This article considers two arguments raised by the Government of Israel to explain why it does not regard the West Bank as occupied territory and may therefore establish Israeli settlements there. The first is that this territory was not the sovereign territory of another state when occupied by Israel in June 1967; the second is that the trust created by the League of Nations Mandate over Palestine still applies in those parts of Mandatory Palestine that did not become the sovereign territory of another state in 1948. After a short introduction, the article argues that in the modern era, in which peoples have the right to self-determination, the law of belligerent occupation may apply in territory that was not the territory of a state before it was occupied. Relying on a large body of historical research, the article then shows that the mandate system was a compromise between the colonial aspirations of Britain and France and the principle of self-determination propagated by US President Woodrow Wilson. The Mandate did not give rights to Jews or the Jewish people. It merely obligated Britain to facilitate its commitment under the Balfour Declaration to create the conditions that ‘will secure the establishment of the Jewish national home’ in Palestine. This obligation, and its parallel right, ended with the termination of the Mandate and the establishment of the State of Israel, which was the ultimate realisation of a national home for the Jewish people in the land of Israel. Even if one were to accept the argument that the trust established by the Mandate continues to apply in the West Bank, in an era in which colonial ideas have been rejected, the conclusion is not that Jewish citizens of Israel have a right to settle there, but that the right of the Palestinian inhabitants of that area to self-determination should be respected.

The purpose of this study is to discuss possible solutions to stated problems and to reflect on the prospects for the resumption of military justice in Ukraine. The research formulates solutions for overcoming the negative consequences for the judiciary of the armed aggression by Russia against Ukraine. With regard to the limited institutional and human resources of international tribunals such as the International Criminal Court, the main burden of the investigation and trial of cases arising from military legal relations will be placed on the Ukrainian judicial system. International tribunals play a more global role, which is imposing responsibility on the organisers of armed aggression against Ukraine and placing sanctions on the military and political leaders of the aggressor country. For the judiciary of Ukraine, the best way to resolve this significant problem is to restore the system of military courts, which were voluntarily liquidated in 2010. The restoration of military courts will make it possible to unload pressure from the system of courts of general jurisdiction, to ensure prompt resolution of hundreds of thousands of cases of compensation for damage caused to citizens and businesses as a result of the hostilities, as well as the just trial of criminal proceedings for military and war crimes.

This article explores the potential effect of converting a constitutional narrative into a tax narrative that might help to address a constitutional controversy. The article examines, as a case study, the deep and long-standing issue of inequality in mandatory conscription. All efforts made over the decades to resolve the conflict or reduce its scope have failed. The article sets up a novel framework by conceptualising mandatory service as a ‘tax in-kind’, proposing a mandatory army tax credit (MATC) as a significant tool to alleviate the inequality. The proposed regime bridges the tension between Israel’s ‘people’s army’ ethos and the growing inequality. The proposed tax regime leverages the framing effect to preserve the ‘people’s army’ ethos while addressing inequities. Our insights apply to any country with mandatory military service facing issues of inequality: should conscription controversies be addressed solely through constitutional narrative, or through tax narrative as well? In addition, the approach of the article challenges traditional tax perspectives and public policy by incorporating non-monetary obligations into the tax discourse.

This article examines the transformative impact of large language models (LLMs) on online content moderation, revealing a critical gap between platforms’ rule-based policies and their AI-driven enforcement mechanisms. Using Facebook’s hate speech moderation policies and practices as a case study, we identify a paradox: while content policies are increasingly rule-oriented, AI-driven enforcement seems to operate in a standard-like manner. This disconnect creates transparency, consistency and accountability challenges relating to the delineation of online freedom of expression that are not addressed in the literature, and require attention and mitigation. In this specific context, we introduce the concept of ‘rules by the millions’ to describe how AI systems actually operate through generating vast networks of micro-rules that evade traditional regulatory oversight. This phenomenon disrupts the conventional rules-versus-standards framework used in legal theory, raising urgent questions about the adequacy of current AI governance mechanisms. Indeed, the rapid adoption of LLMs in content moderation has outpaced the human capacity to monitor them, creating a pressing need for adaptive frameworks capable of managing the evolving capacities of AI.