Prof. Ruth Lapidoth (née Eschelbacher) is Greenblatt Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was born in Germany in 1930 and immigrated to Palestine in 1938. She studied law at the Hebrew University, and did post-graduate studies in Paris (Ph.D. at the Law School, and Diplôme at the Institut des Hautes Etudes Internationales of the University of Paris). From 1956 until 2001 she taught at the Hebrew University (since 1980 as Full Professor), in the field of international law, the law of the sea, and the Arab-Israel conflict and its resolution. 

In addition, she has taught and done research at various institutions abroad: the University of Paris (1971), the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. (1973-1974), New York University School of Law (1976-1977), the Center for the Study of Marine Policy at the University of Delaware (1976-1977), the University of Geneva (1977), the Bellagio Study and Conference Center (1978 and 1993), the University of Southern California (1982-1983), Tulane (1986) and Northwestern (1987) Universities, Duke University School of Law (1989), United States Institute of Peace (1990-1991), Georgetown University Law Center (1992, 1993,1997 and 2011), the Institute of Public Law and International Relations of Thessaloniki (1995), St. Antony’s College, Oxford (1996-1997), the Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich (1999-2000 and 2003) and the University of Melbourne (2000). 

During 1984-1986 she was Chairman of the Editorial Board of the Israel Law Review, and during 1985-1989 served as Chairman of the Israel Universities Study Group for Middle Eastern Affairs. During 1994-1996 she was the Director of the Institute for European Studies at the Hebrew University.

In addition to her academic career, she has been active in the diplomatic field: she was a member of the Delegation of Israel to the United Nations (1976) as well as to the Humanitarian Law Conference (1977) and the Red Cross Conference (1981). She has participated in part of the negotiations for the Peace Treaty between Egypt and Israel (1979), and was the Legal Adviser to the Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Israel (1979-1981). In 1999 she was invited to join a group of experts that advised the High Commissioner on National Minorities of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. She is a member of the Israel Council of Foreign Relations.

Her judicial activity involved her membership in the arbitration panel established in order to solve a boundary dispute between Egypt and Israel, including the Taba area (1986-1988). Since 1989 she is a member of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague.

Professor Lapidoth has written nine books and more than a hundred articles dealing with questions of international law, the law of the sea, human rights, autonomy, the Arab-Israel conflict and its resolution, and Jerusalem.

She is the 2000 recipient of the Prominent Woman in International Law award from the WILIG group of the American Society of International Law. In 2001 she received the Gass Prize for her contribution to research on Jerusalem. In 2004 the Israel Bar Association awarded her the “Women in Law” Award for her special achievements in legal academic research. In 2006 she received the Israel Prize for excellence in Legal Research. In 2018 she received Lifetime Achievement Award of the Israeli Association for International Studies.

Click for Audio

Nadiv Mordechay (LL.B, LL.M) is a LL.D candidate and a Research Fellow at the Hebrew University Faculty of Law. His research interests include Israeli Public law, informal constitutional change and constitutional backsliding, constitutional theory and design, comparative constitutional law, social rights judicial review, and legislation. 

Alongside his research work, Nadiv gained professional experience clerking for Justice Ayala Procaccia in the Supreme Court of Israel; for Menachem Mazuz, Israel’s Attorney-General; and for five additional years at the Israel Democracy Institute. Nadiv served as the first Secretary-General of ICON-S-IL - The Israeli chapter of ICON-S – and was the founding-editor of ICON-S-IL BLOG. 

PUBLICATIONS

On the Access to Legislation, 19 MISHPAT IMIMSHAL 1 (2018) (Heb.) (with Yaniv Roznai) [Link]

A Jewish and (Declining) Democratic State? Constitutional Retrogression in Israel, 77 MD. L. Rev. 244 (2017) (with Yaniv Roznai) [Link]

Developments in Israeli Constitutional Law: The Year 2016 in Review, in CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENTS - THE YEAR 2016 IN REVIEW (Richard Albert, David Landau, Pietro Faraguna and Simon Drugda eds., 2017) (with Justice Uzi Vogelman, Yaniv Roznai, and Tehilla Schwartz) [Link]

Access to Justice 2.0: Access to Legislation and Beyond, 3(3) THEORY AND PRACTICE OF LEGISLATION 1 (2016) (with Yaniv Roznai) [Link] 

Constitutional Showdowns: the case of Judicial Review on Social-Economic Rights in Israel's Supreme Court 2002-2012 (2015) (LL.M Dissertation paper)

A GUIDEBOOK FOR ISRAELI LEGISLATORS (2015) (Heb.) (with Mordechai Kremnitzer and Amir Fuchs) [Link]

Towards a Cumulative Effect Doctrine: Aggregation in Constitutional Judicial Review, 44(2) MISHPATIM 596 (2014) (Heb.) (with Zemer Blondheim) [Link]

Legislative Impact Assessment on Children's Rights, 5 HATZAA LESEDER (IDI Paper Series) (2014) (Heb.) (with Mordechai Kremnitzer and Moshe Ostrovsky) [Link]

Costs Orders against Public Interest Litigants in the Israeli High Court of Justice: Did the HCJ closed its gates?, 6 MISHPATIM ONLINE (2013) (Heb.) (with Inbar Levy) [Link]

Who Should Regulate Commission Rates in the Advertising sector, 2 HATZAA LESEDER (IDI Paper Series) (2013) (Heb.) (with Tehilla Schwartz-Altshuler) [Link]

Faculty Supervisor: Prof. Yoav Dotan.