On Tuesday, 3 November 2026, Israel's Ministry of Justice published a draft bill to implement the Convention on Choice of Court Agreements. It is a draft, not a law. The public can comment on the government legislation site until 14:08 on 24 November 2026, and after that the bill still has to go through the government and the Knesset.
A jurisdiction clause is the line in a contract that says which country's courts will hear a dispute between the parties. It is a different thing from the governing-law clause, which says whose law decides the dispute. The convention deals with clauses that give one country's courts exclusive jurisdiction, meaning that is the only place either side can sue.
Thirty-eight states, the whole EU among them
The convention was adopted in The Hague on 30 June 2005 and came into force in October 2015. According to the ministry, 38 states are now party to it, including every EU member state, the UK, Mexico and Singapore, and the EU has also joined as an organisation. Israel signed in March 2021, but a signature alone binds no one. The proposed law is what would let Israel ratify the convention and become a full member.
The convention does two things. It sets jurisdiction rules for cases where parties from different countries chose an exclusive court in advance in a civil or commercial matter. And it provides for the recognition and enforcement, in every member state, of judgments given under such a clause. The draft also amends the Foreign Judgments Enforcement Law of 1958, which currently decides when a foreign judgment can be enforced in Israel.
The ministry describes the present situation as uncertain. When an Israeli business signs a contract with a foreign jurisdiction clause, there is no uniform rule today that settles in advance how a court will treat it, or what happens to the judgment that follows. The explanatory notes say joining would create a clear and stable arrangement and let a judgment from the chosen court be enforced simply.
Israeli businesses with clients abroad
This reaches any Israeli business that signs contracts with a party in a member state. A freelancer building a site for a client in Germany, a studio designing for a company in London, an importer buying from a supplier in the Netherlands. Contracts like these often carry a line such as "any dispute shall be heard by the courts of Amsterdam", and sometimes it arrives pre-written in the other side's template.
If the bill passes and Israel ratifies, that choice carries clearer weight both ways. An Israeli business that wrote a Tel Aviv court into the contract can expect the choice to be respected, and an Israeli judgment given under that clause to be recognised in member states. The reverse holds just as firmly. The convention exists to make courts honour the forum the parties picked, so a business that agreed to a foreign court should expect to litigate there, and a judgment from there could be enforced against it in Israel.
So the practical step does not have to wait for the Knesset. Open the live contracts with clients and suppliers in Europe and the UK and read the jurisdiction clause. A new contract is the moment to ask for a change, before signing. Once the law is in force, that clause becomes less a matter of drafting and more a commitment that courts in several countries treat the same way.
Nothing changes until ratification
Until the bill passes and the convention is ratified, the law is as it was. A dispute that starts today is handled under current rules. The draft is open for comment for about three weeks, and a business or business organisation that wants to respond can log in to the government legislation site and comment on the document directly, choosing whether the comment is visible to all users or only to government ministries.