L'internationalisation du crime terroriste ne pouvait laisser indifférents les criminalistes et les internationalistes pas plus que les gouvernements, d'autant que, souvent, des crimes d'une telle gravité restent impunis, car à l'internationalisation du terrorisme ne répond encore l'internationalisation de la répression.
Antoine Sottile, 1938

The great upbuilding of international law which set in with the end of World War II did not overlook the penal aspects affecting the social substratum and organizational assignments of international law. Matters were no longer envisaged in the rather simplistic manner of Art. 231 of the Treaty of Versailles which had, authoritatively though not arbitrarily, decreed that “Germany accepts the responsibility … for causing all the loss and damage to which Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals had been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed on them by the aggression of Germany and her allies”, and, not less authoritatively, though more arbitrarily, decided “publicly [to] arraign William II for a supreme offence against international morality and the sanctity of treaties”. More realistically, Art. 228 postulated the “right of the Allied and Associated Powers to bring before military tribunals persons accused of having committed acts in violation of the laws and customs of war”. To the great loss of mankind, these provisions were in time eroded to the point of becoming less than meaningless.

This question, evoked for the first time over thirty years ago and apparently resolved some twenty years ago, is being presently hotly debated as a result of the Bill Repealing Ottoman Laws, which is intended to abrogate, inter alia, the remains of the Mejelle, the Ottoman Civil “Code”, still in force in Israel. Throughout the Courts' examination of the question there was never any doubt that the answer is to be found in the Mejelle. For this reason it is now feared that, with the latter's disappearance, no statutory authority will be left in Israel law recognizing custom as a source of law. Admittedly, in the absence of any provision in the Ottoman law still prevailing in this country, article 46 of the Palestine Order-in-Council, 1922 might once again allow recourse to English Common law. Moreover, under the British Mandate in Palestine, reference was made to the Common law on this subject. Since the establishment of the State, however, less significance is attached to this reference. Recently it has even been stressed that there is no point in trying to adopt the English notion of custom, whose requirements are so rigid (notably as to antiquity) that the existence of a custom is not recognized unless it dates from 1189, the first year of the reign of Richard I. Indeed, this lack of flexibility renders recourse to English law, on this point, totally unworkable and merely underlines the necessity of finding a solution within the local—in this case—Ottoman law.

This paper is based on a study prepared for the National Insurance Institute. Originally a comprehensive field study was envisaged, to include empirical data concerning the compensation of victims of automobile accidents in Israel, with the intention of examining the possibilities of necessary reform. It transpired that the field study needed substantial expansion in connection with a separate and independent study of the National Insurance Institute, relating to the rehabilitation of accident victims. It was therefore decided to deal with those areas which did not depend directly upon the empirical data. The absence of such data, however, restricted the possibility of drawing definite conclusions as to the state of affairs in Israel.

The first public proposals in the matter appeared in the Report of the Ben-Ze'ev Committee, appointed by the Ministers of Justice and of Labour in 1964, which was published in the summer of 1966. The gist of the Report lay in the recommendation to leave the implementation of the proposed scheme to the National Insurance Institute. The insurance companies and others came out in opposition and for that reason apparently the Report was shelved.