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.     

The politics of IO performance: A framework

Some international organizations (IOs) are subject to constant criticism for producing poor results while others are praised for accomplishing difficult tasks despite political and resource constraints. Indeed, IO performance varies substantially over time and across tasks, and yet the international relations literature has devoted little attention to why this occurs. This article provides a framework for studying IO performance. After addressing some of the distinct challenges of conceptualizing and analyzing performance in the context of IOs, we discuss the tradeoffs of using different performance metrics—from process indicators to outcome indicators—and present a typology of factors that influence performance. Finally, we discuss research strategies for those interested in studying performance rigorously. The policy relevance of studying IO performance is clear: only if we understand why some IOs perform better than others can we begin to improve their performance in a systematic way. As many organizations come under pressure to reform, while at the same time taking on new and more complicated tasks, scholars should be actively engaged in debates surrounding IO performance and its role in effective governance at the international level.     

Regulation and voluntarism: A case study of governance in the making

In this article I analyze a multi‐stakeholder process of environmental regulation. By grounding the article in the literature on regulatory capitalism and governance, I follow the career of a specific legislative process: the enactment of Israel's Deposit Law on Beverage Containers, which aims to delegate the responsibility for recycling to industry. I show that one crucial result of this process was the creation of a non‐profit entity licensed to act as a compliance mechanism. This new entity enabled industry to distance itself from the responsibility of recycling, and thereby frustrated the original objective of the legislation, which was to implement the principle of “extended producer responsibility.” Furthermore, this entity, owned by commercial companies and yet acting as an environmentally friendly organization, allowed industry to promote an anti‐regulatory agenda via a “civic voice.” The study moves methodologically from considering governance as an institutional structure to analyzing the process of “governancing,” through which authoritative capacities and legal responsibilities are distributed among state and non‐state actors. Two key findings are that this process and its outcome (i) are premised on an ideology of civic voluntarism, which ultimately delegates environmental responsibilities to citizens; and (ii) facilitate an anti‐regulatory climate that serves commercial interests.     

The Latest Intelligence Crisis

In the autumn of last year the National Intelligence Council issued a National Intelligence Estimate that states (in a portion of the NIE that has been published) with ‘high confidence’ that Iran years ago suspended its development of nuclear weapons. This paper questions the wisdom of a consensus intelligence document bound to be published in one form or another, and the soundness of the analysis in it, which pivots on speculation about Iranian decision making and on an ambiguity in the very meaning of ‘suspending’ a nuclear-weapons program while continuing to produce highly enriched uranium. These questions lead in turn to questions concerning the ambitious reorganization three years ago of the US intelligence system.     

Law and Economics in Common-Law, Civil-Law, and Developing Nations

Abstract. The law and economics movement is the principal interdisciplinary field of legal studies. This paper traces the history of the movement and explains its basic principles, contrasts the version of the movement that predominates in the United States with the version that prevails in Europe, noting the greater emphasis of the former on substantive doctrine and of the latter on rule of law considerations, and emphasizes the importance of the movement for legal and economic reform in developing nations.     

The CLSR-LSPI Seminar – ‘The future of privacy regulation in the online world’

The annual CLSR-LSPI Seminar (www.lspi.net) took place on 19 September 2011 at the Sixth Legal, Security & Privacy Issues in IT Conference (LSPI) at University of Nicosia, Cyprus. The event, led by Prof. Steve Saxby, Editor-in-Chief of CLSR, invited contributions from five legal specialists on a variety of current issues dealing with the future of privacy. A lively discussion took place amongst those present after each intervention. The reports of those who presented are recorded below.     

The application of venture analysis to public policy decisions: A case study of photovoltaics

Venture analysis is a group of analytical techniques normally used by the private sector to assist in major capital decisions. The approach can be applied to public policy decisions in those cases where changing private sector investment decisions are the central focus. A case study concerning a temporary subsidy to an emerging energy technology is reviewed. Major strengths of the approach are its use of numerous data- and opinion-gathering techniques and its explicit treatment of market and supply uncertainties. The major weakness is its lack of ability to handle those social costs and benefits for which no market exists. Implications for other policy studies are also presented.     

Ideological reproduction

A study of the conditions under which parents reproduce their political ideologies in their adolescent children, conducted in Israel, shows that (1) parents do reproduce their political outlooks, (2) there is a greater likelihood that hawkish parents will have like-minded children than dovish ones, and (3) whereas the reproduction of doves is dependent on higher education, hawks reproduce regardless of their level of education, authoritarianism, or religiosity. The data are from 400 parent/child interviews. Cohort and intrafamily analysis are used to explain the change from generation to generation and the continuity and change within families. Clues to the tendency to move right are discerned in (1) the relative hawkishness of parents of 18-year-olds who are about to begin their army service, (2) the relative complexity of the dovish position, (3) the continuous Israeli-Arab conflict into which Israeli adolescents are born, and (4) the rise of the ideology advocating Israel's right to the territories conquered in 1967.The study of ideological continuity between generations and within families is part of a project that examines the negotiation of political identity of adolescents through the interaction of family, television, and peers (Liebes, 1987), sponsored by the Spencer Foundation.