{"id":25029,"date":"2025-05-27T12:00:32","date_gmt":"2025-05-27T10:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/?p=25029"},"modified":"2025-11-14T15:08:07","modified_gmt":"2025-11-14T14:08:07","slug":"statement-of-international-lawyers-and-academics-related-to-the-repeated-violations-of-the-law-society-institute-humboldt-university-berlin-by-inviting-israeli-supreme-court-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/voelkerrechtsblog.org\/de\/statement-of-international-lawyers-and-academics-related-to-the-repeated-violations-of-the-law-society-institute-humboldt-university-berlin-by-inviting-israeli-supreme-court-judge\/","title":{"rendered":"Statement of over a Hundred International Academics and Lawyers Writing to Law & Society Institute (LSI), Humboldt University Berlin Seeking Reflection on Lack of Academic Integrity Re: Gaza"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following text is published in the category of “Open Letters and Statements<\/a>“.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

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Law & Society Institute, Humboldt University Berlin Repeatedly Violates Academic Integrity by Inviting Israeli Supreme Court Judge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Humboldt University Berlin, Law & Society Institute is hosting the event \u201cCan judges protect democracy?\u201d with<\/span> Daphne Barak-Erez, Supreme Court of Israel,\u00a0 26 May 2025<\/span><\/a> (on<\/span>line).<\/span><\/p>\n

It is with deep distress that we write to you about the abandonment of ethical, academic and legal standards and responsibilities by Humboldt University, Law & Society Institute (LSI) for inviting, for the second time since October 2023, a representative of the Israeli Supreme Court, judge Daphne Barak-Erez. Barak-Erez represents a court that \u201chas given its seal of<\/span> approval to all of Israel’s actions \u2013 withholding medical treatment, the disappearance of people,<\/span> denial of media access to Gaza<\/span><\/a>, and above all, starving the population of Gaza.\u201d *(1)<\/span><\/p>\n

On March 27, 2025 the Israeli Supreme Court rejected a petition against the starvation of Gaza’s population. It accepted the state’s argument that there was no restriction on the entry of food into Gaza and that there was no real shortage of food there. *(2)<\/span><\/p>\n

What should be the objective of a Law and Society Institute, if not the challenge of law\u2019s claim to legality with empirical reality? And therefore, in the spirit of our commitment to the norms and ethics of socio-legal research, we will start by stating some empirical facts:<\/span><\/p>\n

<\/b>1. Law & Society Institute (LSI) refuses to engage with its own methodology and erases Palestine in the process:<\/strong><\/p>\n

If you search for the word \u201cGaza\u201d on the LSI website, it will result in 0 search results. The State of Israel\u2019s ongoing Nakba *(3)<\/span> and genocide *(4)<\/span>\u00a0in Gaza is now in its 20th month. During this Genocide, Israeli forces have mass murdered close to 53000 people (not including those whose bodies are still under debris), about 70% of them children and women. The overwhelming number of women and children shows that Israel has indiscriminately killed unarmed civilians as a policy of extermination.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Those protesting genocidal violence in Berlin, such as students, staff, academics and artists are experiencing German state violence, police brutality and racist and obviously illegal actions, especially if they are\u00a0 racialized persons. They witness institutional and state silencing of their anti-genocide stand, especially but not exclusively, if they are Palestinian. *(5)<\/span><\/p>\n

And yet, LSI did not consider the need to address these intersecting crises of law domestically and internationally, as also reflected in the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice. A crisis of liberal law that in many ways was intensified through German material and discursive support of Israeli state institutions, and yet absent and erased from the discourse on law and society at LSI. Socio-legal scholarship and law and society scholarship is not just interdisciplinary but actively reflects on the crisis of legality and its contextual manifestations. LSI\u2019s silence as the world is witnessing a real-time genocide on our screens shows an abandonment of academic responsibility by LSI. <\/span><\/p>\n

2. Law & Society Institute whitewashed the crimes of representatives of the Israeli Supreme Court<\/strong><\/p>\n

This is the second time that Humboldt University, Law & Society Institute is inviting Daphne Barak-Erez, sitting judge of the Israel Supreme Court since the start of the ongoing genocide in Gaza and escalating targeted violence, illegal military siege over occupied Palestinian land, and continuing land usurpment and displacement of Palestinian communities. On Thursday, 8 February 2024, Barak-Erez joined a panel discussion \u201cJudging in a constitutional democracy\u201d, jointly organised by Humboldt University Law Faculty, University of M\u00fcnster and the Hertie School\u2019s Centre for Fundamental Rights. Protesting students confronted the judge with her judicial legacy so far that includes, amongst others, the following\u00a0 list of horrifying court decisions :<\/span><\/p>\n