Issi Rosen-Zvi | Tel Aviv University (original) (raw)

Papers by Issi Rosen-Zvi

$Research paper thumbnail of Israel\u27s Supreme Court Appellate Jurisdiction: An Empirical Study$

This Essay reports the results of an empirical study of the Israel Supreme Court (ISC). It covers... more This Essay reports the results of an empirical study of the Israel Supreme Court (ISC). It covers the outcomes of 3,562 cases (as of this writing), all decided in 2006 and 2007, and describes the cases by subject area, litigant-pair characteristics, and source of jurisdiction - mandatory or discretionary. In mandatory-jurisdiction cases ending with clear affirmances or reversals, the ISC affirmed lower court rulings in about 75% of district court criminal case appeals and about 67% of district court civil case appeals. In discretionary- jurisdiction cases, the ISC rarely granted review. It agreed to review about 6 % of petitions in criminal cases and about 15 % of petitions in civil cases. In discretionary cases in which the ISC did grant review, it tended to reverse at a much higher rate than in mandatory-jurisdiction cases, with an affirmance rate of 55 % in criminal cases and 31 % in civil cases. Combining denials of review with affirmances resulted in criminal case litigants obt...

$Research paper thumbnail of Attorneys\u27 Fees in a Loser-Pays System$

Attorneys' fees fuel litigation, yet little is known about fees. Fee data are rarely available in... more Attorneys' fees fuel litigation, yet little is known about fees. Fee data are rarely available in the United States or in English rule, loser-pays jurisdictions. This Article analyzes fee awards in Israel, which vests judges with discretion to award fees, with loser pays operating as a norm. The 2641 cases studied constitute nearly all cases terminated by judgment in district courts in 2005, 2006, 2011, and 2012. Given many fee denials and fees that are well below client payments to attorneys when awarded, the Israeli fee system could reasonably be characterized as being more American than English. Moreover, judges use their discretion in a manner that reflects redistributive sensitivity. Fees were awarded to prevailing parties in 72.8%

University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 2014

Stanford Law Review, 2017

More than one hundred executive departments and agencies operate through systems of regional offi... more More than one hundred executive departments and agencies operate through systems of regional offices strategically located around the country. Currently, these regions are misguidedly viewed as mere enforcers and implementers of central policies. We propose two alternative visions of federal regions—regions as mediators and regions as coordinators. These two visions have deep roots in the rich but forgotten history of U.S. public administration. In the New Deal era, federal regions were understood as mediating entities between the central government’s centralizing efforts and regional needs and conditions. With the expansion of federal programs and agencies in the 1950s and 1960s, federal regions were gradually reconceived as vehicles for coordination among the different branches of the administration as well as between the federal government and the states. Since the 1980s, however, federal regions have been seen as part of the oversized federal government and have thus been mistru...

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013

Under the English rule, the loser pays litigation costs whereas under the American rule, each par... more Under the English rule, the loser pays litigation costs whereas under the American rule, each party pays its own costs. Israel instead vests in its judges full discretion to assess fees and costs as the circumstances may require. Both the English and the American rules have been the subjects of scholarly criticism. Because little empirical information exists about how either rule functions in practice, an empirical study of judicial litigation cost award practices should be of general interest. This Article presents such a study in the context of Israel's legal system. We report evidence that Israeli judges apply their discretion to implement multiple de facto litigation cost systems: a one-way shifting system that dominates in most tort cases; a loser pays system that operates when publicly owned corporations litigate; and a loser pays system with discretion to deny litigation costs in other cases. Although a loser pays norm dominates in Israel with litigation costs awarded to the prevailing party in 80 percent of cases, Israeli judges still often exercised their discretion to protect certain losing litigants, especially individuals, from having to pay their adversaries' litigation costs. In tort cases won by individual plaintiffs against corporate defendants, for example, corporations had to pay their own litigation costs plus plaintiffs' litigation costs 99 percent of the time. Even when the corporate defendants prevailed, they still had to pay their own litigation costs 52 percent of the time. When public corporations litigated and lost, a loser pays system dominated. Award patterns also varied by case category and judicial district. In property cases in one district, courts denied prevailing plaintiffs fees in about 75 percent of cases. Theorizing about optimal fee rules should account for the variety of fee outcomes observed in practice.

