The switch: The Israel High Court of Justice's transition from occupation law to human rights law

It has been suggested that the jurisprudence of the High Court of Justice (HCJ) relating to the territories occupied by Israeli in 1967 had effectively legitimized the occupation. Recent decisions by the HCJ suggest, however, that the legal paradigm it applies has shifted from Israeli administrative law to Israeli constitutional law, and from the international law of belligerent occupation to domestic human rights law. The Silwad judgment - a landmark decision from June 2020 in which the HCJ struck down the Regularization Law of 2017 - illustrates this switch. Furthermore, it reflects the challenge confronting the HCJ when striving to facilitate structural change in the situation in the occupied territories. Contrary to some of the literature which criticized the switch to human rights norms for diluting the rights of Palestinians residing in the occupied territories, we submit that it potentially constitutes an important step in the direction of confronting the systematic discrimination of Palestinians which that belligerent occupation law paradigm failed to prevent.