Malvina Halberstam
Malvina Halberstam, Professor of International Law, is one of the founding faculty of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law of Yeshiva University. Prior to coming to Cardozo, she taught at Loyola, University of Southern California, University of Texas, University of Virginia, and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She clerked for Judge Edmund L. Palmieri, following Ruth Ginsburg (now Justice Ginsburg) and served as an Assistant District Attorney in Manhattan under the legendary Frank Hogan, the first woman appointed by him. From 1985 - 1986 she served as the Counselor on International Law in the U.S. Department of State, Office of the Legal Advisor. She helped draft and headed the U.S. delegation to negotiations on the Convention for the Suppression of Unlawful Acts Against the Safety of Maritime Navigation, a treaty on terrorism on the high seas triggered by the Achille Lauro seizure, adopted in Rome in 1988.
Professor Halberstam has lectured and published articles on International Law, the Constitution and U.S. Foreign Affairs, Human Rights, Women's Rights, Criminal Justice, and the Arab-Israeli Conflict, and co-authored a book on international agreements on women's rights.
Professor Halberstam graduated from Columbia University Law School, where she was third in her class and Articles and Reviews Editor of the Columbia Law Review. She also earned Masters in International affairs from the Columbia School of International Affairs. She was born in Kempno, Poland shortly before W.W.II, and survived the war, together with her immediate family, in Siberia and Kirgistan. She came to the United States in 1947.
- Her most recent publications are:
- The Evolution of the United Nations Position on Terrorism: From Exempting National Liberation Movements to Criminalizing Terrorism Whenever and by Whomever Committed, 41 Columbia Journal of Transnational Law 573 (2003).
- The U.S. Right to Use Force in Response to the Attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center (forthcoming).
- Her articles focusing on the Middle East, include:
- The Jerusalem Embassy Act: United States Recognition of Jerusalem, Undivided, as the Capital of Israel, 14 Bar Ilan Law Studies 391 (1998) (in Hebrew).
- The Jerusalem Embassy Act, 19 Fordham Int. Law. J. 1379 (1996). An earlier version of this article, entitled Can Congress Move An Embassy?, appeared in the Legal Times, Oct. 9, 1995 at 46, reprinted in the Congressional Record, 141 CONG REC S 15177-9 (daily ed. Oct. 10, 1995).
- How Serious Are We About Prohibiting International Terrorism and Punishing Terrorists? 11 The Jewish Lawyer 1 (1996).
- Nationalism and the Right to Self-Determination: The Arab-Israeli Conflict, 26 N.Y.U. Journal of Int. L. and Politics 1001 (1994).
- The Myth that Israel's Presence in Judea and Samaria is Comparable to Iraq's Presence in Kuwait, 19 Syracuse J. Int. L. and Com. 1 (1993).
- Self-Determination in the Arab-Israeli Conflict: Meaning, Myth, and Politics, 21 N.Y.U. Journal of Int. L. and Politics 465 (1989).
- Excluding Israel from the General Assembly by a Rejection of its Credentials, 78 Am. J. Int. Law (1984).
- List of Topics:
- Can Israel Legally Retain Territory Captured in the War of Independence and the Six Day War?
- Jerusalem from Camp David I to Camp David II: U.S. and Israeli Law & Policy.
- The Use and Misuse of Language in the War Against Israel: Palestinians, Occupied Territories; West Bank; Settlements; Arab East Jerusalem; Haram Al-Sharif.
- Should Israel Adopt a Fundamental Law Requiring Prior Knesset Approval for Treaties?
- Why Doesn't the U.S. Prosecute Arafat for the Murder of the U.S. Ambassador to the Sudan?
- The Belgian Indictment of Ariel Sharon for War Crimes: Vindication of Justice or Pursuit of Politics?
- Civil Actions in U.S. Courts for War Crimes, Terrorism, and other Human Rights Violations.