The use of force in foreign territories has been contained in the Constitution of the Republic of Turkey, with the authorisation of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, in ‘cases deemed legitimate by international law’ and where required by international treaties to which Turkey is a party. Yet Turkey's extraterritorial use of force against armed non-state actors lead to the most important question of identifying the circumstances under which the Turkish authorities have long justified military intervention in foreign territories. This article aims to assess whether Turkey's use of force and alleged extraterritorial self-defence contravenes international law. In order to address how Turkey interprets the right to use armed force and the right of self-defence, and to bring clarity to the state's approach to international law on the use of force (jus ad bellum), the article explores Turkey's practice based on the assessment of the Turkish military intervention in Syria, in line with both bilateral security or defence treaties to which Turkey is a party and the use of force in self-defence. The aim is to determine whether Turkey's justifications are compatible with the jus ad bellum criteria.

How should the constitutional reform in Israel be assessed in comparative terms? Comparative constitutional understandings point to the centrality of three key sets of norms as part of the ‘democratic minimum core’: (i) commitments to free and fair, regular multi-party elections; (ii) political rights and freedoms; and (iii) a system of institutional checks and balances necessary to maintain (i) and (ii). Any change in judicial power and independence must be assessed against the benchmark of the democratic minimum core, and by reference to its cumulative practical effect on a system of institutional checks and balances.

We claim that recent changes in Israel may already threaten these institutional checks, and have the potential to do more damage in the future, if given broad effect and if combined with further changes in the power and independence of the Supreme Court. On this basis, we suggest, the relevant changes should be viewed as either ‘abusive’ or ‘proto-abusive’ in nature. By threatening to undermine both the power and independence of the Supreme Court of Israel, they directly threaten the health of the constitutional checks and balances system and, hence, the ‘democratic minimum core’ in Israel.

Military artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled technology might still be in the relatively fledgling stages but the debate on how to regulate its use is already in full swing. Much of the discussion revolves around autonomous weapons systems (AWS) and the ‘responsibility gap’ they would ostensibly produce. This contribution argues that while some military AI technologies may indeed cause a range of conceptual hurdles in the realm of individual responsibility, they do not raise any unique issues under the law of state responsibility. The following analysis considers the latter regime and maps out crucial junctions in applying it to potential violations of the cornerstone of international humanitarian law (IHL) – the principle of distinction – resulting from the use of AI-enabled military technologies. It reveals that any challenges in ascribing responsibility in cases involving AWS would not be caused by the incorporation of AI, but stem from pre-existing systemic shortcomings of IHL and the unclear reverberations of mistakes thereunder. The article reiterates that state responsibility for the effects of AWS deployment is always retained through the commander's ultimate responsibility to authorise weapon deployment in accordance with IHL. It is proposed, however, that should the so-called fully autonomous weapon systems – that is, machine learning-based lethal systems that are capable of changing their own rules of operation beyond a predetermined framework – ever be fielded, it might be fairer to attribute their conduct to the fielding state, by conceptualising them as state agents, and treat them akin to state organs.

Both international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL) make extensive references to humanity. Yet the role attributed to humanity differs between the two. Humanity is seen in IHRL as the source of the rights, whereas in IHL it is interpreted as a moral obligation to avoid harm. This article challenges this perspective. Relying upon contemporary interpretations of IHL, it will be argued that, in a moral sense, IHL matches up closely with IHRL. Crucial here is that humanity, rather than reflect a utilitarian perspective to avoid harm, is worded in stronger terms. To reflect this accurately, it is argued that IHL is best seen as a reflection of TM Scanlon's contractualism as opposed to utilitarian reasoning. Relying upon the similarities in moral reasoning visible in both bodies of law, the article argues that this should also be reflected when it comes to redress for violations. In a concrete sense, the argument here is that this also presents a moral requirement to recognise individual claims within IHL. To give legal effect to this moral demand, it is suggested that IHRL might play a role in bridging the gap between the moral and legal considerations in IHL.

This article focuses on the application of autonomous weapons (AWs) in defensive systems and, consequently, assesses the conditions of the legality of employing such weapons from the perspective of the right to self-defence. How far may humans exert control over AWs? Are there any legal constraints in using AWs for the purpose of self-defence? How does their use fit into the traditional criteria of self-defence? The article claims that there are no legal grounds to exclude AWs in advance from being employed to exercise the right to self-defence. In general, the legality of their use depends on how they were pre-programmed by humans and whether they were activated under proper circumstances. The article is divided into three parts. The first discusses how human control over AWs affects the legality of their use. Secondly, the article analyses the criteria of necessity and proportionality during the exercise of the right to self-defence in the context of the employment of AWs. Finally, the use of AWs for anticipatory, pre-emptive or preventive self-defence is investigated.

