The idea of rights has been central to U.S. political and constitutional discourse from the beginning. The Declaration of Independence appealed to “inalienable rights,” and the first amendments to the Constitution were universally described as a bill of rights. Yet, something distinctive appears to have happened to the idea of rights over the course of the twentieth century. By the end of the century, rights-claims were being asserted in locations, such as schools and prisons, where they had not been found at the century's beginning, and they were being asserted on behalf of claimants, such as fetuses and new arrivals to the United States, who were outside the domain of rights earlier. Even the content of rights-claims changed. Much of the Warren Court's work completed a constitutional agenda outlined, albeit unclearly, in the 1940s and early 1950s as part of the New Deal's constitutional vindication. The Warren Court added something new—an emphasis on personal autonomy—to the New Deal's concerns for fairness in the political process.

In my recent book Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency (2006), I argue for a way of understanding constitutional law that would enable sensible adjustments to the pressures that arise when a nation is confronted with a serious threat to the safety or other well-being of its people; and I tried to show how the method that I was advocating could be used to resolve some of the constitutional issues that have arisen in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001. The analysis is limited to American constitutional law; whether it has possible applications to the law of Israel or of any other foreign country, I leave for others to decide, though, given the audience, I drop a few hints in this Paper.

The starting point of my analysis is recognition that constitutional law, at least in America (but this is even more true of what passes for “constitutional law” in Israel), is very largely the creation of judges rather than of the framers or ratifiers of formal constitutions. The United States Constitution is 222 years old (1787–2009), though the amendments are younger (but the most influential of them—the first ten—the Bill of Rights, by just a few years). Some of the provisions, in both the original Constitution and in the Bill of Rights and later amendments, are precise; but many are not, and it is the vague or open-ended ones that figure most largely in debates over the legal limits of measures to protect national security. Terms like “due process of law,” “unreasonable searches and seizures,” “freedom of speech,” and “habeas corpus” are not self-defining; nor have judges been willing to confine them to the same meaning they had for the framers or to the core meaning that they would have to be given to have any significance at all. Because American judges do not adhere strictly to precedent, the meaning impressed by judicial decisions on constitutional texts is tentative, especially when a case arises that is not within the heartland of a previous decision because of the novelty of its facts or a shift in the social or political context of the relevant issues.

The first step in application by treaty of IHL norms to non-international armed conflicts, adoption of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions, 1949, was taken before the dramatic development of international human rights law (IHRL). The assumption was that unless international humanitarian law (IHL) norms were applied to such conflicts, the way States acted would be unrestrained by international law. With the development of IHRL this assumption is no longer valid. Application of IHL in such conflicts should therefore be re-examined. The Article argues that moving away from IHL in non-international armed conflicts should be based on the following principles: 1. In cases other than international armed conflicts, the presumption should be that the prevailing international legal regime is the human rights regime, based as it is on a law-enforcement model of law, rather than an armed conflict model. 2. The only justification for departure from that regime and for action under the armed conflict model, should be that the level and scope of organized armed violence are such that the State cannot reasonably be expected to act in accordance with the law-enforcement model. The rule of thumb in deciding whether this test has been met could be the definition of non-international armed conflicts adopted in APII. 3. There should be a return to the notion of minimum humanitarian standards or fundamental standards of humanity, which apply to all Parties in all situations, whether armed conflict, internal violence, disturbances, tensions and public emergencies. 4. A State should not be allowed to employ the armed conflict model, without at least some of the norms of protection that this model affords Parties in international armed conflicts. The ideal solution would be to demand that a State, which employs the armed conflict model has to draw the legal consequences and recognize as combatants those members of dissident forces who meet the substantive conditions of combatants under Article 4, paragraph 2 of Third Geneva Convention.

