The rule of law in the areas administered by Israel

Middle East and North Africa
Issue: Global Security
Document Type: Thematic Report
Date: 1981

While this study is neither government-sponsored nor government-backed, it is mostly the work of lawyers who do their reserve duty in the Israel Defence Forces as legal advisers to the military commanders in the administered areas.

Normally, they engage in private practice as advocates before the ordinary courts of Israel; but for a few weeks each year they perform their military duties by devoting their legal abilities and acumen to fostering the Rule of Law in the administered areas.

Many of them are members or supporters of the Israel National Section of the International Commission of Jurists — whose objects they promote by keeping a constant and jealous watch for any infringement or diminution of the Rule of Law at the hands of military men and administrators not trained in the law.

If they have not always succeeded, it is because security considerations, which are not within their competence or expertise, have been regarded as overriding — as indeed they are under the provisions of international law.

While all of those legal contributors will have to remain anonymous, it is my pleasant duty to mention at least the most active and outstanding among them, Joel Singer, the head of the International Law Branch of the Military Advocate-General’s Unit, without whose devotion and scholarship this study could never have crystallized.

Israel-the rule of law in the administered areas-thematic report-1981-eng (full text in English, PDF)

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