The judicial overhaul, designed to weaken the judiciary and unleash governmental power from its structural checks, should be understood, we argue, as part of a deeper transformation of Israel's constitutional identity. At its core, this transformation is not about ‘empowering the people’ but rather about questioning Israel's commitment to the fundamental principle of equal citizenship, mainly regarding the permissibility of preferring the interests of Jews over those of non-Jews. Understanding the judicial overhaul as part of this larger transformation of the state's identity, towards more Jewish and less democratic, carries normative implications regarding its legitimacy.

The judicial overhaul is often presented by the Israeli government as an attempt to undo the 1992 so-called ‘constitutional revolution’, questioning its legitimacy and asserting that a counter-revolution would be permissible, aligning with the current will of the people. An examination of Israel's constitutional history refutes this argument. We show that while the 1992 revolution enjoyed both normative and, at least, partial social legitimacy, current attempts do not.

This article tackles the question of the legality of section 5B of the Civil Wrongs (Liability of the State) Law, which precludes the Palestinian residents of the Gaza Strip, members of terrorist organisations and their agents from obtaining compensation for injuries suffered as a result of the negligent conduct of Israeli security forces. The question is examined through the lens of Israel's tort law, comparative law, the law of occupation, and international human rights law.

A special focus is given to the amendments made in the said section and its interpretation by Israeli courts, while addressing the state's tort liability towards nationals of enemy states and members of terrorist organisations. In order to emphasise the legal difficulties arising from the Law and the need for its re-examination, the 2018 protests near the Israel-Gaza border are used as a case study. The article concludes by offering to revoke the legal identification as enemy state nationals of Gaza's residents for the purposes of applying state liability in tort. In addition, it recommends the adoption of an individual examination mechanism in relation to members of terrorist organisations. These suggestions are expected to better fulfil the purposes underlying the state's tort liability exemptions, while increasing Israel's compliance with its legal obligations.

Some have proposed the development of technologies that improve our moral behaviour – moral enhancement – in order to address global risks such as pandemics, global warming and nuclear war. I will argue that this technology could be weaponised to manipulate the moral dispositions of enemy combatants. Despite being morally controversial, weaponised moral enhancement would be neither clearly prohibited nor easily prohibitable by international war law. Unlike previous psychochemical weapons, it would be relatively physically harmless. I argue that when combatants are liable to lethal aggression to achieve an aim of war, they are also liable to weaponised moral enhancement to achieve that same aim. Weaponised moral enhancement will loosen just war requirements in both traditional and revisionist normative just war theories. It will particularly affect revisionist theories’ jus ad bellum requirements for humanitarian and preventive wars. For instance, weaponised moral enhancement could be more proportional and efficacious than lethal aggression to effect institutional changes in preventive and humanitarian wars. I will conclude that, despite evading international war laws and loosening normative just war requirements, the intuition that weaponised moral enhancement would gravely harm combatants can be defended by arguing that it would severely disturb personal identity, which could potentially ground future prohibitions.

The article discusses the current legal-political crisis in Israel against the backdrop of the judicial and political powers that have led to the present situation. The disastrous Yom Kippur War of 1973 weakened the government and public confidence in the political institutions. The weaknesses of the government enabled the Supreme Court to carry out a judicial revolution, which completely changed the country's legal system. The legal revolution entered a new stage when the Supreme Court held that the Basic Laws form part of Israel's constitution. This judicially created constitution opened the way for judicial review of legislation. Its weakness stems from the fact that Basic Laws are legislated in much the same way as ordinary legislation. As a result, the Knesset can easily override any ruling of the Court that voids a statute, by amending the relevant Basic Law. The Court is now struggling to find a means of gaining some control over the legislation of Basic Laws. At the same time, the present government declared its intention to carry out legal reforms that are in effect a counter-revolution to the judicial revolution. The article examines how the fluctuation in the political support of the Court affects its decisions.

Traditionally, international human rights adjudication relied on the paradigm of extraterritoriality on the rare occasions when it was confronted with cross-border cases. This paradigm recognises only limited circumstances in which states bear extraterritorial human rights obligations. However, with globalisation, transboundary human rights cases have multiplied. This emerging litigation increasingly reveals that the paradigm of extraterritoriality is no longer fit to address global crises. Extraterritoriality demands effective control over a territory, or authority and control over a person, for a state to exercise jurisdiction outside its territory. Thus, several cases of cross-border human rights abuses are inevitably barred on jurisdictional grounds. This is particularly true for obligations of a global character, which are, by their very nature, completely unrelated to the control that states exercise over territories or people. It is therefore necessary to look beyond extraterritoriality. This article analyses the competing paradigms of universality and transnationality as they have been adopted by domestic courts. It argues that international human rights adjudication should reconceptualise extraterritoriality against the background of universality and transnationality to address global crises.