Reading Tushnet's careful analysis of the history of the American rights revolution filled me with envy. One of the great advantages of writing about law in the U.S. is the ability to experience and benefit from centuries of sustained legal evolution. The world of an Israeli law professor whose horizons barely reach the middle of the twentieth century is impoverished in comparison to the enriching experience of living in a mature and rich legal tradition such as that of the U.S.

Living in a different legal tradition and being ignorant of legal history—a field which only began to develop in Israel in the late 1990s—it will be pretentious on my part to try and challenge Tushnet's findings or even to try and explore the similarities and differences with the rights revolution in the Israeli legal system. Instead, I wish to explore the relevance of Tushnet's findings to constitutional theory and argue that constitutional theorists have some important lessons to learn from Tushnet's careful historical observations.

In a short book and in his contribution to this volume, Richard Posner articulates his vision concerning the most talked about subject in today's legal world: the legal treatment of terrorism. I deliberately say the most talked about subject in today's legal world, rather than the most urgent or important subject because I do not share the conviction that terrorism is a major threat to the U.S. or to the West. I believe that in fifty years historians will look at our era in a way similar to the way we look at the destructive global hysteria which led to the First World War. Of course I immediately concede that neither my view nor, if I may add, Posner's view on the matter, is particularly indicative of the future. People, including geniuses, seem to be notoriously bad at distinguishing between real and unreal risks, and the worst is that even time will never tell us whether the risks we face now are real or imaginary but only whether they materialized or not. So if we meet in fifty years to discuss the issue, we could continue the debate whether the risks posed by terrorism were indeed real, irrespective of what happened in the world.

Transnational armed conflicts have become a reality. The increasing sophistication of terrorist organizations, their increasingly transnational nature, and their development of military strike capabilities, push and will continue to push States to resort to combat power as a means to defend against this threat. Relying on the factual fiction that the acts of such terrorists must be attributable to the States from which they launch their operations, or on the legal fiction that the use of military combat power to respond to such threats is in reality just extraterritorial law enforcement, fails to acknowledge the essential nature of such operations. Because these operations invoke the authority of the LOAC, they should and must be treated as armed conflicts.

LOAC principles must be identified and must be broad enough to provide the authority necessary to bring the transnational enemy to submission while ensuring that that authority does not override fundamental humanitarian protections for victims of war: This Article proposes three essential pillars of this regulatory foundation: military necessity, targeting (object/distinction and proportionality), and humane treatment. These principles provide the balance between authority and obligation that is so essential for the effective and disciplined application of combat power Like the treatment of internal armed conflict, these pillars can form a foundation for a more comprehensive treatment of regulatory analysis, encompassing other issues such as command responsibility, criminal liability, access to judicial review, perfidy and treachery, and medical obligations.

It is my pleasure to contribute to the workshop on Mark Tushnet's manuscript. Good literature is sometimes identified by its ability to elicit responses on different levels. While reading Tushnet's compelling manuscript, my thoughts about the validity of the historical analysis were supplemented by immediate comparisons to the much shorter history of the rise of “rightspeak” in Israel. Then there were some thoughts about the possible links between this manuscript and Tushnet's earlier works and between this manuscript and other studies of the subject. Finally, I found myself linking and comparing Tushnet's implicit normative arguments with my own views on the role of courts in liberal democracy.

The general assumption that underlines Richard Posner's argument in his book Not a Suicide Pact is that decisions concerning rights and security in the context of modern terrorism should be made by balancing competing interests. This assumption is obviously correct if one refers to the most rudimentary sense of balancing, namely, the idea that normative decisions should be made in light of the importance of the relevant values and considerations. However, Posner advocates a more specific conception of balancing, both substantively and institutionally. Substantiality, he argues for balancing based on a consequential moral theory that rejects the ideas of deontological rights and particularly absolute or very weighty deontological rights. More specifically, it seems that Posner assumes a utilitarian theory that also rejects intrinsic concern for distributive justice. Institutionally, Posner argues that this method of reasoning should be adopted by judges when interpreting the Constitution. These substantive and institutional background assumptions are of course controversial, but I do not dispute them in this Article. My critique concerns Posner's conclusions based on these assumptions. Posner's main claim is that given the magnitude of the danger of modern terrorism, even a small probability that an act of terror may occur justifies extreme anti-terror measures.

