Thursday, February 21, 2013

Call for Submissions: Melbourne Journal of International Law

The Melbourne Journal of International Law has issued a call for submissions for a special issue on "Rethinking the Foundations of International Law — Statehood and Sovereignty." Here's the call:

CALL FOR PAPERS

MELBOURNE JOURNAL of INTERNATIONAL LAW

FOCUS ISSUE: RETHINKING THE FOUNDATIONS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW — STATEHOOD AND SOVEREIGNTY

The Editors of the Melbourne Journal of International Law invite submissions for their second issue of 2013. 14(2) will focus on the concepts of the state and sovereignty, with emphasis on interdisciplinary approaches to international legal theory.

In recent years, legal and political developments in the international arena — Kosovo’s unilateral secession from Serbia; the operation of de facto governments by breakaway states such as Ossetia and Abkhazia within the sovereign territory of Georgia; the recognition of ‘rebel’ governments in Libya and Syria; and the UN General Assembly’s recognition of Palestine as a non-member observer state — have posed new challenges to these foundational concepts of international law.

Simultaneously, scholars drawing on diverse theoretical traditions have established a sophisticated literature that reveals some of the many tensions implicit in the history and practice of international law. 14(2) will develop this conversation by inviting scholarship — in the form of articles, commentaries, case notes and book reviews — analysing contemporary jurisprudential questions raised by ‘the state’ and ‘sovereignty’.

Articles should be in the vicinity of 8 000 to 20 000 words in length and be an original and detailed contribution to international law scholarship. Commentaries explore recent developments in a specific field of international law and their practical applications, and should be between 5 000 and 8 000 words in length.

The submissions deadline for 14(2) is 1 July 2013, and the Issue will be published in November.

SUBMISSION PROCESS:

All articles, case notes, commentaries and review essays published in MJIL are subjected to a double-blind refereeing process, involving at least two specialists in the field. Once accepted for publication, submissions will then be edited for compliance with the Australian Guide to Legal Citation. Authors have an opportunity to review the final version of the piece prior to publication. More information on the submissions process can be found at our website.

The MJIL publication policy can be accessed here.

All submissions should be sent to law-mjil@unimelb.edu.au in Word format, together with a signed publication policy.