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On October 7, Hamas brutally massacred over a thousand civilians and took more than 200 hostages in southern Israel. That these are deeply immoral acts and war crimes is beyond dispute, and Israel’s resulting declaration of war against Hamas is sanctioned by international law. As Israel moves forward with plans for a ground invasion of Gaza in exercise of its right to self-defense, it faces a challenging ethical and legal landscape. The Law of Armed Conflict prohibits the targeting or disproportionate killing of civilians during armed conflict, and yet it is known that any attack on Hamas will result in significant civilian casualties, given how densely populated Gaza is, that Hamas uses civilians as human shields and otherwise fails to respect the value of civilian life, among many other reasons.
How can the Israeli military and government ensure that its wartime response remains legal and ethical, namely that it is restricted to neutralizing Hamas and deterring future attacks against Israel and its citizens while protecting innocent civilians? Join our experts as they explain the international laws that govern armed conflicts as well as the ethical quagmires that exist in any war, but most especially in a war against terrorists.
*Please note that this event is only being offered virtually.*
SPEAKERS
David Enoch studies law and philosophy in Tel Aviv University, before clerking for Justice Beinisch on the Israeli Supreme Court. After getting a PhD in philosophy at NYU, David has been a faculty member - on a joint appointment in law and philosophy - at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Recently he started as the Professor of the Philosophy of Law at Oxford. David works primarily in moral, political, and legal philosophy.
Claire Finkelstein is the founder and faculty director of the Center for Ethics and the Rule of Law (CERL), a non-partisan interdisciplinary institute affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC). She is a distinguished research fellow at APPC and a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute (FPRI).
An expert in the law of armed conflict, military ethics, national security law, and professional ethics, she is a co-editor (with Jens David Ohlin) of The Oxford Series in Ethics, National Security, and the Rule of Law, and an editor of six of its volumes: Targeted Killings: Law & Morality in an Asymmetrical World (2012); Cyber War: Law and Ethics for Virtual Conflicts (2015); Weighing Lives in War (2017); Sovereignty and the New Executive Authority (2018); Preserving Cultural Heritage in Times of War (2022), and Between Crime and War: Hybrid Legal Frameworks for Asymmetric Conflict (2022). She has published widely in national security and democratic governance, and most recently led a working group of over 30 national security professionals to produce a significant report discussing recommendations for closing Guantanamo Bay Prison.
Finkelstein is a sought-after national security consultant, briefing individuals, Pentagon officials, U.S. Senate staff, and JAG Corps members on issues relating to national security law and practice. She is also regularly consulted on matters of personal and professional ethics. She is a frequent radio, podcast, broadcast, and print commentator and has published op-eds in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Bloomberg, and Newsweek. Her other scholarly work has focused on criminal law theory, moral and political philosophy, jurisprudence, and rational choice theory.
MODERATOR
Michael Weisberg is interim director of Perry World House, as well as Bess W. Heyman President’s Professor and Chair of Philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania. A renowned philosopher of science and senior negotiator at United Nations Climate Conferences, he is editor-in-chief of Biology and Philosophy, director of the Penn Laboratory for Understanding Science, and director of the Galápagos Education and Research Alliance. He is the author of Simulation and Similarity: Using Models to Understand the World and co-author of the landmark photographic study Galápagos: Life in Motion. Professor Weisberg also serves as senior adviser to the Maldivian Minister of Environment and advisor to the Maldivian Ambassador to the United Nations. He received a PhD and MA in Philosophy from Stanford University and a BS in Chemistry and BA in Philosophy with Highest Distinction from the University of California at San Diego.