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

We thank Na'ama Schlam and Noam Guttman for their invaluable research assistance and insightful c... more We thank Na'ama Schlam and Noam Guttman for their invaluable research assistance and insightful comments, as well as for coordinating the student work in a superb manner. We are also grateful to Efrat Zilberbush, Na'ama Daniel, Nitzan Ilani, and Gadi Ezra for their assistance in collecting the data.

Theoretical Inquiries in Law

Regionalism is experiencing a global resurgence as countries grapple with issues such as coordina... more Regionalism is experiencing a global resurgence as countries grapple with issues such as coordination problems, economic inequality, racial tensions, and environmental degradation. Nations are exploring various regional entities as potential solutions to these challenges. However, despite the growing prominence of regions, they remain undertheorized. While extensive research has been conducted on national and local governments, regions have often been treated as either state-like or locality-like, or as ad-hoc remedies for the limitations of both. This article seeks to complicate this perspective and present the initial stages of a theory of regions. By examining the case study of the Cities’ Union in Israel and tracing its historical origins and legal evolution into multipurpose regional clusters, the article uncovers valuable theoretical insights about regions. First, it argues that just as “the local” and “the national” mutually shape one another, “the local” and “the regional” t...

Social Science Research Network, 2012

The article explores the spatial turn which has taken place in legal theory since the mid-1990s. ... more The article explores the spatial turn which has taken place in legal theory since the mid-1990s. We argue that, although space was present in legal analysis prior to this turn, the consolidation of these various studies, as well as their understanding as belonging to a distinct branch of legal theory, has had three important consequences. First, spatial analysis allows a more sophisticated understanding of the interrelations between law and society. Second, the study of legal geography enables integration of what seem to be unrelated and distinct legal fields, with the underlying logic, purposes and values that they embody. Third, the spatial turn in legal theory is part of the spatial turn in the social sciences and humanities in that it fills the gap left by studies that do not take law into account, or which suffer from a crude understanding of law. Critical legal geographers have shown that law is not merely a passive medium through which states impose their spatial policies; it...

This article questions one of the most deeply-rooted taxonomies of modern legal thought, that div... more This article questions one of the most deeply-rooted taxonomies of modern legal thought, that dividing civil and criminal procedure. It highlights a fundamental shortcoming of our legal system that stems from its failure to provide adequate procedural protections to individuals who are sued by the government or large organizational entities and face severe civil sanctions, while ensuring sweeping procedural safeguards for people and institutions facing only trivial criminal sanctions. Many justifications have been offered for the civil-criminal rift in procedure. Some argue that the distinction rests on utilitarian grounds, while others point to egalitarian rationales. Still others invoke the expressive role played by procedure, with others focusing on the unique role of the state in a liberal democracy. The article challenges each of these rationales, showing that they are obsolete, if not completely unfounded, and proposes a simple alternative: cutting the Gordian knot binding substance to procedure and replacing the current bifurcated civil-criminal procedural regime with a model running along two axes: the balance of power between the litigating parties and the severity of the potential sanction or remedy. The balance of power axis refers to the model's two sets of procedural rules, aimed at remedying asymmetry problems inherent to litigation. One set of rules would govern symmetrical litigation, that is, where both parties are either institutional entities (comprised of both governmental bodies and large organizational entities such as big corporations and financial institutions) or else individuals (including small businesses); a second set of rules would govern asymmetric litigation, involving an individual on one side and an institutional entity on the other. The model's second axis focuses on the degree of harm that would be generated by an adverse decision for the litigating parties, irrespective of whether the substantive legal regime governing the dispute is civil or criminal. Applying these two parameters, our proposed procedural regime maps out the entire procedural landscape. The resulting redistribution of procedural protections diverges significantly from the current regime. The article shows that the proposed model, as a regime based on the true goals of procedure, in fact, better realizes the ends underlying the rationales used to justify the current procedural regime. It concludes with some remarks about the feasibility of such a reform.

