About Us
The Minerva Center for the Rule of Law under Extreme Conditions at the University of Haifa Faculty of Law and the Geography and Environmental Studies Department, is an international venue and transnational forum – together with the University of Hamburg, for study, research, training, education and publication. Its mission is to focus on the rule of law, broadly defined to include policy and regulation, under three main types of extreme conditions: natural disasters (epidemics, floods, storms, fires, earthquakes); national security challenges (wars, terrorism, counter terrorism, cyber-terrorism and military actions); and socioeconomic crises (economic meltdowns and severe sociopolitical fragmentation).
The Center is a venue for systematic and cross-cultural learning and research, using various methodologies, qualitative, quantitative and mixed. It initiates innovating interdisciplinary research on the normative and institutional dimensions of the rule of law under extreme conditions as well as in-depth examination of law-in-action. It fosters multifaceted empirical and theoretical research in the study of rule of law as a social sphere before, during and after extreme conditions.
Challenges to the rule of law under extreme conditions may vary under different constitutional and political regimes. The Center concentrates on democracies. The analyses examine institutional, cultural, socioeconomic and policy dimensions.
The Centers’ mission includes encouragement of scholars, young scientists, and students to develop data and cultivate an interactive dialogue for research and training around these issues.
Interdisciplinary interactions and dialogue are most important, among such disciplines as law, sociology, history, economics, political science and international studies, planning, media studies, psychology, geography, environmental studies, philosophy, public policy and administration, public health and medicine.
The mission of the Center includes dialogue with the larger communities of students, scholars, experts, policy and decision makers through workshops, colloquia, seminars, conferences and a series of publications based on its research and findings.