This Article offers a critical evaluation of the treatment of the suitability of applying human rights law to occupation situations offered by the English House of Lords in the Al-Skeini judgment of 2007. Al-Skeini concerned the application of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) to the United Kingdom in Iraq. In the decision, the majority asserted that the application of human rights law would amount to a form of “imperialism” in requiring an occupying State to impose culturally inappropriate norms in occupied territory. They also found that its application would undermine the status quo norm contained in occupation law, by obliging an occupying State to transform the legal system in occupied territory in order to bring it in line with the human rights standards in play. This Article argues that these two assertions are based on a mistaken understanding of the substantive meaning of human rights obligations in occupation situations, and the effect on this meaning of the interface with other areas of international law. It is suggested that the fear of “human rights imperialism” is, as articulated here, misconceived; that applying human rights law to occupation situations may not actually involve breaching the law of occupation; and that in any case a more sophisticated approach to the question of clashes in normative regimes needs to be adopted.

This is yet another manuscript by one of the most interesting and prolific American constitutional law professors that the Critical Legal Studies movement has produced. Mark Tushnet has written extensively and influentially in the fields of both American and comparative constitutional law. He is a known expert on twentieth century American legal history, bringing this expertise to bear in writing his ambitious and most recent book, The Rights Revolution in the Twentieth Century.

This review of an early draft of the book will consist of three parts. The first portrays Tushnet's descriptive enterprise in a nutshell. The second discusses the historical dimensions of Tushnet's work. The last evaluates its contribution to legal theory along the lines suggested by Alon Harel.

Although Israel no longer effectively controls Gaza, Israel's overwhelming physical dominance over Gaza, coupled with the historical links of dependence, were likely central to the balancing formula applied by the High Court of Justice in Bassiouni v. The Prime Minister. The proposed solution—Israel assumes obligations that go beyond the requirements of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) in situations of siege but that fall short of the requirements applicable in situations of occupation—is the “basic humanitarian needs” standard.

The main weakness of the Court's decision is not the final outcome it prescribes but the underdeveloped legal analysis of the alternative grounds for imposing obligations on the Israel. This unnecessarily complicates attempts to grasp the full implications of the decision and to identify its precedential value. However, the judgment should be viewed as endorsing the need to step outside IHL and look for additional legal norms governing humanitarian interests which may reflect our moral sensibilities and contemporary needs in a more appropriate manner than the traditional rules of IHL.

In his recent book, Not a Suicide Pact: The Constitution in a Time of National Emergency, Richard Posner discusses one of the most urgent and difficult questions of current public law: How should the acute threats posed by terrorism be dealt with? This question touches various issues in constitutional law, administrative law as well as criminal law, and Posner impressively addresses many of them. Most of his account is well-balanced and highly convincing. Guided by liberal ideas and a commitment to human rights, Posner urges necessary and unexaggerated flexibility in light of a major threat. Yet regarding some issues, most notably the issue of torture in interrogation, we find it hard to agree with his analysis and conclusions. This Article focuses on those issues.

Armed conflicts are always harmful for civilians and hence all attempts should be made to avoid them. However, considering that armed conflicts do occur; economic sanctions provide States with a viable alternative. This Article illustrates the need for limitations on the use of economic sanctions. It describes the characteristics of economic sanctions and the existing International Humanitarian Law (IHL) limitations and also suggests that economic sanctions should be further regulated offering three main principles to guide these limitations: the principle of severity, according to which the most severe economic sanctions should be prohibited; the principle of effectiveness, according to which economic sanctions should be allowed only if the State imposing the sanctions can plausibly demonstrate that the sanctions are effective; and the principle of conditionality, according to which the imposing State should declare specific achievable goals for the sanctions, and lift the sanctions immediately when these goals are achieved.

