making as much information as possible available in one place.