Israel and the Struggle Over the International Laws of War

Indecent years, the term lawfare has come to describe the use of international law as a political weapon. The Goldstone report, which was published by the United Nations in September 2009, and the Gaza flotilla controversy, which erupted at the end of May 2010, are examples of lawfare in action. In both cases, diplomats, international human rights lawyers, and UN officials put forward weak or indefensible legal arguments to condemn actions taken by Israel in self-defense. In Israel and the Struggle over the International Laws of War, Peter Berkowitz exposes these abuses of the international laws of war by bringing into focus the flawed assumptions on which they rest and refuting the defective claims they promulgate.