Professor Tsachi Keren-Paz

School of Law

Professor of Private Law

Tsachi Keren-Paz
Profile picture of Tsachi Keren-Paz
t.keren-paz@sheffield.ac.uk
+44 114 222 6844
Bartolomé House

Full contact details

Professor Tsachi Keren-Paz
School of Law
Bartolomé House
Winter Street
Sheffield
S3 7ND
Profile

Before joining Sheffield I held positions at Keele University (2007-2018) and the College of Management, School of Law, Israel (2001-2007) and have taught in the past in Tel Aviv, Bar-Ilan and Montreal universities and visited at Cornell University, Girona University, Queensland University of Technology, and Vrije University, Amsterdam. Before joining academia, I have practised law in Herzog Fox & Neeman.

I am the author of three monographs Torts, Egalitarianism and Distributive Justice (Ashgate 2007, 2016 Spanish translation by Marcial Pons’ Philosophy & Law series), Sex Trafficking: A Private Law Response (Routledge 2013) and Egalitarian Digital Privacy: Image Based Abuse and Beyond,  and I published in English, Israeli, American, Canadian, Australian and Italian legal journals. My first monograph was shortlisted for both the 2008 Society of Legal Scholars Peter Birks Book Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship, and the 2008 Hart/Socio-Legal Studies Association Book Prize for Early Career Scholars. I am a grant holder (as Co-I) of Leverhulme Research Project Grant ‘FemTech surveillance: Gendered digital harms and regulatory approaches’ September 2022 – September 2024; and was previously a Leverhulme Fellow 2016-2018 for the project “Privacy law, gender justice and end users' liability: 'revenge porn' and beyond” and the Principal Investigator of an ESRC Seminar Series grant 2015-2017 “Liability versus Innovation: Unpacking Key Connections”.

My scholarship has been cited by the Israeli Supreme Court and other appellate courts, influencing the development of Israeli law in the areas of damages awards for personal injury and defamation, compensation for injuries to autonomy in medical and consumer contexts and standard of care determinations.

My anti-trafficking scholarship was cited by The Joint Committee on the Draft Modern Slavery Bill Report, was previously presented in the Israeli and UK Parliaments and was the basis for advising governmental bodies and NGOs on these matters and of several submissions to parliamentary committees including Home Affairs. My more recent work on intimate-image abused was cited by the Law Commission’s consultation paper on intimate image abuse and its final report on Modernising Communication Offences.

I am a member of the REF 2021 law sub-panel (Specialist Adviser) and of the AHRC, ESRC and ISF (Israel Science Foundation) Peer Review Colleges and an Expert Panel member of the FWO (Research Foundation Flanders). Between 2013 and 2018 I served as Keele Law school’s research director.

Qualifications

D. Jur. - Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
LL.M. - University of Toronto
LL.B. - Tel Aviv University- Magna cum Laude
Israel Bar Association (non-practicing member)

Research interests

My research has encompassed issues such as: 

  • Tort Law, Private Law Theory, Egalitarianism in Private Law
  • Medical Negligence and Comparison with Strict Liability
  • Informed Consent and Injury to Autonomy
  • Egalitarian v Economic Analysis of Standard of Care
  • Maternal Prenatal Duty
  • Private Law Responses to Sex Trafficking
  • Over Determined Causation
  • Duty of Care for the Creation of Exploitative Demand
  • Digital Privacy Law and Gender Justice
  • The Law of Remedies and the Law of Restitution, and The Overlap Between Restitution for Wrongs and by Subtraction

See:

  • tort law, private law theory, egalitarianism in private law, (2007 book; (2012) 12 RDQP 75; (2005) 50 McGill LJ 327; (2003) 4 TIL 275; (2003) CJLJ 91; book chapter in Law, society and culture: Regulation (Nevo, 2014));
  • medical negligence and comparison with strict liability ((2010) 18 Medical LR 363); (2014) 5 JETL275; (2014) 20 TE Part A 2555-2560); ESRC Seminar Series 2015-2017 ‘Liability v Innovation: Unpacking Key Connections’ ES/N009223/1 (PI); (2019) 11 (1) LIT special issue 1 (editor and author of an article);
  • informed consent and injury to autonomy ((2007) 22 Colman LR 187; (2016) 32 JPN 48; a book chapter in Private Law in the Twenty-First Century (Hart, 2017)); (2018) 26 Med LR 585; (2019) 27 Fem LS 33);
  • egalitarian v economic analysis of standard of care (ch 5 of his 2007 book; ch 7 of 2013 book; (2008) 23 Bar-Ilan ULR 793));
  • maternal prenatal duty (ch 6 of his 2007 book; (2005) 4 SLS 179; a book chapter in Studies in Law Gender & Feminism (Nevo, 2007));
  • private law responses to sex trafficking, (2013 book, (2010) 18 Torts LJ 87; (2010) 29 Law & Philosophy 307; (2009) 29 LS 438));
  • over determined causation (ch 8 of 2013 book); a book chapter in Uncertain Causation in Tort Law(CUP, 2015); (2019) 56 ACLR 185)
  • duty of care for the creation of exploitative demand (ch 6 of his 2013 book);
  • digital privacy law and gender justice (Leverhulme Research Fellowship (2016-2018 RF-2016-358\8: “Privacy law, gender justice and end users' liability: 'revenge porn' and beyond”); (2019) 56 ACLR 185); (2020) 42 Tel Aviv ULR 421
  • the law of remedies and the law of restitution, and the overlap between restitution for wrongs and by subtraction (chs 3 and 4 of 2013 book; (2010) 18 Torts LJ 87; (2006) 48 IBLR 459).
Publications

Books

Journal articles

Chapters

Research group

I would be happy to supervise students in the areas of private law theory, torts, medical negligence, restitution, economic analysis of law, human trafficking and privacy.

