by Haggai Carmon

The Israeli Government introduced a Bill to the Knesset to regulate Israeli courts’ jurisdiction over foreign states sued in Israel. The Bill passed the first Reading and was transferred to the Knesset’s Judiciary Committee for discussion, review and vote before submitting the Bill for final Reading and approval by the Knesset.
I took special interest in the Bill and concluded was that some articles could be particularly damaging to foreign states sued in Israeli courts. Therefore, I appeared last month before the Judiciary Committee and expressed my professional reservations.
The Committee heard my lengthy presentation and at the conclusion, had adopted my reservation regarding a power originally given to the Israeli courts to issue mandamus and injunctions against foreign states. That Article was deleted from the Bill. Thereafter, the Bill was approved by the Committee for a final Reading.
Although a major damaging Article was removed, there are still potentially damaging articles in the Bill that are very important for foreign states, particularly regarding Labor Court matters, Torts claims and claims resulting from visiting foreign military.