Fla. St. UL Rev., 2010

Copyright (c) 2010 Florida State University Law Review Florida State University Law Review. Sprin... more Copyright (c) 2010 Florida State University Law Review Florida State University Law Review. Spring, 2010. 37 Fla. St. UL Rev. 717. LENGTH: 24344 words Just Fee Shifting. NAME: Issachar Rosen-Zvi*. BIO: * Associate Professor, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law. ...

Minn. JL Sci. & Tech., 2011

In the run-up to the global climate summit in Copenhagen (COP-15), 1 environmentalists, scientist... more In the run-up to the global climate summit in Copenhagen (COP-15), 1 environmentalists, scientists, and politicians referred to it as a historical event. As COP-15 drew near, climate change activists and United Nations (UN) officials had high hopes that December 2009 would be a watershed moment for creating a new carbon-restricted global economy for decades to come. Furthermore, following the result of the 2008 American presidential elections, many in the international community felt that the path was clear to finally include the United States in the agreement that would replace the Kyoto Protocol, 2 and that developing nations-among them China and India-would also take on some binding and enforceable restrictions on Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. The European Parliament even had lofty expectations that an

Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 2011

The creation of a "market for virtue" and social responsibility is dependent on the flow of infor... more The creation of a "market for virtue" and social responsibility is dependent on the flow of information from the corporation to the responsible agents. To achieve a free flow of information, excessive, missing and unreliable information must be avoided. More generally, a market for virtue should make it possible to create the appropriate means to signal true commitments and enable informed agents to know how to effectively use their limited resources for deploying market power that rewards and sanctions the corporations that deserve such responses. The underlying assumption of this query is that if corporations in fact compete among themselves in the dimension of social responsibility, then some corporations will identify ways of demonstrating credibility of both efforts and results. The purpose of publishing codes of conduct and annual Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reports would be to improve the level of information that is needed for the market for virtue to function. In order to assess the existence of a competitive market for virtue, the Article analyzes the codes and associated documents of sixteen multinational companies in three industries-textile, petrochemical and automobile. The Article finds some differences between labor and environmental norms, both within each of the sectors, as well as between sectors. However, the major finding casts doubt on the very assumption that labor and environmental norms are shaped by a

SSRN Electronic Journal

Attorney fees fund litigation yet little is known about fees in most cases. Fee data are rarely a... more Attorney fees fund litigation yet little is known about fees in most cases. Fee data are rarely available in the United States or in English rule, loser pays, jurisdictions. This Article analyzes fee awards in Israel, which vests judges with discretion to award fees, with loser pays operating as a norm. The 2641 cases studied constitute nearly all cases terminated by judgment in district courts in 2005, 2006, 2011, and 2012. Given many fee denials, and fees when awarded being well below client payments to attorneys, the fee system could reasonably be characterized as being more American than English. Fees were awarded to prevailing parties in 72.8 percent of cases. Judges often exercised their discretion to protect losing litigants, especially individuals, from having to pay fees. In tort cases won by individuals against corporate defendants, corporations paid their own fees plus plaintiffs’ fees in 99 percent of the cases; corporate defendants that prevailed in such cases paid thei...

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2016

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2012

We study 1,410 mandatory jurisdiction and 48 discretionary jurisdiction criminal law case outcome... more We study 1,410 mandatory jurisdiction and 48 discretionary jurisdiction criminal law case outcomes in cases appealed to the Israel Supreme Court in 2006 and 2007 to assess influences on case outcomes. A methodological innovation is accounting for factors-case specialization, seniority, and workload-that modify random case assignment. To the extent one accounts for nonrandom assignment, one can infer that case outcome differences are judge effects. In mandatory jurisdiction cases, individual justices cast 3,986 votes and differed by as much as 15 percent in the probability of casting a vote favoring defendants. Female justices were about 2 to 3 percent more likely than male justices to vote for defendants but this effect is sensitive to including one justice. Defendant gender was associated with outcome, with female defendants about 17 percent more likely than male defendants to receive a favorable vote on appeal. Our data's samples of mandatory and discretionary jurisdiction cases allow us to show that studies limited to discretionary jurisdiction case outcomes can distort perceptions of judges' preferences. Justices' ordinal rank in rate of voting for defendants or the state was uncorrelated across mandatory and discretionary jurisdiction cases. For example, the justice who sat on the most criminal cases was the fourth (of 16 justices) most favorable to the state in mandatory jurisdiction cases but the 12th most favorable in discretionary jurisdiction cases. This result casts doubt on some inferences based on studies of judges on discretionary jurisdiction courts, such as the U.S. Supreme Court, in which only discretionary case outcomes are observed.

