Law, Violence and Sovereignty Among West Bank Palestinians

Tobias Kelly is a Lecturer in Social Anthropology, School of Social and Political Studies, University of Edinburgh.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Understanding rights claims; 3. 'Jurisdictional politics' in the occupied West Bank; 4. West Bank Palestinians across the green line; 5. Claiming labour rights in the West Bank; 6. The Palestinian National Authority and the 'National Interest'; 7. Conclusion; Bibliography.

'Kelly's analysis perceptively unravels the different interpersonal and political layers that may be involved in a particular dispute. … Most who think about the legal, or political, situation in the West Bank operate in global terms: denial of self-determination, or Israel's security concerns. Kelly's book focuses on interaction at the economic and personal level, thus rendering these broader issues more concrete. His elucidation of these relationships may be helpful to potential mediators. Israelis and Palestinians will likely interact for a long time to come and a sound legal basis for that interaction would make life more bearable for all concerned. At a more general level, Kelly's book invites thought about how disputes are handled in other societies. His approach is not comparative, but once he discusses such issues as propensity to sue versus resolving disputes through informal mechanisms, a reader inevitably will draw comparisons to the similarities and differences observable in other jurisdictions. The labour relations focus and the many facets that Kelly explores, put the book squarely within the scope of other titles in the Cambridge series in which it has been published.' John Quigley, Moritz College of Law