David Kretzmer was born in Johannesburg, South Africa in 1943. He completed his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem before studying for his doctorate at York University in Canada. Kretzmer served as an intern for Supreme Court Justice Berenzon and in 1968 received his license to practice law.  In 1975 Kretzmer received an appointment as a lecturer at the Hebrew University and in 1991 he was appointed a professor. Kretzmer’s areas of expertise include public international law, administrative law, andconstitutional law. Over the years he has published a large number of books and articles on such subject as the Supreme Court’s protection of human rights, the legal status of Arab citizens of Israel, freedom of expression and racist statements, the right of protest, judicial review, the concept of human dignity in human rights discourse, the applicability of the Geneva Convention to the Palestinian Authority areas, and so forth. Kretzmer was among the founders of B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and has served as a member of a number of international bodies active in the human rights field, including the UN Human Rights Committee, on which he served from 1995 to 2002. 

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