Scienceאיל בנבנישתי

Eyal Benvenisti

Eyal Benvenisti is an Israeli legal scholar of international law who held the Whewell Professorship of International Law at the University of Cambridge.

born 1959Scholarship in international lawWhewell Professor at CambridgeDefending Israel at the ICJChairing the Association for Civil Rights

Born: 18 February 1959, Jerusalem
Occupation: jurist, university teacher, activist, legal scholar
Education: Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Yale Law School

Eyal Benvenisti was born in 1959 in Jerusalem

Benvenisti was born in Jerusalem on 18 February 1959 and grew up there, attending the Hebrew Gymnasium Rehavia. He is the son of the writer and researcher Meron Benvenisti and the grandson of David Benvenisti.

He earned his LL.B. at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in 1984. At Yale Law School he received an LL.M. in 1988 and a J.S.D. in 1990. He interned at the Supreme Court with Justice Miriam Ben-Porat.

He began teaching at the Hebrew University in 1990 and directed its Minerva Center for Human Rights from 2000 to 2002. He then moved to Tel Aviv University, where he directed the Cegla Center from 2002 to 2005. He also chaired the Association for Civil Rights in Israel from 1995 to 1996.

In 2016 he became Whewell Professor of International Law at Cambridge and director of the Lauterpacht Centre for International Law. He was a candidate for the Israeli Supreme Court in 2008. In 2024 he represented Israel at the International Court of Justice in the genocide case brought by South Africa.

He left Cambridge in 2024 and returned to live in Israel. He is a member of the Israeli Law Professors' Forum for Democracy, founded in 2023.