Papers by Yael Rimer-Cohen
Child Abuse & Neglect, 2025
Background: Child Protection Legal Systems around the world work to toe the line between protecti... more Background: Child Protection Legal Systems around the world work to toe the line between protecting children from possible harms and avoiding inflicting further harm by mistreating or misrecognizing the problems the children in question are facing. Despite growing efforts to enhance children's participation in child protection proceedings, there is still a lot of criticism from families and children directed at the state and the legal system. Objective: This inquiry attempts to locate at least one of the reasons for such criticismthe feeling of being excluded from the decision-making process. Participants and setting: 6 juvenile courts were visited by the researcher, sitting in 30 court hearings and at the courts' area before and after hearings. Method: Observations were transcribed by researcher and analyzed using atlas.ti, extracting themes and recurring ideas. Results: The article analyses the matrix of different child-participation modeswhich permit children's voices to be heard in the courtroom to varying degreesand specifically different roles currently played by the guardians ad litem. The article frames the findings within the theory of epistemic injustice, identifying the places where the children's place as knowers and knowledgeproducers is being denied. Conclusion: Despiteor in fact, because-the emphasis on participation and voice, there is still a long way to go before children are provided real epistemic power in the courtroom. Based on the inquiry findings, a policy recommendation is made: to incorporate the epistemic perspective from the poverty-informed paradigm, into the specialized training guardians go through, allowing for an epistemic rearrangement of the children's voices as knowledge-producers.
Social & Legal Studies, Nov 8, 2022
How do judges formulate their written decisions when rejecting plaintiffs’ requests in a welfare ... more How do judges formulate their written decisions when rejecting plaintiffs’ requests in a welfare context? In this paper, based on our thematic analysis, we show how judges construct a nuanced concept of ‘welfare deservingness’ to narratively mitigate their own moral and emotional tensions when making decisions on remedies in public-housing cases. Deploying a notion borrowed from criminology—‘neutralisation techniques’—we discuss the material and symbolic implications of this concept, contributing to the theoretical discussion of both poverty law and legal professionalism. We claim that judges use ‘neutralisation techniques’ to negotiate, justify, and explain their decisions while attempting to avoid or lessen the dilemmas they typically face, given the scarcity of housing resources and their inability to grant material assistance. Employing these techniques, the judges create ‘deservingness spectrum’ that enables them to essentially subvert the binary division of accepted/denied cases. At one end of this spectrum, the denial of the plaintiff's ‘victim’ status is enacted through the negation of symbolic deservingness and, thus, the denial of housing is framed as a warranted sanction on the plaintiff's reproachable character. At the other end, the techniques allow the judges to recognise ‘symbolic deservingness’ while still not providing material aid. Judges are therefore able to preserve their professional status and sense of moral rectitude when making such unenviable housing decisions. More broadly, our analysis offers a novel lens through which to critically understand judicial decision-making in welfare jurisprudence.
Modern Law Review, Feb 9, 2023
In legal scholarship, as in other fields, it would seem that ‘choice‐architecture’ (where states ... more In legal scholarship, as in other fields, it would seem that ‘choice‐architecture’ (where states attempt to ‘move’ people toward desired behaviour) is everywhere. This paper argues that such blanket adoption of choice‐architecture discourse cannot be based on generic terms, nor on imagined or assumed choices. Rather, I contend, the specific characteristics of each legal field – here, poverty law – should be considered when debating and reviewing choice‐architecture. I point to the dangers of using choice‐discourse in the context of poverty law, illuminate significant weaknesses in choice‐architecture theory, and thus justify limitations on the use of incentives and nudges in this context. I propel the poverty‐as‐exception argument, advancing the development of poverty law toward being considered a distinct field of law. The contributions of this paper are thus both theoretical and normative, shifting focus onto those exposed to choice‐architecture, and to the expressive harms caused by assuming choice where there is none.
Social Science Research Network, 2023
Oxford Journal of Legal Studies
In most Western jurisdictions, welfare law utilises means testing to determine whether individual... more In most Western jurisdictions, welfare law utilises means testing to determine whether individuals are eligible for welfare allowances, often using property ownership as one of the eligibility criteria. Crucially, the prevailing conception of property ownership is premised on the notion that property rights are applied equally to all owners in matters relating to the control and management of that property. When this assumption proves not to reflect reality, it can have devastating consequences for those most in need of the support ostensibly provided by welfare law. The present qualitative empirical study examines two cases in which such adverse consequences are felt: in the two largest minority communities in Israel—the Palestinians and the Ultraorthodox Jews (Charedi). The findings show that property ownership in these communities is realised hierarchically, along patriarchal lines, and that family members occupy and manage property in accordance with community customs and tradit...