My reply is brief; I do not try to recapitulate the arguments in my book, and the précis that accompanies the comments. There are many good points made in the comments, which I do not repeat either; my focus is on the areas of disagreement emphasized in the comments.

Segev. I am puzzled by the reference on the first page of his comment to distributive justice. I understand the term to refer to the principles for allocating wealth or other goods across persons, and I do not think those principles are engaged by efforts to balance concerns of security against concerns of civil liberties.

When I said that “what counts as justification is no part of habeas corpus,” I did not mean that the detention of a person cannot be challenged by asking for habeas corpus, or that the detention need not be justified. I meant merely that the creation of a right of habeas corpus does not indicate how great a showing of necessity to detain a person the government must demonstrate. Justification is a separate issue from the existence of a right of habeas corpus. Obviously if little or no justification is required, the right becomes nugatory.

In this brief response I address two issues raised by these generous comments. Rivka Weill and Margit Cohn prod me to provide a more theoretical underpinning for the historical account I offered, and all three commenters suggest that the U.S. experience does not shed much light on the normative case for constitutional review presented by Alon Harel in other work. I sketch a theoretical account of the historical narrative, grounded in the structure of U.S. government and politics. That sketch may have some implications for conceptualizing the course of constitutional development in other polities. Then I raise some questions about Harel's theory of constitutional review as a mechanism for providing individuals with a forum in which they can receive an explanation of why they are properly being subjected to treatment that harms them individually, if one is available. I end with a suggestion connecting the two components of this Rejoinder.

After years of political stalemate on the issue of end-of life medical care in Israel, the Knesset enacted the Dying Patient Law in 2005. This Article argues that the new law manifests a paradigm shift in the normative framework regulating end-of-life treatment in Israel, from a patient right approach based on the principle of autonomy, to a physician duty approach based on the principle of the sanctity of life. In so doing the law created a complex web of formal procedural rules and culturally unique legal artifices, which amount to a maze of medicolegal technocracy. The technocratic maze conceals substantive restrictions on rights to patient autonomy which had been recognized in the former case law in relation to the withholding and withdrawal of medical treatment. In particular, under the new law, the request of a competent patient to withdraw artificial respiration may not be respected, and the advance directives of an incompetent patient to withhold artificial nutrition are of no effect. Beyond a question of constitutionality, the Article suggests that the underlying approach of the law to death and dying is an unskillful response to the challenges that have arisen from life extending technology.

As we seek to identify new norms to bridge the gaps between extant law and the challenges that new conflict modes pose today, we confront a threshold question as to which methodological ground we should stand upon in doing so. Based on a background assumption of positivism as the source of substantive norms, the issue for some observers comes down to a clash between pragmatism and formalism. To formalism's proponents, the concept of pragmatism—which sees law as a functional instrument to be used in pursuit of pre-envisioned ends—has contributed to a dearth of moral obligation in international humanitarian law discourse. Such a view considers that the emphasis on empiricism found in pragmatism both legitimizes and shrouds the reality of effective power lurking behind the law. The alternative they prefer, championed most articulately by Professor Koskenniemi, is a “culture of formalism” that sees law as an object of universal obligation and as a form of critique that unmasks the pragmatic mode for what it is, namely, a rationalization of might. As this Article suggests, this understanding misapprehends the true nature of pragmatism, which is neither a smokescreen nor an apoloay. Rather, pragmatism's focus on real-world effects and consequences holds far greater promise for advancing the actual humanitarianism of IHL. Formalism, moreover; is subsumed within the constellation of factors that pragmatic analysis demands. These ideas are explored on a theoretical level, and are then illustrated by a look at the Israel separation barrier cases decided by the International Court of Justice and the Israeli High Court of Justice.