ByYONAH JEREMY BOB

The College of Law and Business international law journal has finished third in the world in the human rights category of the 2020 American W&L Law Journal Rankings, narrowly beating out Harvard Law School which finished fourth.

Only Columbia University Law School and Georgetown University Law School finished ahead of the journal, which is formally known as the Law & Ethics of Human Rights journal.
Moshe Cohen Eliya, the president of the Ramat Gan-based law school, recounted that around 20 years ago when he returned to Israel after a post-doctorate at Harvard, he was full of enthusiasm to host a conference on racism and multiculturalism, including publishing a book.
Moshe Cohen Eliya, President of the Academic Center for Law and Business
Moshe Cohen Eliya, President of the Academic Center for Law and Business (Credit: Limor Aharon)

However, Eliya said he was encouraged by legal scholar Eyal Benvenisti to be far more ambitious by starting an international law journal on human rights.

Also, he credited Prof. Gila Stopler, the college's dean, who he said took over the reins from him in 2013 in leading the efforts of the journal to its current highs.

The law school also had a third place finish in the world among 600 non-US law journals in terms of the expected impact of the articles.

In that competition, it beat out the European Journal of International Law. 

The rankings are a function of a review of how many times a specific journal is cited in all 1,000 journals in the world as well as with a specific focus on citations in the top 400 US journals and top 100 non-US journals.

Two examples of articles in the journal include an article by Harvard University Prof. Mark Tushnet about "Institutions Protecting Democracy: A Preliminary Inquiry," and College of Law and Business Prof. Iddo Porat about "Solving One-Side Polarization: Supreme Court Polarization and Politicization in Israel and the US."

The first article notes that agencies concerned with elections and corruption effectively form a fourth branch of government for protecting constitutional liberties.

The second article documents and characterizes the process of politicization and polarization of the Israeli Supreme Court, with the aid of the US analogy.

The win is also significant at a time in which Israel’s image has taken a hit in the human rights arena following the May 10-21 Gaza war.