Grants
Title/Description Awarding Body People Involved Dates Amounts
Leverhulme research project grant: 'FemTech surveillance: Gendered digital harms and regulatory approaches.' Leverhulme Trust Maria Tanou PI, Tsachi Keren-Paz and Marco Ortolani as Co-Is  2022-2024 £160,090
‘Privacy law, gender justice and end-users’ liability: “revenge porn” and beyond’ Leverhulme Fellowship, PI, RF-2016-358\8 Tsachi Keren-Paz PI. 2016-2018     £48,078
'Liability v innovation: unpacking key connections' ESRC Seminar Series, ES/N009223/1 Tsachi Keren-Paz PI, Tina Cockburn QUT, Alicia El Haj Keele, Michael Fay Keele, Richard Goldberg Durham CIs. 2015-2017 £30,300
Does liability Stifle innovation? EPSRC & Keele University ‘Bridging the Gaps’ seedcorn funding Tsachi Keren-Paz and Alicia El Haj, Keele  2012

£3,000
Teaching interests

I believe there are three main, and interrelated, characteristics to outstanding teaching which I’m trying to implement. First, research-based teaching which ensures that the teaching is updated, profound and, indeed innovative. Second, my teaching never shies away from contextualizing the legal question in both its theoretical underpinnings and its policy implications. Indeed, the opposite is true. I firmly believe that this is the high road to understanding – and teaching – law. As Duncan Kennedy commented: ‘Law students blush if asked to discuss these matters [distributive consequences of legal rules] in the publicity of the classroom’. We should blush no more, nor avoid these discussions in the classroom. Finally, I strive to excel in guiding and evaluating students' learning and research including by providing a very through feedback and by using the Socratic method to push students to the best of their ability. My goal is to take a good and motivated student and turn them into an excellent, thoughtful student.

Teaching activities

Undergraduate

  • Law of Obligations
  • Advanced Torts Law
Professional activities and memberships
  • 2021- REF 2021 law sub-panel member, Specialist Adviser
  • 2021- Responded to Law Commission consultation on intimate image abuse (consultation paper referred to views gathered in pre-consultation stage
    here)
  • 2020- Responded to Law Commission consultation on reform to the communications offences (response cited in final report here)
  • 2020- Advised the ‘Image Abuse’ Law Commission’s team at the pre-consultation stage (Laws around taking, making and sharing intimate images); view mentioned in consultation paper.
  • 2019- Response to the Online Harms White Paper Consultation
  • 2019-2024 Research Foundation Flanders (FWO) Expert Panel member
  • 2018-  Commented on draft, and cited in Nuffield Council of Bioethics Briefing Note ‘Patient access to experimental treatment
  • 2017-2024 AHRC Peer Review College, member (from 2021 also of the international college)
  • 2015- ESRC Peer Review College, member
  • 2010- Israel Science Foundation Peer Review College, member
  • 2016- Advised a Norwegian lawyer (Silje Stenvaag) in a submission to the Norwegian SC on restitution to victims of sex trafficking and the illegality defence
  • 2016- Evidence submitted to Home Affairs Committee Inquiries on prostitutionand on proceeds of crime
  • 2015- Advised Baroness Young and barrister Parosha Chandran on a civil remedy amendment to the Modern Slavery Bill
  • 2014- Evidence submitted to the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Modern Slavery Bill; cited in the Report
  • 2014- Advised solicitors intervening on behalf of Anti-Slavery International in Hounga v Allenbefore the Supreme Court, on the illegality defence in a migrant work context
  • 2014- Informed Lord Saatchi’s team for the (then) Medical Innovation Bill on the possibility of strict liability
  • 2013- Evidence submitted to the Modern Slavery Bill Evidence Review, described as ‘very valuable’ by the Chair, Frank Field MP
  • 2013- Oral Presentation, Israeli Parliamentary Human Trafficking Sub-Committee, The Knesset, Jerusalem, 17 October: ‘private law responses to sex trafficking’
  • 2013- Knowledge Transfer to Israeli State Lawyers, Ministry of Justice, The CPD Institute: private law responses to sex trafficking (300 state lawyers), 16 October
  • 2013 - Knowledge Transfer to members of the Israeli Inter-Departmental Anti Human Trafficking Group (civil servants), 17 October

Recent invited papers and keynote lectures

  • Plenary speaker, The UK Clinical Ethics Network Annual conference, Cambridge, 28 June ‘No-fault (strict) liability for injuries from innovative treatments: fairness or also efficiency?’
  • Rountable,Nuffield Council of Bioethics, ‘Novel medical treatments: innovation, hope and headlines’, 19 April, 2018 London
  • ‘Liability of Intermediaries in ‘revenge porn’ cases: beyond NTD’, QUB, Belfast, March 14, 2018
  • ‘Liability of Intermediaries in ‘revenge porn’ cases: Critique of S230 CDA’University of Galway, February 23, 2018
  • ‘Liability of Intermediaries in ‘revenge porn’ cases: Responding to technology-and gender-based harm’, Newcastle Law School, December 5, 2018
  • Strict liability for injuries from innovative treatments: fairness or also efficiency?’, ESRC Seminar, Thinking outside the box: Strict liability and offsetting risks, Keele, 4 May, 2017