Lawfare News

The Lawfare Podcast: The Israeli Judicial System on the Brink

Jen Patja, Benjamin Wittes, Amichai Cohen, Yuval Shany
Monday, March 6, 2023, 12:00 PM

Published by The Lawfare Institute
in Cooperation With
Brookings

Amichai Cohen and Yuval Shany are both Israeli legal scholars and longtime Lawfare contributors. Shany is a professor of international law at the Hebrew University Law School in Jerusalem. Cohen is a professor at Ono Academic College. They are both scholars at the Israel Democracy Institute, and together they are also co-authors of a six-part series in Lawfare about the ongoing effort by the Israeli government to alter the Israeli judicial system. It is a detailed account of a very serious reform operation in Israel, one that the authors argue is dangerous. They joined Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes to discuss the ongoing protests in Israel, the ongoing legislative efforts, and the history of the Israeli judicial system and its growing power that has led to this crisis.


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Jen Patja is the editor and producer of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security. She currently serves as the Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics, a nonprofit organization that empowers the next generation of leaders in Virginia by promoting constitutional literacy, critical thinking, and civic engagement. She is the former Deputy Director of the Robert H. Smith Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and has been a freelance editor for over 20 years.
Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
Amichai Cohen teaches international law and national security law at the Ono Academic College, Israel, where he previously served as the dean of the Faculty of Law. He is also a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. Cohen received his LL.B. degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his LL.M. and J.S.D. degrees from Yale Law School.
Professor Yuval Shany is the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law and former Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also currently serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute , and was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee between 2013-2020. Prof. Shany received his LL.B. cum laude from the Hebrew University, LL.M. from New York University and Ph.D. in international law from the University of London.