Link to program

Transitional Justice for Israel-Palestine in Comparative Perspective

Live Webinar

June 5,  2025

Participants

(in alphabetical order)

Anne van Aaken

Anne van Aaken (Dr. iur. and MA Economics) is Professor of Law and Economics, Legal Theory, Public International Law and European Law, University of Hamburg, Germany (Alexander von Humboldt Professor 2018-2023) and Co-Director of the Institute for Law and Economics. Anne was Vice-President of the European Society of International and the Chair of the European University Research Council (2020-2023). She taught as a guest professor at numerous universities around the world (i.a. HEID, World Trade Institute, NYU, HebrewU and University of Haifa) and was a Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin in 2010/11. She was a general editor of the Journal of International Dispute Settlement (OUP) and is a member of the editorial boards i.a. of the American Journal of International Law, the European Journal of International Law (till 2021), the Journal of International Economic Law (OUP) and International Theory (OUP). She has been consultant for the IBRD, OECD, UNCTAD, GIZ and the UN.

Anne’s far over 100 publications are often interdisciplinary, using economics and social science methods, including behavioral sciences, to understand the consequences of law as well as law-making. Her newest edited book is “International Legal Theory and the Cognitive Turn”, OUP 2025 with Moshe Hirsch.

Daniel Bar-Tal is Professor Emeritus at the School of Education, Tel Aviv University. His research interest is in political and social psychology studying socio-psychological foundations of intractable conflicts and peace building. His most influential theoretical contribution is the development of a systematic and holistic conception of the dynamics of interethnic bloody and lasting conflicts: how they erupt, escalate and possibly de-escalate, are resolved peacefully and even reconciled. In addition, he is an authority on the Israeli-Arab/Palestinian conflict, suggesting a comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis of its foundation, continuation and maintenance. Recently he began to study and write about democracy and authoritarianism. He has published over twenty-five books and over two hundred and fifty articles and chapters in major social and political psychological journals, books and encyclopedias. He served as a President of the International Society of Political Psychology and received numerous awards for his academic achievements.

Daniel Levy is a political commentator and President of the U.S./Middle East Project (USMEP). He previously served as MENA Director for the European Council on Foreign Relations and Head of the Middle East Taskforce at the Washington DC New America Foundation.

Levy was a Senior Advisor to Israeli Justice Minister Yossi Beilin during the Government of Ehud Barak (1999-2001). He was a member of the official Israeli delegation to the Israel/Palestine peace talks at Taba under Barak and at Oslo B under Yitzhak Rabin (1994-95). 

Levy briefed the UN Security Council on four occasions in the past five years, the latest of which from February 2025 can be viewed here.

Leila Hilal is an independent lawyer and analyst. Her project work and writing covers accountability and transitional justice in the Middle East and North Africa.  She formerly served as director of the Middle East Task Force at New America and as Senior Policy Adviser to the Commissioner-General of the Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA). She advised Pal-Is negotiations from 2002-2008. Hilal clerked for Justice Yvonne Mokgoro at the South African Constitutional Court in 2000. She received her J.D. from the State University of New York at Buffalo Law School and her LL.M. from Harvard Law School.
Manal Totry- Jubran (PhD) is an associate professor at the Law faculty, Bar Ilan University. She was a visiting professor at the Luiss Law School, Rome and at the Bicocca Law School, Milano. She was a Post Doctorial Fellow at the Faculty of Law, the Hebrew University. She received her LL.M. (Magna cum Laude) and Ph.D. from the Faculty of Law, University of Tel- Aviv. In 2023 she was awarded the “Cegla Prize” for Exceptional Legal Articles in Hebrew. In 2019 she was awarded the “Gorni Prize”, by the Israeli Association of Public Law young researchers for Excellent young researcher in public Law. In 2018 she was selected as one of ten Young Promising Arab leaders in the Arab Society. In 2015 she was awarded a scholarship for outstanding Arab students by the Council for Higher Education. She received several competitive grants and attended numerous local and international conferences and academic workshops and published articles in international leading Law journals. Her main fields of interests are: Public Law, Law and Society, Critical Legal Geography, Multiculturalism, Minority Rights, Environmental and Transitional Justice.
Maya Arad Yasur is a playwright based in Tel-Aviv. Her plays deal mostly with questions of identity, exile and war through a dissection of narrative mechanisms. Yasur’s plays have been produced and published worldwide and are translated to 12 languages. She is the recipient of the Berliner Theatertreffen’s Stückemarkt prize for “Amsterdam“, the International Theatre Institute award for playwriting for “Suspended”, the Habima award for “God Waits at the Station” and Tel-Aviv Rosenblum Award.
How to Remain a Humanist after a Massacre in 17 Steps is translated to English, German, French, Russian, Swedish, Finish and more and published in several leading magazines around the world.
Pablo de Greiff was appointed by the UN Human Rights Council to serve as the first Special Rapporteur on the promotion of truth, justice, reparation, and guarantees of non-recurrence in 2012, a position he held until 2018. De Greiff currently serves as commissioner of the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. De Greiff is a senior fellow and director of the Prevention Project, Center for Human Rights and Global Justice, at the New York University School of Law. He is the author of over 80 publications.
Ruti Teitel is the Ernst C. Stiefel Professor of Comparative Law at New York Law School, and a lecturer in the graduate program in international relations at New York University. She is the author of the now classic work Transitional Justice as well as of Humanity’s Law and Globalizing Transitional Justice. Teitel is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Her forthcoming book “Presidential Visions of Transitional Justice” is due out in August also with Oxford University Press addresses the need for leadership in taking responsibility for past wrongs.
Shiran Reichenberg  is the Executive Director of the Clinical Legal Education Center, and also the Clinical Director of the Rights of Youth at Risk Clinic at the Faculty of Law, Hebrew University, Jerusalem, Israel. In this role, she advocates for children’s rights through personal advocacy, education, and policy initiatives.

