Conflicts in a Conflict ─ A Conflict of Laws Case Study on Israel and the Palestinian Territories

Conflicts in a Conflict outlines and analyzes the legal doctrines instructing the Israeli courts in private and civil disputes involving the Occupied Palestinian Territories of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, since 1967 until the present day. In doing so, author, Michael Karayanni sheds light on a whole sphere of legal designs and norms that have not received any thorough scholarly attention, as most of the writings thus far have been on issues pertaining to international law, human rights, history, and politics. For the most part, Israeli courts turned to conflict of laws, or private international law to address private disputes implicating the Palestinian Territories. After making a thorough investigation into the jurisdictional designs of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, both before and after the Oslo Peace Accords, Conflicts in a Conflict comes to focus on traditional topics such as adjudicative jurisdiction, choice of law, and recognitions and enforcement of judgments. Related issues such as the foreign sovereign immunity claim of the Palestinian Authority before Israeli courts as well as the extent to which Palestinian plaintiffs were granted access to justice rights, are also outlined and analyzed.

This book's compelling thesis is the existence of a close relationship between conflict of laws doctrines as they developed over the years and Israeli policies generally in respect of the Palestinian Territories. This study of the conflict of laws in a war setting and conflict of laws in a jurisdictionally ambiguous location, will greatly serve scholars and practitioners in similarly troubled and complex legal situations elsewhere.

Michael Karayanni is the Bruce W. Wayne Professor of International Law at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He has held visiting positions at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law (Hamburg), the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Stanford University Law School, Melbourne University School of Law, and served as a Senior Fellow at Yale University's Center for International Human Rights. Professor Karayanni is the author of numerous articles appearing in such publications as the Wisconsin Journal of International Law, Michigan Journal of International Law, Journal of Private International Law, I.Con, and Civil Justice Quarterly. He is also the author of Forum Non Conveniens in the Modern Age (2004). Professor Karayanni holds an S.J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania School of Law.