Dr. Natalie Davidson

Natalie Davidson joined the Law Faculty as Lecturer (assistant professor) in the Fall of 2017. She holds a joint LLB-Maîtrise (King's College London and Université Paris I Panthéon Sorbonne), LLM (University of London), and doctorate in law (Tel Aviv University). She was a research fellow at the Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas School of Law, and a postdoctoral fellow at the Minerva Center for Human Rights, Hebrew University Jerusalem (Human Rights under Pressure Program). Prior to her doctoral studies, she practiced corporate and banking law in Tel Aviv. Natalie combines legal, historical and social scientific perspectives on international human rights law and constitutional law. She also studies uses of private law litigation in struggles for human rights, and the potential contributions of private law theory to international law. Her research project How Domestic Violence Became Torture in International Human Rights Law: A Socio-Legal Inquiry is the recipient of an Israel Science Foundation grant (no. 1938/19). At the TAU Law Faculty, Natalie also directs the team of Israel reporters for the Oxford Reports on International Law in Domestic Courts. 

International Law

Human Rights Law

Constitutional Law

Sociology and History of Human Rights

Tort Law

Transitional Justice

Natalie welcomes applications from prospective LLM students seeking supervision of a thesis, in particular in the areas of international human rights law, constitutional law or transitional justice.

Education:

LLD, Tel Aviv University Faculty of Law (2016)

LLM, London School of Economics and Political Science (1999).

Joint LLB-Maîtrise, King's College London and Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (1997)

Academic and Professional Experience:

Postdoctoral Fellow, Minerva Center for Human Rights, Hebrew University Jerusalem Faculty of Law (Human Rights under Pressure) 2016-2017

Research Fellow, Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice, University of Texas Austin School of Law 2015-2016

Attorney, International Legal Division, Bank Leumi Israel 2006-2010

Associate Attorney, Corporate Department, Goldfarb Seligman (formerly Goldfarb Levy Eran & Co.) 2005-2006

Adjunct Lecturer, Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, University of Michigan Ann Arbor 2002-2004

Trainee Attorney, Corporate Department, Goldfarb Seligman (formerly Goldfarb Levy Eran & Co.) 1999-2001

Languages

English and French: native languages; Hebrew: fluent; Spanish and Italian: advanced

Representative Publications:

Natalie R. Davidson, "American Transitional Justice: Writing Cold War History in Human Rights Litigation" (Cambridge University Press, Human Rights in History Series, forthcoming)

Natalie R. Davidson, "The Feminist Expansion of the Prohibition of Torture: Towards a Post-Liberal International Human Rights Law?" Cornell International Law Journal (forthcoming 2019)

Natalie R. Davidson, "Process-Tracing the Meaning of International Human Rights Law" in Rossana Deplano and Nicholas Tsagourias eds., Handbook on Research Methods in International Law (Elgar, forthcoming 2019)

Natalie R. Davidson, "Toward a Self-Reflexive Law? Narrating Torture's Legality in Human Rights Litigation" 21 Law, Text, Culture 100, 2017

Natalie R. Davidson “Alien Tort Statute Litigation and Transitional Justice: Bringing the Marcos Case back to the Philippines” 11 International Journal of Transitional Justice 257, 2017

Natalie R. Davidson “Shifting the Lenses on Alien Tort Statute Litigation: Narrating U.S. Hegemony in Filártiga and Marcos” 28 European Journal of International Law pp. 20-30, 2017

Natalie R. Davidson “From Political Repression to Torturer Impunity: The Narrowing of Filártiga v. Peña-Irala” Karen Engle, Zinaida Miller and D.M. Davis (ED), Anti-Impunity and the Human Rights Agenda (Cambridge University Press, 2016), pp. 255-287.

Leora Bilsky and Natalie R. Davidson, “A Process-Oriented Approach to Corporate Liability for Human Rights Violations” 4 Transnational Legal Theory pp.1-43, 2013

Full CV