How Jewish is International Law

Bibliographic Data

ID12627307
AuthorsGilad Ben-Nun (0000-0001-7389-9318, Senior Researcher, Research Centre Global Dynamics (ReCentGlobe), Leipzig University Leipzig Germany, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume23
Issue2
Pages249-281
Publication date2020-12-04
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the History of International Law / Revue d’histoire du droit international (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1388-199X • E-ISSN: 1571-8050
PublisherBrill (PUBLISHER • NL)
DOI10.1163/15718050-12340171
OpenAlexW3111693337
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited8

This study attempts to explain why so many East-Central European Jewish international jurists played such cardinal roles in the elaboration of some of the most important treaties of modern international law post World War II . Borrowing from the biographies of Jacob Robinson, Isaac Lewin, Hersch Lauterpacht, Georg Cohn and others who served as key drafters of treaties such as the 4th Geneva Convention for Civilians and the 1951 Refugee Convention, the paper points to structural similarities between Talmudic law and international law, which help further explain the evident ‘Jewish disproportion’ in the making of many of the international system’s bedrock treaties post World War II . It argues that the biographical combination of Talmudic and rabbinical jurisprudence, coupled with a secular education in public international law, which was biographically mutual to most of these jurists helped them to fulfil the important drafting roles they undertook in the making of these treaties

Convention · International law · Judaism · Jurisprudence · Political science · Public international law · Refugee · Sociology · Theology · Communism, Protests, Social Movements · Historical and Contemporary Political Dynamics · International Law and Human Rights · Law · Philosophy

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