Eugene Kontorovich

Eugene Kontorovich (Hebrew: 'יוג'ין קונטורוביץ; born 1975) is an Israeli legal scholar, specializing in constitutional and international law. He is the head of the international law department at the Kohelet Policy Forum, an Israeli conservative think tank.

Kontorovich studied law at the University of Chicago. He later clerked for Judge Richard Posner on the U.S. Court of Appeals. In 2011, he received a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, and in 2012 was awarded the Federalist Society's Bator Award, given annually to a young scholar under 40.

From 2011 to 2018, Kontorovich worked as a professor at Northwestern University School of Law. Since then he has served as a Professor of Law at Antonin Scalia Law School, where he established the Center for the Middle East and International Law.

Kontorovich coined the term "gaolbalization" (gaol + globalization): the practice of one country sending its excess prison population to another country with excess capacity.

He has been active in opposing boycotts of Israel and its settlements, including standing before a special US congressional committee on the topic.

Kontorovich is a fellow of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, and heads the international law department at the Kohelet Policy Forum. He occasionally writes for The Washington Post and The Jerusalem Post.

Kontorovich is a proponent of using anti-BDS laws to combat the BDS movement. He has helped many US states draft such legislation. In 2016, Kontorovich served as an expert advisor to the group that sued the American Studies Association over its 2013 decision to boycott of Israeli academic institutions.

Born in Kyiv, Ukraine, Kontorovich moved to the US with his parents at the age of three. He immigrated to Israel in 2013 with his wife and four children, and lives in the West Bank settlement of Alon Shvut.

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