Criminal Justice & the Rule of Law Democracy & Elections

The Lawfare Podcast: The Judicial Revolution Is Here

Benjamin Wittes, Amichai Cohen, Yuval Shany, Natan Sachs, Jen Patja
Wednesday, July 26, 2023, 8:00 AM
What is the substance of the first phase of Israel's judicial overhaul and what is coming next?
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The first phase of Israel's judicial overhaul is now law. Huge numbers of people are in the streets, reservists are resigning, the stock market is tanking, and Lawfare Editor-in-Chief Benjamin Wittes assembled an all-star panel to talk about it.

Natan Sachs is the Director of the Center for Middle East Policy and a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Program at the Brookings Institution. Amichai Cohen teaches international law and national security law at the Ono Academic College in Israel. And Yuval Shany is the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law and former Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Cohen and Shany are the authors of a string of in-depth articles about the Israeli judicial revolution and the protests they have engendered (see their Lawfare articles here, here, here, here, here, and here). The four of them talked about what the substance of this new law is, what's coming next, whether this is the end of the reform sequence or just the first slice of salami, and about the incredible reaction we have seen from Israeli civil society and from opposition parties.

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Criminal Justice & the Rule of Law Democracy & Elections
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Benjamin Wittes

Benjamin Wittes

benjaminwittes.lawfaremedia.org
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Benjamin Wittes is editor in chief of Lawfare and a Senior Fellow in Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. He is the author of several books.
Amichai Cohen

Amichai Cohen

amichaic
amichaic.bsky.social
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Amichai Cohen teaches international law and national security law at the Ono Academic College, Israel, where he previously served as the dean of the Faculty of Law. He is also a senior fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute. Cohen received his LL.B. degree from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and his LL.M. and J.S.D. degrees from Yale Law School.
Yuval Shany

Yuval Shany

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Professor Yuval Shany is the Hersch Lauterpacht Chair in International Law and former Dean of the Law Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He also currently serves as Senior Research Fellow at the Israel Democracy Institute , and was a member of the UN Human Rights Committee between 2013-2020. Prof. Shany received his LL.B. cum laude from the Hebrew University, LL.M. from New York University and Ph.D. in international law from the University of London.
Natan Sachs

Natan Sachs

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Dr. Natan Sachs is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC and an adjunct lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Until 2025, he was Senior Fellow and the Director of the Brookings Institution's Center for Middle East Policy in Washington DC. He publishes widely on Middle East affairs, on Israel's foreign policy, and Israeli domestic politics, and is a frequent media commentator on these issues. Sachs previously taught at Georgetown University as adjunct faculty, was a Hewlett Fellow at Stanford University, a visiting fellow at Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center, and a Fulbright Fellow in Indonesia. He holds a B.A. from the Amirim Honors Program at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University.
Jen Patja

Jen Patja

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Jen Patja is the editor of the Lawfare Podcast and Rational Security, and serves as Lawfare’s Director of Audience Engagement. Previously, she was Co-Executive Director of Virginia Civics and Deputy Director of the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier, where she worked to deepen public understanding of constitutional democracy and inspire meaningful civic participation.
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