This article aims to show how reform of the law on terrorism not only has the power to create new criminal procedures, it can also create a distinct, parallel field operating alongside general criminal law. This parallel configuration presents certain unique features and processes which merit their own typology – namely, anti-terrorism criminal law (ATCL). First, the article discusses how states have responded to terrorism through reform of four key arenas: military law, immigration law, administrative law and criminal law. Comparison is then drawn between the United States and Israel in their respective approaches, showing that Israel has executed far more sweeping and significant reforms over the last four decades, mainly in criminal procedure. Examples are given to illustrate how Israel's evolving anti-terrorism legislation – and specifically, the new Counter-Terrorism Law of 2016 – changed the criminal procedural landscape to such a degree that it constituted the new field of ATCL. I contend that this move was anti-liberal in its definition and targeting of terror suspects, and in its pursuit of emergency aims and intelligence gathering rather than liberal criminal law objectives. Further, I show that liberal theory struggles to explain the integrated change model that Israel has implemented in its counter-terrorism reforms, and that the theoretical framings of Carl Schmitt and Michel Foucault may explain it more effectively.

The Knesset has recently amended Basic Law: The Judiciary to eliminate the ability of the courts to issue an injunction against the government or any of its ministers based on the reasonableness of their decisions. This article examines this amendment from various angles. The first section posits the amendment as part of a larger plan of the coalition to eliminate judicial review and provide the government with unlimited power. The second section emphasises that the amendment was legislated by the Knesset for itself, raising concern over a conflict of interest. This is followed by a brief explanation of the reasonableness standard in Israeli law, and an assessment of the duty to act reasonably, which stems from the democratic principle of the rule of law. The next two sections assess the many risks that the amendment creates, such as the types of decision that could be made without adhering to a standard of reasonableness, and the trimming of the power of the Attorney General as a legal ‘gatekeeper’. Special emphasis is given to the dangers that the amendment holds for the quality and diversity of the civil service. Finally, the article discusses the multiple reasons why the government should not be immune from a reasonableness check and tackles the arguments against the use of the standard of reasonableness by the courts.

This multifaceted analysis leads to the conclusion that the elimination of the reasonableness standard undermines basic features of democracy and fractures the social contract between the citizens and the government. Therefore, it should not be immune from judicial review.

The current political landscape in Israel, with countrywide demonstrations occurring weekly, and citizens calling for democracy in the face of initiatives introduced by the coalition, may be regarded as transformative events with potential constitutional implications. This article explores the question of whether Israel is experiencing a ‘constitutional moment’ and what such a moment entails, taking into account the intricate social, legal and political reality of the country. I argue that the current events should be examined and analysed within a broader context of processes that have been occurring in the Israeli society and legal system over the past two decades. These processes may hinder or create challenges for the realisation of a constitutional moment, rather than facilitating progress towards that goal. Correspondingly, the article lays the basic foundations for the occurrence of an Israeli constitutional moment, which I refer to as ‘constitutionalising Israel's constitutional system’.

In January 2021 the Human Rights Committee determined that Italy and Malta had both failed to protect the right to life of more than 200 migrants who perished in a shipwreck in 2013. The Committee tackled for the first time the question of extraterritorial application of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to persons in distress at sea. While finding the decision against Malta to be inadmissible, the Committee engaged in a significant analysis of the concept of jurisdiction in both decisions. This article analyses how the decisions interpret the concept of ‘jurisdiction’ and juxtaposes this analysis against the approaches taken in other international legal regimes. The article then theorises on the impact of these two decisions in helping to crystallise a new ‘right to be rescued at sea’.

In 1989, the Supreme Court of Bangladesh, in the Anwar Hossain Chowdhury case, first embraced implicit unamendability or interpretative unamendability of the Constitution – that is, the basic structure doctrine. Since then, the basic structure or the basic feature doctrine has been recognised as the theoretical premise underpinning judicial review of constitutional amendments in Bangladesh. In 2011, the Parliament adopted Article 7B of the Constitution, which introduced explicit or codified unamendability of a substantial number of provisions of the Constitution. This article argues that with the adoption of Article 7B, the basic structure doctrine has lost its relevance as the most important normative tool for determining the validity of future constitutional amendments, and this was confirmed in the Asaduzzaman case, in which the parliamentary mechanism for the removal of Supreme Court judges was held unconstitutional on the basis of Article 7B of the Constitution. It is also argued that the reasoning provided in the majority opinion of the Asaduzzaman case is not entirely flawless.