EUME Berliner Seminar
Wed 20 Nov 2024 | 17:00–18:30

Law, Litigation, and Politics of Legitimization: On the Possibilities and Limits of Palestinian Legal Action in Israel

Suhad Bishara (Adalah – The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel / EUME Fellow 2024/25), Chair: Muriel Asseburg (Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik)

Forum Transregionale Studien, Wallotstr. 14, 14193 Berlin

Understanding Israeli law (national law in Israel and military law in the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT)) as a political act that shapes the relationship between Israel, as a Jewish State, all fragments of the Palestinian people, and the territory under Israeli control – Israel and the OPT – presents us with many challenges when strategizing human rights impact litigation. Issues related to legitimization; constituency; legal frameworks to be used; the implications of the different legal frameworks available; timing; do we litigate highly political issues; do we litigate cases related to major historical events, like the Nakba for instance; and so much more. A critical reading of the law, its politics, possibilities, and limitations, requires a thorough thinking about the way we consume law, including international law, to promote human rights. The talk will discuss some of these challenges, when bringing human rights cases on behalf of Palestinians in the Israeli judicial system.

Suhad Bishara holds a PhD from King’s College School of Law in London, an LL.M. in Public Service Law from New York University's School of Law, and an LL.B. from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She was also Palestine & Law Fellow at Columbia University Law School. She has more than 23 years of experience litigating cases before the Israeli Supreme Court in major human rights cases regarding Palestinian citizens of Israel and international humanitarian law cases concerning Palestinians in the 1967 Occupied Territory.

Muriel Asseburg is a Senior Fellow in the Africa and Middle East division of Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP), German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. Asseburg studied political science, international law and economics at Ludwig Maximilians University in Munich where in 2000 she obtained a Ph.D. with a thesis on “Palestinian State and Nation Building in the Interim Period”. She has also lived, studied, and worked in the USA, Israel/Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. Her current research is focused on conflict dynamics and peace-making in the Levant (Israel/Palestine and Syria, in particular); German, European and US Middle East policies; as well as questions of state building, political reform and security in the Eastern Mediterranean.

Pleaser register in advance via eume(at)trafo-berlin.de. Depending on approval by the speaker(s), the Berliner Seminar will be recorded. All audio recordings of the Berliner Seminar are available on SoundCloud.

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