Prof. Orna Ben-Naftali is a full professor and a member of the Haim Striks Faculty of Law, where she holds the Emile Zola Chair for Human Rights. She served as Dean of the Striks Faculty and Rector of the College of Management Academic Studies. She holds an LL.B. from Tel-Aviv University, an MA (History) from Harvard University, and a M.A.L.D. and a Ph.D from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.

Her research interests include humanitarian international law, human rights, and narrative concepts of law. Her most recent book (co-authored with Michael Sfard and Hedi Viterbo) is “The ABC of the OPT: A Legal Lexicon of the Israeli Control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory” (Cambridge University Press 2018), awarded the 2019 ‘Honorable Mention’ by the American Society of International Law. 

Prof. Ben-Naftali co-chairs, along with Prof. Shai Lavi, “MUSA: Law and Other Languages for a Just Society in Israel,” an LL.M. Program by the VLJI and the Emile Zola Chair for Human Rights, and chairs the judging committee of the Van Leer Award for Essay Writing.