Amichai Cohen

Administering the Territories: An Inquiry into the Application of International Humanitarian Law by the IDF in the Occupied Territories

This article seeks to evaluate Israels implementation of the international law of occupation in the territories which it came to control after the Six-Day War, from a new perspective. Many scholars have criticized or justified specific Israeli policies by comparing them to specific norms of international law. Contrary to this scholarship, this article addresses the questions at the core of current debates over the implementation of international law: Why has Israel chosen to implement some specific rules of international law and to ignore others? And what caused the changes in Israels implementation of international law? Some of the answers to these questions can be found by examining the interests of various institutions involved in the implementation of International law, and the interplay between them. I suggest that in order to understand Israels initial behavior one must look at the interests, goals and culture of the Israeli army, the IDF, the institution initially responsible for administering the territories. I shall further argue that subsequent changes in policies are a result of the struggle between the IDF and other Israeli institutions attempting to gain influence over the way the territories were controlled.

Rules and Standards in the Application of International Humanitarian Law

Many scholars have written about the changes in international humanitarian law in recent years. Many have seen this change in the environment of International humanitarian law as a result of greater application of human rights in this area of law. This article approaches the changes in international humanitarian law from a different perspective, that of law and economics. The main claim in this article is that recent changes in international humanitarian law could be seen as a change from a rule based normative system, to a standard based one. The differences between a rule system and a standard system lie not in the complexity of the norms, but in the questions of who makes decisions and when are decisions taken. In a rule - the decisions are taken before the fact, and in a standard - after the fact. This article then evaluates the advantages and disadvantages of this move from rules to standards, and offers some observations and future possibilities for research.

Beyond the Grave Breaches Regime: The Duty to Investigate Alleged Violations of International Law Governing Armed Conflicts

The purpose of the present article is to critically evaluate the contemporary international law obligation to investigate military conduct in times of conflict and to identify relevant normative trends. In a nutshell, we argue that the traditional focus on the Geneva grave breaches regime in the context of military investigations is misplaced. The duty to investigate is far broader – encompassing the alleged violation of many other norms of IHL and IHRL.