Alon Harel
Biographic Data
| ID | 4091828 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Alon Harel |
| GIVEN NAMES | Alon |
| FAMILY NAME | Harel |
| SIGNATURE | HAREL A |
| AFFILIATIONS | Hebrew University of Jerusalem |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5122-9508 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 23 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Why the Israeli Constitutional Putsch is Unconstitutional
This article defends the claim that the constitutional proposals made in the 25th Knesset are unconstitutional and should be invalidated by the Israeli Supreme Court (the Court). I defend this claim on the basis of three grounds. First, I show that normatively speaking, every liberal democracy has principles, which bind the legislature and to do so effectively, these principles must be defended by courts. Second, I show that in other legal system…
Democratic Law
The Tension between the National and ECHR Human Rights Adjudication: A Normative Account
This article examines cases of conflicting decisions between the ECHR and State Courts. I argue for ‘discordant adjudicative parity.’ According to discordant adjudicative parity, there are compelling non-instrumental reasons for having both international adjudicative institutions and state adjudicative institutions that can make binding, conflicting decisions. Binding decisions by international adjudicative institutions embody the understanding t…
Two concepts of constitutional legitimacy
What legitimates constitutions? One standard answer is that constitutions are legitimate only if they represent the people they govern. This article identifies two different conceptions of representation. Representation can be grounded either in the consent or the will of the citizens or when the constitution reflects the ‘real’ identity of the members of the nation. Alternatively, it is sometimes stated that the constitution is legitimate becaus…
General courts, specialized courts, and the complementarity effect
Among the major decisions any legal system must make is deciding whether to establish general courts with broad jurisdiction, or specialized courts with limited jurisdiction. Under one influential argument—advanced by both judges and legal theorists—general courts foster coherence within the legal system. This Article identifies a distinct effect of establishing general courts: the “complementarity effect.” In the case of complementarity, general…
The Kantian case against democracy
Contrary to what Cordelli argues, the relationship between Kantian legitimacy and democratic decision-making is contingent rather than necessary. This paper counters the connection between Kantian legitimacy and democracy in three ways: by arguing that democratic authorization is (i) not necessary, (ii) not sufficient, and indeed may be (iii) detrimental to, legitimate governance
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People declares that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people. It also includes several symbolic and operative provisions which are designed to strengthen the Jewish character of the state. The Basic Law purports to legally define and entrench the particular rather than universal values of Israel—the values that distinguish Israel from other nations rather than those that are shared by ot…
A Defense of Non-Representational Constitutionalism: Why Constitutions Need Not Be Representational
The standard opinion is that the force of the constitution hinges on the fact that it is willingly endorsed by the people or, at least representative of the people. This Article challenges this view. More specifically, I differentiate between two types of legitimation: representational legitimation and non-representational or reason-based legitimation. While representational legitimation rests on the fact that the constitution is representative o…
Law, liberty and technology: Criminal justice in the context of smart machines
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Against Privatisation As Such
Privatisation has occupied the attention of theorists of different disciplines. Yet, despite the multiplicity of perspectives, the typical arguments concerning privatisation are instrumental, relying heavily on comparing the performance of a public functionary with that of its private counterpart. This article challenges this approach for leaving unaddressed other important consequences of shifting responsibilities to private entities. More speci…
On the Irrelevance of Neuroscience to Moral Theory
This is a critical comment on an Article by Joshua Greene in which he uses brain studies and contemporary psychological findings in order to settle the dispute between consequentialist and deontological theories. I first summarize Greene’s main claims and later raise several objections to them. In contrast to Greene, I argue that consequentialist theories are bound to use first order intuitions and their soundness depends on the degree to which t…
Behavioral Analysis of Criminal Law: A Survey
After contrasting behavioral criminal law and economics with the retributivist tradition and with traditional criminal law and economics, the chapter illustrates how various behavioral phenomena can be used to predict the effects of criminal law norms and to design criminal law in a way that serves social goals, in particular deterrence. It explores the effects of uncertainty on deterrence; it examines the effects of prospect theory and the diffe…
