Privacy protection as a case study in personal rights protection in Israeli law

Personality rights, by nature, reflect the culture and values of society. Thus, it is interesting to look back on the road that Israeli law has traveled since the early 1980s, when the right to privacy as such had no trace of protection in Israeli private law, through to the present, when it is protected by both the Protection of Privacy Law and the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty. Current Israeli case law, which shows that the balance between privacy and free speech in cases of publication of private information leans toward privacy, can be partially explained by historical, religious and cultural reasons. The increased privacy litigation in Israel forms part of an ever-growing protection of other personality rights in Israeli law, thus serving as a good example of this expanding trend.     

Laypeople's ethical concerns about a New Israeli organ transplantation prioritization policy aimed to encourage organ donor registration among the public

A new policy recently enacted in Israel promises preferred status in receiving organs for transplantation to individuals who register to be organ donors and to their close family members. Proponents believe it will increase the supply of organs for transplantation from the deceased. Ethical issues were raised in government committees appointed to discuss the policy before its approval, but discussions among laypeople were not solicited. This study aimed to elicit laypeople's views about the policy by conducting thirteen group interviews and thirty-six individual interviews. Participants included religious and nonreligious people, immigrants, and Arabs. Some participants thought the law would contribute to fairness by prioritizing those willing to give, but others articulated ethical concerns that were not emphasized by scholars, in particular that the policy would add to the erosion of social solidarity, increase divisiveness, and enable people to abuse the system. Mistrust in the health care system emerged as a prominent reason for not registering as an organ donor. Implications about the importance of transparency in the organ transplantation system as a basis for an information campaign, social norms regarding organ donation, and the public's involvement in policy issues on organ donation are discussed.     

Correlates of partner violence for incarcerated women and men

This study examines partner violence within an incarcerated sample of women and men. Specifically, it focused on the relationship between explicit and implicit attitudes to the perpetration and victimization of violence. Findings revealed that violence was bidirectional, with males and females equally likely to report being the perpetrator or victim of violence. The attitudes and beliefs associated with violence were similar regardless of gender, type of violence (physical or psychological), or whether individuals were the victim or perpetrator of violence. Hostility to women was the most significant factor associated with perpetrating and condoning partner violence. Hostility to women in combination with implicit beliefs condoning violence were the strongest predictors for suffering physical violence. Victims' self-reported communication problems uniquely predicted their suffering of psychological violence. The explanation for and consequences of these results are discussed.     

Legal Theory for Legal Empiricists

There is a widespread view that one does either theory or empirical work, and that theory and empiricism represent distant concerns, opposing worldviews, and perhaps distinct mentalities or personalities. This prevalent view has deep roots and is also the result of pragmatic and understandable tendencies toward division of intellectual labor. Against this view, this essay suggests that the relations between theory and empirical study ought to be understood as more intimate and that making legal theory an explicit focus can improve empirical scholarship. We pursue this claim by articulating a basis for legal theory and by showing how that basis illuminates both the application and design of empirical research on law. Legal theory, we argue, follows jurisprudence in interrogating the law as a set of coercive normative institutions. The upshot of this approach is a recognition that an interdisciplinary analysis of law must rely on both a theory (explicit or implicit) of the way law's power and its normativity align and an account of the way in which this discursive cohabitation manifests itself institutionally. We thus argue that legal theory is necessary in order to draw fruitfully on empirical research and further claim that legal theory provides guidance both for setting up an empirical research agenda on law and for designing research into specific topics.     

A policy critique of HIV/AIDS and demobilisation

The objective of this paper is to draw out and encourage debate on the relationship between HIV and the policy challenges that it poses for security. It explores how demobilisation programmes need to incorporate a development perspective, bringing together public health practitioners and security experts, in order to address the pandemic and the future security needs of Sub-Saharan Africa, in particular. It is hoped that integrating two very different disciplines, public policy and public health, will mark the beginning of attempts to establish some practical guidelines for policymakers and field practitioners that focus on prevention. Most important, the paper makes an urgent request for a cross-disciplinary and cross-sectoral approach to tackling such a complex problem as HIV and the military. Development practitioners once shunned any working relationship with armed forces or defence ministries, but it is impossible now to avoid these institutions in countries with high rates of HIV/AIDS in the security sector.     

Australian tort law reform: statutory principles of causation and the common law

By mid-2004, Parliaments in each Australian jurisdiction will either complete or will be in the process of partial codification of the law of torts. The reforms, including those to the law of negligence, are extensive. This article focuses on codification of the law of causation as an element of the cause of action in negligence. It examines the background to "tort reform", as the process has been labelled, and discusses the common law paradigm of negligence and various approaches to causation. It then analyses and compares the causation provisions in each jurisdiction.     

How Terrorism Upsets Liberty

As terrorism increasingly penetrates Western democracies, liberals and libertarians are obliged to ask themselves whether contending with it justifies restricting civil liberty and, if so, to what extent. Neither personal security nor individual liberty is ever fully realised – both are a matter of degree – and they are often perceived as being at odds with each other. Hence it has been suggested that we reconsider the existing trade-off between them, or reassess their 'rate of exchange'. While such questions are sometimes raised by left-leaning liberals, they are in fact particularly acute for liberals on the right, or libertarians, who would normally resist any increase in government intervention. Right-wingers who advocate 'hands off' policies on all other occasions now call for an increase in government intervention as regards security measures. Many left-liberals, on the other hand, are reluctant to concede any further power to the state in order to combat terrorism.     

Damages for pain and suffering in tort law

Legislation enacted between 2002 and 2005 by each Australian State and Territory reformed and partially codified the common law of personal injuries. This column examines the nature and history of damages for pain and suffering and analyses the approach taken by different Australian jurisdictions to compensation for non-economic loss. Non-economic loss is generally composed of pain and suffering, loss of amenities of life, and loss of enjoyment of life (some jurisdictions, eg New South Wales, also include disfigurement, and loss of expectation of life). Several jurisdictions have imposed thresholds that a claimant must meet as a prerequisite to suing for damages at common law.