Social & Legal Studies, Nov 8, 2022
How do judges formulate their written decisions when rejecting plaintiffs' requests in a ... more How do judges formulate their written decisions when rejecting plaintiffs' requests in a welfare context? In this paper, based on our thematic analysis, we show how judges construct a nuanced concept of 'welfare deservingness' to narratively mitigate their own moral and emotional tensions when making decisions on remedies in public-housing cases. Deploying a notion borrowed from criminology-'neutralisation techniques'we discuss the material and symbolic implications of this concept, contributing to the theoretical discussion of both poverty law and legal professionalism. We claim that judges use 'neutralisation techniques' to negotiate, justify, and explain their decisions while attempting to avoid or lessen the dilemmas they typically face, given the scarcity of housing resources and their inability to grant material assistance. Employing these techniques, the judges create 'deservingness spectrum' that enables them to essentially subvert the binary division of accepted/denied cases. At one end of this spectrum, the denial of the plaintiff's 'victim' status is enacted through the negation of symbolic deservingness and, thus, the denial of housing is framed as a warranted sanction on the plaintiff's reproachable character. At the other end, the techniques allow the judges to recognise 'symbolic deservingness' while still not providing material aid. Judges are
Social Legal Studies, 2022
How do judges formulate their written decisions when rejecting plaintiffs' requests in a welfare ... more How do judges formulate their written decisions when rejecting plaintiffs' requests in a welfare context? In this paper, based on our thematic analysis, we show how judges construct a nuanced concept of 'welfare deservingness' to narratively mitigate their own moral and emotional tensions when making decisions on remedies in public-housing cases. Deploying a notion borrowed from criminology-'neutralisation techniques'we discuss the material and symbolic implications of this concept, contributing to the theoretical discussion of both poverty law and legal professionalism. We claim that judges use 'neutralisation techniques' to negotiate, justify, and explain their decisions while attempting to avoid or lessen the dilemmas they typically face, given the scarcity of housing resources and their inability to grant material assistance. Employing these techniques, the judges create 'deservingness spectrum' that enables them to essentially subvert the binary division of accepted/denied cases. At one end of this spectrum, the denial of the plaintiff's 'victim' status is enacted through the negation of symbolic deservingness and, thus, the denial of housing is framed as a warranted sanction on the plaintiff's reproachable character. At the other end, the techniques allow the judges to recognise 'symbolic deservingness' while still not providing material aid. Judges are
Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review, 2023
This paper is built on a legal metaphor. Judicial review of situations of rights' infringements i... more This paper is built on a legal metaphor. Judicial review of situations of rights' infringements is based, I claim, on searching something similar to the criminal law quest after the mens rea of the actor. In discrimination laws, courts actually-though sometimes not explicitly-search for anything between intent and awareness. In administrative law courts actually search for indications for negligence of the administrator. I use the test case of Palestinian women and Israeli housing aid rules, to show where these legal practices fall short in treating the core problem. I analyse this situation and extrapolate to claim that in situations of intersectionality of gender and social-economic status within minority groups, Epistemic Injustice is eminent. By the end of the paper I bring forth a suggestion of a borrowed framework of strict, or even absolute, liability of the law-makers with regards to excluded individuals within minority groups.
Regulation & Governance, 2022
Public participation, responsive regulation, and other policy formulations are intended to draw g... more Public participation, responsive regulation, and other policy formulations are intended to draw governments down from their ivory towers and into engagement with the people. However, they paint at best, a hazy picture of who 'the people' are. This superficial representation is felt, among other collectives, by people living in poverty, who not only face hunger, often accompanied by poorer health and lower life expectancy, but whose social exclusion typically goes unrecognized by the authorities. The legal framing of poverty-and, as a result, states' policy approaches to its alleviation-focuses on the material core, representing a very thin conceptualization that fails to address the social dimension. Furthermore, practical avenues for incorporating citizens' views into lawmaking-which might enrich understanding-are lacking when it comes to people-inpoverty. Combined with a blatantly hegemonic stance, the resulting ignorance around poverty and 'the poor' generates welfare laws that are woefully out of touch with reality, and legislative thinking that perpetuates, rather than alleviates, poverty. This paper seeks to make a twofold contribution: (i) to demonstrate this situation with a deep empirical inquiry into the legislative process of one legal provision within the Israeli welfare law regime, juxtaposed against qualitative field-research findings, and (ii) to introduce the inventive and groundbreaking 'poverty-aware' paradigm, constructed in social-work discourse, to illuminate and explain the empirical findings and point to potential procedural-institutional reform, to pave the way for poverty-aware legislation.
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Papers by Yael Rimer-Cohen