Her research interests cover several critical areas related to children and youth at risk, including: Children’s Rights, Youth at Risk and Welfare System, Youth Well-being, Access to Justice for Youth at Risk, Application of Children’s Rights as Human Rights, Gender perspective on marginalized girls at risk; Dr. Reichenberg explores the intersection of children’s rights and broader human rights principles. She is part of COST Action working group on Participation of children and young adults who were maltreatment in research.

Her doctoral dissertation, titled “The Right to Participation and Care Proceedings in Youth Court”, she critically examines the right to participation within care proceedings, shedding light on the legal complexities surrounding young girls in care proceedings.

Shiri Krebs is a Professor of Law and the Director of the Centre for Law as Protection at Deakin University. Additionally, she is an Alexander von Humboldt Fellow at Hamburg University, a visiting legal fellow at the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), and an affiliate scholar at the Stanford University Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). From 2022 to 2025 she served as the elected Chair of the Lieber Society on the Law of Armed Conflict. Professor Krebs’ scholarship focuses on behavioural approaches to international law, biases and blind spots in predictive counterterrorism tools, and human-machine interaction in drone warfare. Her research on drone warfare and surveillance technologies is currently funded by several nationally and internationally competitive research grants, including from the Australian Research Council (ARC) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (Germany). Her research has influenced policy in Australia and internationally and has earned her several research awards, including the David Caron Prize (American Society of International Law, 2021), the ‘Researcher of the Year’ Award (Australian Women in Law Awards, 2022), the Australian Legal Research Awards (finalist, Article/Chapter (ECR), 2022), and the Vice-Chancellor’s Researcher Award for Career Excellence (Deakin, 2022).

Shreya Shankar is a PhD researcher and practitioner working at the intersection of transitional justice, art, and identity. Her work focuses on how artistic expression can act as testimony and resistance in post-conflict contexts. She has explored tayaka padalgal, songs produced by the LTTE in Sri Lanka, as a way to understand identity, memory, and compliance with international law. With a background in international law and forensic psychology, she works closely with artists and survivors to centre lesser-known narratives in justice processes. Her research includes collaborations with indigenous communities and survivors of gender-based violence. She regularly teaches and presents on the role of art in legal and political transitions.

Sigall Horovitz is the transitional justice advisor of the Hebrew University’s Clinical Legal Education Center. Her interests are transitional justice, international criminal law, ethics and anti-corruption. Dr. Horovitz held various legal positions at the United Nations, including at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Dr. Horovitz was also involved in teaching and academic research in Israel and Germany. She initiated transitional justice programs at the Hebrew University and Tel Aviv University, and led experiential study trips to Rwanda and South Africa. Dr. Horovitz completed her master’s degree with honors at Columbia University (2003) and received her doctorate in law from the Hebrew University (2014). Dr. Horovitz received the Arthur Helton Fellowship of the American Society of International Law, the Rabin Scholarship of the Truman Research Institute for the Advancement of Peace, the Vodoz Prize of the Institute of Contemporary Jewry, and an award for distinguished academic work from the Israeli Law and Society Association. She is a member of the New York and Israeli Bar Associations, and a founding member of the Association for the Promotion of International Humanitarian Law (ALMA).

Ziad Ali Khalil AbuZayyad is an attorney at Law who graduated from Damascus University in 1965.

He is the co-editor and publisher of the quarterly Palestine-Israel Journal of Politics, Economics and Culture, PIJ.ORG, which he co-founded in 1994 with prominent Israeli journalist, Victor Cygielman, as a joint Palestinian-Israeli venture. He is also a weekly columnist of Al-Quds Arabic daily newspaper.

Abuzayyad is also a former member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (1996–2006), former Minister of State in the Palestinian Authority (1998–2002), and former Deputy Chairman of the Political Committee of the Euro-Med Parliament (2004–2005). He was also the head of the Palestinian delegation to the Middle East multilateral peace talks in the Arms Control and Regional Security Working Group (ACRS) from 1994 to 1996.

AbuZayyad was an advisor to the Palestinian negotiating team in Washington, DC in 1992, and later a member of the post-Oslo negotiating team that concluded the 1994 Israeli-Palestinian Agreement (“The Cairo Agreement” that led to the establishment of the Palestinian Authority).

He has been imprisoned several times by Israeli authorities; the last was administrative detention for six months (November 1990 to May 1991). Immediately after his release he joined the Palestinian team led by Faisal Husseini to negotiate with U.S. Secretary of State James Baker the arrangements for the Madrid Conference of 1991.

In 1986, well before the Oslo Accords, AbuZayyad founded the Palestinian bi-monthly Hebrew language journal Gesher (The Bridge), of which he was publisher and editor. He is interviewed frequently by Israeli and international media on current issues of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, and participated in numerous regional and international conferences on the Arab–Israeli conflict, and interfaith dialog.

AbuZayyad co-authored The West Bank Political Lexicon, together with prominent Israelis, Meron Benvenisti and Danny Rubinstein, and co-edited the book Islamophobia and Anti-Semitism together with Hillel Schenker.