Closing Symposium
Fourteen Years of Research, Collaboration, and Community
Monday-Tuesday, November 23–24, 2026
Tentative program
DAY 1: Monday, Nov. 23
10:00–10:30 Opening: Fourteen Years Under Extreme Conditions
Welcome and Greetings — Eli Salzberger, Rector?
Fourteen Years of Minerva — A short visual journey
10:30–12:10 Session 1: Constitutional Democracy Under Pressure
What happens to law and democratic institutions when ordinary assumptions no longer hold?
Moderator: Deborah Shmueli
10:30–10:55 Ulrich Preuss and Tine Stein
Universalism and Constitutional Democracy
10:55–11:20 Anne van Aaken (zoom)
The International Rule of Law under Pressure: Narratives, Collective Action, and Bandwagon Effects
11:20–11:45 Fady Khoury
The Institutional Mediation of Polarization
11:45–12:10 Nadav Dagan
Democracy’s Double Burden: When the Response Fuels the Crisis
12:10–12:30 Coffee Break
12:30–13:30 14 Years of Minerva: People, Ideas, and Moments
Moderator: Michal Ben Gal
An informal session devoted to the people and experiences that made the Center an intellectual community.
13:30–14:30 | Lunch
14:30–16:10 Session 2: Emergency Powers, Constitutional Breakdown, and Institutional Responses
Moderator: Maya Mark
14:30–14:55 Mordechai Kremnitzer
The Rule of Law! What Law?
14:55–15:20 Stefan Oeter
The Weimar Republic as a Case of Compound, Cascading and Complex Crisis
15:20–15:45 Stefan Voigt
COVID and Constitutional Change
15:45–16:10 Benjamin Newman
Police Powers During Emergencies
16:10–16:25 Coffee Break
16:25–18:05 Session 3: Rights, Justice, and Political Futures in Israel/Palestine
Moderator: Sandy Kedar
16:25–16:50 David Kretzmer
The Right to Life: Does It Still Exist in Israel?
16:50–17:15 Oren Shlomo
Agricultural Violence in the West Bank
17:15–17:40 Limor Yehuda
Politics of Hope: Pathways Beyond Domination in Israel/Palestine
17:40–18:05 Sigall Horovitz (zoom)
Pre-Transitional Justice from Below: The Hebrew University Law Clinics
Minerva Evening: Fourteen Years Around the Table — Social program and dinner.
DAY 2: Tuesday, Nov. 24
09:30–10:45 | Session 4: International Law in Times of Conflict
Moderator: Yahli Shereshevsky
09:30–09:55 Ziv Bohrer
Teaching International Criminal Law in Times of Armed Conflict
09:55–10:20 Shelly Aviv Yeini
“Bullshitting” in International Law
10:20–10:45 Emanuela Gillard
Humanitarian action, IHL, sanctions and CT – reflections on developments in the ten years of the Minevra programme
10:45–11:00 Coffee Break
11:00–12:40 Session 5: Security, Technology, and New Forms of Governance — What Didn’t We See Coming?
Moderator: Amnon Reichman
11:00–11:25 Mohammed Wattad
The General Security Service, Organized Crime, and Terrorism
11:25–11:50 Jakub Harasta (zoom)
Cybersecurity emergencies
11:50–12:15 Tamar Megiddo
Risks of AI in Governance
12:15–12:40 Yahli Shereshevsky
AI and Targeting
12:40–13:40 Lunch
13:40–15:25 Session 6: From Extreme Events to Multiple, Cascading, and Complex Crises
Has the phenomenon we call “extreme conditions” itself changed—or has our way of seeing it changed?
Moderator: Nadiv Mordechay
13:40–14:05 Eli Salzberger
Early conception of “extreme conditions”: what did we think we were studying in 2012–2013?
14:05–14:30 Amnon Reichman
How the accumulation and interaction of crises challenged a single-event perspective
14:30–14:55 Deborah Shmueli
The Crisis Configurations Framework
14:55–15:25 Discussion led by Amnon Reichman
15:25–15:40 Coffee Break
15:40–16:55 Looking Back, Looking Forward
Moderator: Eli Salzberger
15:40–16:05 Amnon Reichman
What Do We Carry With Us? Emergencies of the Future.
16:05–16:40 Open discussion
What did the Center teach us that we should carry into the next generation of scholarship on extreme conditions? What remains unresolved?
16:40–16:55 Closing — Eli Salzberger