The Case Against Privatization
The Triadic Relational Structure of Responsibility: A Defence
The central characteristic of responsibility as developed by Duff is the ‘triadic relational concept’ consisting of a relation between an agent A who is responsible for something X to somebody S and in virtue of being a member of a unit of responsibility, e.g., a neighbourhood or a state. This chapter rejects several justifications for Duff's theory of responsibility and justifies the triadic relational structure of responsibility in terms of sel…
Outsourcing Violence
This Article develops a theory of inherently governmental functions and argues that these functions concern powers designed to execute or implement fundamental state decisions e.g., the decision to criminalize certain behavior, the decision to inflict a certain sanction, or to the decision to initiate or end a war. While most theorists agree that fundamental state decisions of the types described above ought only to be made by the State, some bel…
Judicial Review and the Value Theory of Democracy
Corey Brettschneider argues for a value theory of democracy as an alternative to procedural and epistemic theories. The three core values that underlie democracy are equality of interests, politica
Necessity Knows No Law’: On Extreme Cases and Uncodifiable Necessities
This article analyses the category of extreme cases – cases involving catastrophic consequences the avoiding of which requires severe measures (e.g. torture, shooting a plane in 9/11 situations, etc). We first reject two traditional solutions to extreme cases: deontology/threshold deontology (as traditionally understood) and consequentialist solutions. Our proposal maintains that what is most pernicious is not the violation of moral rules as such…
What is Really Wrong with Torture
Journal Article What is Really Wrong with Torture? Get access Alon Harel, Alon Harel * * Professor Harel is a Phillip P. Mizock & Estelle Mizock Chair in Administrative and Criminal Law at the Hebrew University Law Faculty. [[email protected]] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Assaf Sharon Assaf Sharon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of International Crim…
Regulating Modesty-Related Practices
This Paper explores the justifications for regulating modesty-related practices in liberal societies and uses two examples of modesty-related practices the practice of wearing the hijab and the practice of separating men and women in buses in order to demonstrate that modesty-related practices often rest on different rationales. Some of these rationales are oppressive and discriminatory while other are benign or even autonomy-enhancing. The multi…
Theories of Rights
Benign Segregation? A Case Study of the Practice of Gender Separation in Buses in the Ultra-Orthodox Community in Israel
The purpose of this article is to examine, from the perspective of moral and political theory, the practice of separate seating for men and women in buses operating in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Israel. Its approach however differs from much of the discourse concerning multiculturalism. Instead of asking whether preserving cultural practices is a value that overrides the concerns for gender equality, this article suggests that the very chara…
Gay Rights in Israel: A New Era
A recent Israeli case in which a steward sued El-Al (the Israeli Airline) in order to extend benefits to his same-sex partner was the first case in which the Israeli Supreme Court confronted the rights of sexual minorities. This confrontation was inevitable given the rapid legal changes in the legal status of sexual minorities in Israel. These changes include the decriminalization of male homosexual intercourse in 1988, the 1992 amendment of the …
The liberatarian resolution of the Paretian liberal paradox
The Case Against Privatization
Two concepts of constitutional legitimacy
What legitimates constitutions? One standard answer is that constitutions are legitimate only if they represent the people they govern. This article identifies two different conceptions of representation. Representation can be grounded either in the consent or the will of the citizens or when the constitution reflects the ‘real’ identity of the members of the nation. Alternatively, it is sometimes stated that the constitution is legitimate becaus…
What is Really Wrong with Torture
Journal Article What is Really Wrong with Torture? Get access Alon Harel, Alon Harel * * Professor Harel is a Phillip P. Mizock & Estelle Mizock Chair in Administrative and Criminal Law at the Hebrew University Law Faculty. [[email protected]] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Assaf Sharon Assaf Sharon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of International Crim…
Gay Rights in Israel: A New Era
A recent Israeli case in which a steward sued El-Al (the Israeli Airline) in order to extend benefits to his same-sex partner was the first case in which the Israeli Supreme Court confronted the rights of sexual minorities. This confrontation was inevitable given the rapid legal changes in the legal status of sexual minorities in Israel. These changes include the decriminalization of male homosexual intercourse in 1988, the 1992 amendment of the …
