By Nissan Limor
Paul Baerwald School of Social Work and Social Welfare
The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
Regulation of corporations is an unavoidable result of its very existence, and of authorizing a person or persons to act on behalf of others, to function as trustees. The issue of regulation has a special meaning for nonprofit organizations, where people are supposed to act without personal economic interest. Who should conduct the regulation? Is it the duty of the government, the public, the third sector or the individual organization? Can each of these perform it efficiently? What are the implications of regulation on inter-sectarian relations? Should the law be extended to answer the needs of regulation or should there be a wider normative space and self-regulation of the third sector? The essence of regulation is not control or supervision of a particular corporation. It is the societal, economic and political relations within society. Models developed in other countries indicate the need for cooperation and alignment between the state and the third sector. While a government's duty is to portray the legal space, the third sector should draw the normative sphere and conduct self-policing; e.g. set-up standards and establish accreditation processes for the nonprofit organizations. Israel steps along with the free world in the same avenue, and the Israeli accreditation process was already launched by the umbrella organization of the third sector. The dilemmas facing Israel are no different; the solutions have to be based upon Israeli society and culture.