Alon Harel

Alon Harel (born 1957) is a law professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he holds the Phillip P. Mizock & Estelle Mizock Chair in Administrative and Criminal Law. He was educated at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Yale University, and Balliol College, Oxford (where he earned a D.Phil. in legal philosophy with a dissertation supervised by Joseph Raz). He has been a visiting professor at Columbia University, Harvard University, the University of Toronto, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of Chicago.

Harel writes on political philosophy, jurisprudence, criminal law, constitutional law, and law and economics. His articles often undertake philosophical and legal issues of contemporary political relevance. In a recent article (co-authored with Yuval Eylon), Harel defends judicial review on the grounds of a "right to a hearing", which, as a participatory right, does not conflict with the right to equal democratic participation.

A leading advocate of Israeli human rights in Israel, Harel has served on the Board of Directors of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, and submitted a Brief on Behalf of Conscientious Objectors to the Israeli Supreme Court. He often publishes op-ed pieces in Israeli newspapers.

Harel is the founder and editor of the journal Jerusalem Review of Legal Studies, together with David Enoch.

His Book

• Alon Harel, Why Law Matters, Oxford Legal Philosophy, 256 pages, 2014.

Selected publications

• ——— (1994), "Efficiency and Fairness in Criminal Law: The Case for a Criminal Law Principle of Comparative Fault", California Law Review, 82 (5): 1181–1229, doi:10.2307/3480909 .
• ———; Parchomovsky, Gideon (1999), "On Hate and Equality", Yale Law Journal, 109 (3): 507–539, doi:10.2307/797410 .
• ———; Segal, Uzi (1999), "Criminal law and behavioral law and economics: observations on the neglected role of uncertainty in deterring crime", American Law and Economics Review, 1 (1): 276–312, doi:10.1093/aler/1.1.276 .
• ———; Bar-Gill, Oren (2001), "Crime Rates and Expected Sanctions: The Economics of Deterrence Revisited", Journal of Legal Studies, 30 (2): 485–502, doi:10.1086/322055 .
• ———; Eylon, Yuval (2006), "The Right to Judicial Review", Virginia Law Review, 92 (5): 991–1022 .

External links

• Harel's homepage at the Hebrew University
• Judah, Ben, "The dignity of the human in Israel: interview with Alon Harel", The Alligator Online, 2 February 2009
• Why Law Matters, in Oxford Legal Philosophy
• Will Baude, Book Review: ‘Why Law Matters,’ by Alon Harel, Washington Post, 6 November 2014
• Barbara Baum Levenbook, Alon Harel Why Law Matters, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews, 6 October 2015