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People declares that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people. It also includes several symbolic and operative provisions which are designed to strengthen the Jewish character of the state. The Basic Law purports to legally define and entrench the particular rather than universal values of Israel—the values that distinguish Israel from other nations rather than those that are shared by ot…
Law, liberty and technology: Criminal justice in the context of smart machines
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
Benign Segregation? A Case Study of the Practice of Gender Separation in Buses in the Ultra-Orthodox Community in Israel
The purpose of this article is to examine, from the perspective of moral and political theory, the practice of separate seating for men and women in buses operating in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Israel. Its approach however differs from much of the discourse concerning multiculturalism. Instead of asking whether preserving cultural practices is a value that overrides the concerns for gender equality, this article suggests that the very chara…
The liberatarian resolution of the Paretian liberal paradox
Gay Rights in Israel: A New Era
A recent Israeli case in which a steward sued El-Al (the Israeli Airline) in order to extend benefits to his same-sex partner was the first case in which the Israeli Supreme Court confronted the rights of sexual minorities. This confrontation was inevitable given the rapid legal changes in the legal status of sexual minorities in Israel. These changes include the decriminalization of male homosexual intercourse in 1988, the 1992 amendment of the …
Benign Segregation? A Case Study of the Practice of Gender Separation in Buses in the Ultra-Orthodox Community in Israel
The purpose of this article is to examine, from the perspective of moral and political theory, the practice of separate seating for men and women in buses operating in ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods in Israel. Its approach however differs from much of the discourse concerning multiculturalism. Instead of asking whether preserving cultural practices is a value that overrides the concerns for gender equality, this article suggests that the very chara…
Theories of Rights
Regulating Modesty-Related Practices
This Paper explores the justifications for regulating modesty-related practices in liberal societies and uses two examples of modesty-related practices the practice of wearing the hijab and the practice of separating men and women in buses in order to demonstrate that modesty-related practices often rest on different rationales. Some of these rationales are oppressive and discriminatory while other are benign or even autonomy-enhancing. The multi…
What is Really Wrong with Torture
Journal Article What is Really Wrong with Torture? Get access Alon Harel, Alon Harel * * Professor Harel is a Phillip P. Mizock & Estelle Mizock Chair in Administrative and Criminal Law at the Hebrew University Law Faculty. [[email protected]] Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Assaf Sharon Assaf Sharon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of International Crim…
The Triadic Relational Structure of Responsibility: A Defence
The central characteristic of responsibility as developed by Duff is the ‘triadic relational concept’ consisting of a relation between an agent A who is responsible for something X to somebody S and in virtue of being a member of a unit of responsibility, e.g., a neighbourhood or a state. This chapter rejects several justifications for Duff's theory of responsibility and justifies the triadic relational structure of responsibility in terms of sel…
Outsourcing Violence
This Article develops a theory of inherently governmental functions and argues that these functions concern powers designed to execute or implement fundamental state decisions e.g., the decision to criminalize certain behavior, the decision to inflict a certain sanction, or to the decision to initiate or end a war. While most theorists agree that fundamental state decisions of the types described above ought only to be made by the State, some bel…
Judicial Review and the Value Theory of Democracy
Corey Brettschneider argues for a value theory of democracy as an alternative to procedural and epistemic theories. The three core values that underlie democracy are equality of interests, politica
Necessity Knows No Law’: On Extreme Cases and Uncodifiable Necessities
This article analyses the category of extreme cases – cases involving catastrophic consequences the avoiding of which requires severe measures (e.g. torture, shooting a plane in 9/11 situations, etc). We first reject two traditional solutions to extreme cases: deontology/threshold deontology (as traditionally understood) and consequentialist solutions. Our proposal maintains that what is most pernicious is not the violation of moral rules as such…
The Case Against Privatization
Behavioral Analysis of Criminal Law: A Survey