The Law & Ethics of Human Rights

This article examines the process for the eviction of tenants (PET), which offers landlords a swi... more This article examines the process for the eviction of tenants (PET), which offers landlords a swift path for obtaining an eviction order against their tenants, as a case study exposing the politics of procedure. It shows that the PET is but one stage in a longstanding battle waged between two interest groups—landlords and tenants—involving both substantive law and procedural law. But while the story of their conflict over substantive law, fought in the parliament through the regular legislative process, is well-known, the story of the procedural amendments, despite their immense impact, remains shrouded in mystery and is told here for the first time. The reason for that, we argue, is that despite the vast impact of procedure on substantive right, many in the Israeli legal system mistakenly view civil procedure rules as highly technical and neutral directives for the day-to-day operation of the litigation process. The conclusion from such a view is that rulemaking should be left to e...

Stanford Law Review, 2018

More than one hundred executive departments and agencies operate through systems of regional offi... more More than one hundred executive departments and agencies operate through systems of regional offices strategically located around the country. Currently, these regions are misguidedly viewed as mere enforcers and implementers of central policies. We propose two alternative visions of federal regions-regions as mediators and regions as coordinators. These two visions have deep roots in the rich but forgotten history of U.S. public administration. In the New Deal era, federal regions were understood as mediating entities between the central government's centralizing efforts and regional needs and conditions. With the expansion of federal programs and agencies in the 1950s and 1960s, federal regions were gradually reconceived as vehicles for coordination among the different branches of the administration as well as between the federal government and the states. Since the 1980s, however, federal regions have been seen as part of the oversized federal government and have thus been mistrusted, their role confined to that of mere enforcers. This Article calls for a revival of viewing federal regions as mediators and coordinators. It argues that when regions live up to their potential, they inject a much-needed dose of democracy into the bureaucracy, improve the coordination among federal departments and agencies, and serve as a powerful check on presidential overreach.

$Research paper thumbnail of Israel\u27s Supreme Court Appellate Jurisdiction: An Empirical Study$

$Research paper thumbnail of Attorneys\u27 Fees in a Loser-Pays System$

University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 2014

Stanford Law Review, 2017

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2013

SSRN Electronic Journal, 2012

Theoretical Inquiries in Law

Social Science Research Network, 2012

Fla. St. UL Rev., 2010

Minn. JL Sci. & Tech., 2011

Theoretical Inquiries in Law, 2011

SSRN Electronic Journal

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2016

Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 2012

The Law & Ethics of Human Rights

Stanford Law Review, 2018

More than one hundred executive departments and agencies operate through systems of regional offi... more More than one hundred executive departments and agencies operate through systems of regional offices strategically located around the country. Currently, these regions are misguidedly viewed as mere enforcers and implementers of central policies. We propose two alternative visions of federal regions-regions as mediators and regions as coordinators. These two visions have deep roots in the rich but forgotten history of U.S. public administration. In the New Deal era, federal regions were understood as mediating entities between the central government's centralizing efforts and regional needs and conditions. With the expansion of federal programs and agencies in the 1950s and 1960s, federal regions were gradually reconceived as vehicles for coordination among the different branches of the administration as well as between the federal government and the states. Since the 1980s, however, federal regions have been seen as part of the oversized federal government and have thus been mistrusted, their role confined to that of mere enforcers. This Article calls for a revival of viewing federal regions as mediators and coordinators. It argues that when regions live up to their potential, they inject a much-needed dose of democracy into the bureaucracy, improve the coordination among federal departments and agencies, and serve as a powerful check on presidential overreach.