Yoram Dinstein

Yoram Dinstein (; 2 January 1936 – 10 February 2024) was an Israeli scholar and professor emeritus at Tel Aviv University. He was a specialist on international law and an authority on the laws of war. Dinstein died on 10 February 2024, at the age of 88.

Legal and academic career Dinstein began teaching at the Hebrew University in 1964. From 1966 to 1970, he was a member of the Israeli delegation to the United Nations and the Israeli Consul-General in New York City.

Dinstein was Dean of the Faculty Law at Tel Aviv University from 1978 to 1980.

Dinstein served twice as the Charles H. Stockton Professor of International Law at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, from 1999 to 2000 and again from 2002 to 2003. He was also a Humboldt Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg, Germany, a Meltzer Visiting professor of law at New York University, and a visiting professor of law at the University of Toronto. This has led Neve Gordon and Nicola Perugini to characterize Dinstein as an Israeli "spy" within Amnesty International. Dinstein used his position as "chairman of the Israel national section of Amnesty" to criticize the work of Felicia Langer, a lawyer who was advocating for rights of Palestinians in Israeli courts. Finkelstein also writes that Dinstein based his opinion on a single article from the 1970s, and ignored "voluminous" historical records that show Egypt was not about to attack Israel, nor did Israeli leaders believe an attack was imminent.

Regarding Israeli settlements, Dinstein argued they were only illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention when they benefit from government subsidies or coordination, but that when Israeli settlers act on their own initiative without government help, then such settlements do not violate the Geneva Convention.

Published works

Books The Conduct of Hostilities Under the Law of International Armed Conflict, , Cambridge University Press (2nd ed., 2010) The International Law of Belligerent Occupation, Cambridge University Press, (2009) War, Aggression and Self-Defence, Cambridge University Press, (4th ed., 2005) (5th ed., 2011) War crimes in international law, co-editor with Mala Tabory, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, (1996) Freedom of Religion and the Protection of Religious Minorities, The Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (1991) The Release of Prisoners of War, International Committee of the Red Cross (1984) Models of Autonomy, Transaction Publishers, (1981) The Laws of War at Sea, (1980) The Defence of "Obedience to Superior Orders" in International Law, A. W. Sijthoff (1965)

Articles "Air and Missile Warfare Under International Humanitarian Law", The Military Law and the Law of War Review. (2013) "Comments on Protocol I, International Review of the Red Cross (2010) "War, Aggression and Self-Defence", Commonwealth Law Bulletin, Volume 32, Issue 4 (December 2006) "Comments on War", Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy (2003) "The Parameters and Context of International Criminal Law", Touro Journal of Transnational Law (1988) "International Criminal Law", The Israel Law Review (1985) "Oil pollution by ships and freedom of the high seas", Journal of Maritime Law & Com. (1971)