Oren Gazal-Ayal

Prof. Oren Gazal-Ayal

Oren Gazal-Ayal served as the dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa between 2016-2022. Currently, he is a visiting fellow at All-Souls College at the University of Oxford. He heads the Center for the Study of Crime, Law, and Society at the University. He is an expert in criminal law and procedure, sentencing law, and Economic Analysis of Law. He is regularly published in leading journals, including Duke Law Journal, The Journal of Law & Economics, The Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, and all the leading Israeli legal journals. His papers are frequently cited in decisions of the Israeli Supreme Court.
He serves as the vice chair of the public committee for the prevention of false convictions (headed by the former Supreme Court Justice, Yoram Danziger) and as a member of the Advisory Committee to the Minister of Justice for Criminal Procedure and Evidence Law (headed by the former Supreme Court Justice Neal Hendel). Formerly, he served as
the head of the committee for the examination of drug offenses in the IDF and later as the head of the committee for assessing prosecutorial policies regarding unauthorized absence from service. Gazal-Ayal was also a member of several other public committees, including the Public Committee for the Examination of the Punishment and Treatment of Convicted Offenders (the Dorner Committee), as the coordinating member. He also held other public advisory positions, such as advising the Knesset, the Attorney General, and the Military Advocate General. He initiated a reform in alternatives to criminal proceedings, which was subsequently legislated by the Israeli parliament (the Knesset) in 2012.
Gazal-Ayal has won several prizes for his research, including the Minister of Public Security Prize (twice: 2002, 2008), the Dusty and Ettie Miller Prize for Outstanding Young Scholar (2008), the Cegla Prize (2008), the Fatal Prize for Excellence in Research, The Prize of The Institute for Applicable Criminal Law for excelling researcher (2022) and the prize of the Israeli Association for Criminal Law for the best article in the field (2022). He also won several prestigious and competitive research grants from, among others, the Israel Science Foundation (ISF, four times) and the German-Israeli Foundation (GIF).
Gazal Ayal was a member of the Israel Young Academy (2014-2018) and the Global Young Academy (2010-2014). Gazal-Ayal has been a visiting scholar and visiting professor in universities around the globe, including Oxford University, Worcester College (2019), NYU Law School (1999), Connecticut Law School (2004), Michigan Law School (with Fulbright, 2004-5), the Max Planck Institute in Freiburg (2007) and Aix-Marseilles (with Erasmus Mundus Grant, 2008). He is also the former president of the Israeli Law and Economics Association president (2009-2010).

  • Criminal Law
  • Law and Economics
  • Plea Bargaining

Articles (English)

Articles (Hebrew)

Edited Special Journal Issues

Other

  • Ph.D. The University of Haifa, 2002
  • Master in Law and Economics, The University of Hamburg & The University of Ghent, 1998 (first in class)
  • B.A. in Economics, The University of Haifa, 1997 (first in class)
  • LL.B., The University of Haifa, 1997 (first in class)

on the submarine corruption
criminal investigation

  • Visiting professor, Oxford University, Worcester College, 2019.
  • Humphrey Faculty Fellow, Michigan Law School, 2004-2005.
  • Visiting Professor, Connecticut Law School, Summer 2004.
  • Adjunct Lecturer, Tel Aviv University, Faculty of Law,  2002-2006.
  • Visiting Scholar, New York University (NYU) Law School, 1999-2000.