Nili Cohen - Biography#

Nili Cohen, Israel Prize Laureate in the research of law, President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, gained her Ll.B magna cum laude at the Faculty of Law, Tel-Aviv University in 1971. She gained her Ll.M summa cum laude in 1975. She was awarded The Douckhan Prize for a research paper on "The Assignment of Lease". For her dissertation on "The Protection of Obligation against Interference by Third Parties" she got her Ph.D. in 1978. In 1978 she was appointed a faculty member in the Faculty of Law at Tel-Aviv University, and became a full professor in 1989. Between the years 1997-2001 she served as Rector of Tel-Aviv University, before that (since 1994) as Vice-Rector.

Her teaching and research interests focus in private law, comparative law and in law and literature. Since 2004 she organizes the open series on Law and Literature, within which the most prominent Israeli authors, Amos Oz, A"B Yehoshua, David Grossman, Meir Shalev, take part. She publishes books and articles in Israel and abroad. For her book "Interference with Contractual Relations" she was awarded the Sussman Prize, for "Inducing Breach of Contract" the Zeltner Prize and for "Contracts" (with D. Friedmann) the Sussman Prize for the second time. In 2002 she was awarded the Minkoff Prize for excellence in Law. She was awarded the Rector's Prize for Excellence in Teaching for being the best teacher in the Faculty of Law in 2003/4, in 2004/5 and in 2014/5. She has been invited by many outstanding universities and research centres to give opening addresses, lectures and speeches. Nili Cohen was awarded an Honorary Degree at the University of Buenos Aires in 1998, at the University of Haifa 2018.

Nili Cohen was a member of the Committee of the Codification of Israeli Law. In 1999 she was elected Associate Member of the International Academy for Comparative Law. Since 2006 she is a member of the American Law Institute. She was the Head of the Legislative Committee of the organization of Heads of Universities-in-Israel. From 2000-2016 she was a member of the Academic Council of Venice International University. In 2003-2004 she served as member of the Governmental Task Force for the advancement of education in Israel. She served as a member of the Advisory Committee of the Institute of Advanced Studies at the Hebrew University and in the Advisory Board of Minerva fund for Human Rights.