After contrasting behavioral criminal law and economics with the retributivist tradition and with traditional criminal law and economics, the chapter illustrates how various behavioral phenomena can be used to predict the effects of criminal law norms and to design criminal law in a way that serves social goals, in particular deterrence. It explores the effects of uncertainty on deterrence; it examines the effects of prospect theory and the diffe…
On the Irrelevance of Neuroscience to Moral Theory
This is a critical comment on an Article by Joshua Greene in which he uses brain studies and contemporary psychological findings in order to settle the dispute between consequentialist and deontological theories. I first summarize Greene’s main claims and later raise several objections to them. In contrast to Greene, I argue that consequentialist theories are bound to use first order intuitions and their soundness depends on the degree to which t…
Against Privatisation As Such
Privatisation has occupied the attention of theorists of different disciplines. Yet, despite the multiplicity of perspectives, the typical arguments concerning privatisation are instrumental, relying heavily on comparing the performance of a public functionary with that of its private counterpart. This article challenges this approach for leaving unaddressed other important consequences of shifting responsibilities to private entities. More speci…
Law, liberty and technology: Criminal justice in the context of smart machines
TEST 02 - Elsevier's Scopus, the largest abstract and citation database of peer-reviewed literature. Search and access research from the science, technology, medicine, social sciences and arts and humanities fields
A Defense of Non-Representational Constitutionalism: Why Constitutions Need Not Be Representational
The standard opinion is that the force of the constitution hinges on the fact that it is willingly endorsed by the people or, at least representative of the people. This Article challenges this view. More specifically, I differentiate between two types of legitimation: representational legitimation and non-representational or reason-based legitimation. While representational legitimation rests on the fact that the constitution is representative o…
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People
Basic Law: Israel as the Nation State of the Jewish People declares that Israel is the nation state of the Jewish people. It also includes several symbolic and operative provisions which are designed to strengthen the Jewish character of the state. The Basic Law purports to legally define and entrench the particular rather than universal values of Israel—the values that distinguish Israel from other nations rather than those that are shared by ot…
Two concepts of constitutional legitimacy
What legitimates constitutions? One standard answer is that constitutions are legitimate only if they represent the people they govern. This article identifies two different conceptions of representation. Representation can be grounded either in the consent or the will of the citizens or when the constitution reflects the ‘real’ identity of the members of the nation. Alternatively, it is sometimes stated that the constitution is legitimate becaus…
General courts, specialized courts, and the complementarity effect
Among the major decisions any legal system must make is deciding whether to establish general courts with broad jurisdiction, or specialized courts with limited jurisdiction. Under one influential argument—advanced by both judges and legal theorists—general courts foster coherence within the legal system. This Article identifies a distinct effect of establishing general courts: the “complementarity effect.” In the case of complementarity, general…
The Kantian case against democracy
Contrary to what Cordelli argues, the relationship between Kantian legitimacy and democratic decision-making is contingent rather than necessary. This paper counters the connection between Kantian legitimacy and democracy in three ways: by arguing that democratic authorization is (i) not necessary, (ii) not sufficient, and indeed may be (iii) detrimental to, legitimate governance
Why the Israeli Constitutional Putsch is Unconstitutional
This article defends the claim that the constitutional proposals made in the 25th Knesset are unconstitutional and should be invalidated by the Israeli Supreme Court (the Court). I defend this claim on the basis of three grounds. First, I show that normatively speaking, every liberal democracy has principles, which bind the legislature and to do so effectively, these principles must be defended by courts. Second, I show that in other legal system…
Democratic Law
The Tension between the National and ECHR Human Rights Adjudication: A Normative Account
This article examines cases of conflicting decisions between the ECHR and State Courts. I argue for ‘discordant adjudicative parity.’ According to discordant adjudicative parity, there are compelling non-instrumental reasons for having both international adjudicative institutions and state adjudicative institutions that can make binding, conflicting decisions. Binding decisions by international adjudicative institutions embody the understanding t…
Political science (21 works) · Law (19 works) · Sociology (18 works) · Law and economics (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Epistemology (8 works) · Judicial and Constitutional Studies (8 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Computer Science (7 works) · Politics (7 works)