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Professor Tim McCormack is Professor of Law at the Melbourne Law School and the Special Adviser on International Humanitarian Law to the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court in The Hague. In 2011, he was asked by Israel to serve as one of two international observers in the second phase of the deliberations of the Turkel Commission, led by former Israeli Supreme Court justice Jacob Turkel.

The Commission was an independent public commission of inquiry set up by the Israeli government to examine the legality of Israel’s blockade of Gaza, its actions in enforcing that blockade in May 2010 which led to the death of 9 Turkish activists aboard the ship Mavi Marmara, and more generally, the manner in which Israel examines and investigates allegations that it has violated the laws of armed conflict. It was this last question that the Commission addressed in the second phase of its deliberations, with the assistance of Prof. McCormack.

(More on the Commission’s work and findings, as well as Prof. McCormack’s role, can be found in a post that Sharyn Mittelman penned in February.)

On August 1, 2013, Prof. McCormack spoke to an AIJAC gathering in Melbourne about his experience on the Commission, their work, and what it says about Israel’s commitment to international humanitarian law: