Ronit Levine-Schnur, Ph.D.

Does an Occupying Power have a duty to protect private property rights of protected persons against acts of its own citizens? What is the extent of such a duty? This paper argues that under belligerent occupation, land disputes between individuals of both sides of the conflict are not a private matter even if the Occupying Power has no direct interest in the object of dispute. Accordingly, the Occupying State has a duty to protect the private rights of the civilians under its control, and to address such private disputes as a matter of public order. The paper discusses this claim based on recent developments in the formation of land disputes between Israelis and Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank. Until the 1990 s Israel’s de-facto annexation of the West Bank’s land (although not the people) was manifested, most prominently, by establishing Israeli settlements over land identified as public property. Following the Oslo accords, a shift has occurred, when Israeli settlers, in a bottom-up process, began to cultivate private Palestinian lands and consequentially claim title based on their adverse possession. The political conflict was transferred from the public arena to the private one. The paper evaluates Israel’s response to these developments and considers the applicable legal standards.

Cited in Haaretz about Settlement Homes Built on Private Palestinian Land.

"According to Dr. Ronit Levine-Schnur, an expert on property rights at the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, “Regularized land is land for which there is clear land registration, whether performed under Jordanian rule or during the Mandate period. The land at Amona was regularized land. In these cases there is no doubt about the rights because the registration invalidates any competing right and there’s no such thing as a statue of limitations on registered land. Non-regularized land can be unregistered but known to be privately owned, or registered but in a registry that doesn’t have the same strong evidentiary power.”
 

Cited in Haaretz report on a Scheme involves mortgaging West Bank land obtained from the state to divert funds to outpost, with the help of a Canadian lawyer and the Civil Administration. 

"Dr. Ronit Levine-Schnur, a property rights expert at the Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya and a past legal adviser on land issues for the Judea and Samaria district, says that even if there is no clear legal obligation to ascertain the purpose of the loan, it seems the Civil Administration acted strangely in this case.

She says the legal examination the Civil Administration is required to conduct before giving its approval “has to include addressing a number of aspects, like the applicant's identity, the lender, any outstanding debts on the property and legal impediment to carrying out the pledge.” Checking for legal impediments, she said, includes examining “whether there is information about anything problematic about the property being mortgaged.”

Even though she notes the obligation to check into loan's purpose isn’t absolute, “if the loan's purpose is clear from the request or [written] on the loan documents in the hands of the responsible authority or his representatives, it seems unreasonable from a public interest perspective that the responsible official shouldn’t perform an additional examination of the request to approve the transaction.” In this case, as noted, the loan's purpose – to build homes for Alonei Shilo settlers – was written explicitly on the documents."

This is my new paper on land use law theory, in which I advance the burdens-benefits ratio principle for land use decisions. I exemplify this idea on development agreements and the use of eminent domain. 

It will be published in 100 Years of Zoning and the Future of Cities (Amnon Lehavi, ed.) (forthcoming).

In mid-February, 2017, a group of 28 Israeli law professors, specializing in constitutional, international, property and human rights law, submitted a memorandum (amicus curiae) to the Israeli Supreme Court assailing the Israeli law known as "The Regularization law." The Regularization Law, simply put, mandates, under certain conditions, seizing private Palestinian land in the West Bank, and transferring it to Jewish settlers that have unlawfully took over the property. As the memo states, the law constitutes a grave violation of basic constitutional principles in its attempt to affect the rights of persons who have no access to the Israeli democratic process - the Palestinians residing outside Israel, in the occupied territories controlled by a military government. As if this was not enough, it does so in an egregiously discriminatory manner. In this context, the law violates key constitutional rights such as human dignity and equality. In addition, the law is a flagrant violation of relevant norms of international law, chiefly in its provisions concerning seizing private property without military necessity, and in its support and encouragement of otherwise illegal activity. In essence, the law obliges the military commander in the occupied territories to commit war crimes.

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The brief (in Hebrew) is linked. 

Review and critic of "Is the Government Fiscally Blind". 

Arguing about the Act's unconstitutionality and its violation of international law norms. 

Current legal trends tend to obscure the sharp distinction between substance and procedure. This tendency is manifested, inter alia, as a growing dependence of procedural norms in substantive law; greater flexibility of procedural norms; and growing judicial discretion to deviate from procedural rules. In order to evaluate these contemporary trends, we provide a theoretical analysis of the basic relationships between procedural norms and substantive legal outcomes. This framework reveals the moral commitments underling these modern trends as opposed to the moral foundations of the traditional view that legal decisions should be made under rigid procedural constraints. Focusing on criminal evidence law, the proposed theoretical framework is applied to some of the ongoing legal debates, such as about the admissibility of evidence seized in violation of rights, the exclusion of statistical and character evidence, and the flexibility of the reasonable doubt standard of proof.

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Current legal trends tend to obscure the sharp distinction between substance and procedure. This tendency is manifested, inter alia, as a growing dependence of procedural norms in substantive law; greater flexibility of procedural norms; and growing judicial discretion to deviate from procedural rules. In order to evaluate these contemporary trends, we provide a theoretical analysis of the basic relationships between procedural norms and substantive legal outcomes. This framework reveals the moral commitments underling these modern trends as opposed to the moral foundations of the traditional view that legal decisions should be made under rigid procedural constraints. Focusing on criminal evidence law, the proposed theoretical framework is applied to some of the ongoing legal debates, such as about the admissibility of evidence seized in violation of rights, the exclusion of statistical and character evidence, and the flexibility of the reasonable doubt standard of proof.

For further information about our research check the project's page.

​Does an Occupying Power have a duty to protect private property rights of protected persons against acts of its own citizens? What is the extent of such a duty? This paper argues that under belligerent occupation, land disputes between individuals of both sides of the conflict are not a private matter even if the Occupying Power has no direct interest in the object of dispute. Accordingly, the Occupying State has a duty to protect the private rights of the civilians under its control, and to address such private disputes as a matter of public order. The paper discusses this claim based on recent developments in the formation of land disputes between Israelis and Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank. Until the 1990s Israel’s de-facto annexation of the West Bank’s land (although not the people) was manifested, most prominently, by establishing Israeli settlements over land identified as public property. Following the Oslo accords, a shift has occurred, when Israeli settlers, in a bottom-up process, began to cultivate private Palestinian lands and consequentially claim title based on their adverse possession. The political conflict was transferred from the public arena to the private one. The paper evaluates Israel’s response to these developments and considers the applicable legal standards.

Seth J. Frantzman, "Terra Incognita: How Israel’s Right and Left failed the Beduin": "The Israel Democracy Institute, in an article in 2013 by Ronit Levine- Schnur, argued that plans such as the Prawer Plan to resettle Beduin communities are “motivated by fear of a Beduin takeover of the Negev.” But the fear was exaggerated. 'The lands in dispute constitute less than 2% of the territory of Israel and less than 3% of the Negev.'"

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I argued that the Bill, if enacted, would violate international law; would pave the way for int'l proceedings against Israel; would not change the legal rights of the effected land owners; and will put the Israeli Supreme Court in a lose-lose situation. 

Full statement, in Hebrew, is available here.

To the video record (starting min. 1:02), see here.

Covered by News1 - http://www.news1.co.il/Archive/001-D-385122-00.html

Israel National News (Atrutz 7) - http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/334231

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Israeli Farmers Working Improperly Allocated Private Palestinian Land

Israeli Farmers Working Improperly Allocated Private Palestinian Land

Nicole Stelle Garnett writes that my paper "Is the Government Fiscally Blind?", that it "represents a significant contribution to the literature on eminent domain."