Editor’s Note
The Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence (Yearbook or GCYILJ) is a peer-reviewed journal, indexed in Scopus and first published in 2001 (with 22 editions – that is, annual publications – thus far). Over the years, it has become an authoritative reference on the most significant transformations in the constitutive process of global law. While providing researchers and practitioners with access to a uniquely rich resource for the study of international jurisprudence, the Yearbook promotes discussion on current issues that impact substantive and procedural aspects of global law. In this way, the Yearbook makes it possible to monitor – from year to year and from several perspectives – the development of the international order towards a legal system for a global community.
The Yearbook provides scientific and practice-oriented articles on recent developments in global law, as well as new insights on the contribution of judicial pronouncements to the constitutional global order. The theoretical sections of the Yearbook contain analyses by prominent scholars and judges from all over the world, focusing on the global challenges for law, policy and justice. The approach to global ethics is developed in a dynamic manner, thereby reflecting the increasing concern about and need to address ethical problems and issues in a global context. Furthermore, the Yearbook constitutes the only thorough annual survey of major developments in international jurisprudence. The decisions of international courts and tribunals are covered extensively, to reflect their recognised importance for the development of international/global law. A comprehensive survey by eminent international law scholars who explore, document and evaluate this process provides an innovative and – so our hope is – intriguing approach to the interactions between courts, tribunals and other judicial bodies, with the objective of reducing conflicts and paving the path towards harmonisation of legal principles governing the global community. The section “Global Justice”, which is divided into sub-sections and is primarily devoted to the highest judicial bodies, reports annually on significant international case law. It further discusses the contribution of judicial pronouncements to the constitutional global order.
The 2023 edition of the Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence marks a decisive stage in the development path of the Yearbook. This introduces significant changes by improving its model and refining its scope as set out in the constitutive document.1 One of the previous hallmarks – “legal Maxims” – has been replaced, as a logical consequence of ever-burgeoning international case law. It, nevertheless, becomes evident that the core of the spirit in which the Yearbook was founded will be maintained. In fact, the “global communitarian paradigm” and GCYILJ’s “global constitutionalism approach”, as advanced in the GCYILJ editorials since its first 2001 edition, has been enhanced, inter alia, in a notable expansion of the number of courts covered; the “Surveys” that replace the “Introductory Note” related to their activity; and the idea of putting “Global Law” in the context of “Politics” and “Justice”, thereby placing increased attention on the role of ethics in global politics.
In this edition (2024), the number of international courts, tribunals and quasi-judicial bodies covered has doubled and, consequently, has come to include: the International Court of Justice (ICJ); the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID); the International Criminal Court (ICC); the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS); the Permanent Court of Arbitration (PCA); IO s’ Administrative Tribunals (IAT s); the World Trade Organization Dispute Settlement Body and Appellate Body (WTO Dispute Settlement System); the African Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACTHPR); the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ); the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU); the Economic Court of the Commonwealth Of Independent States (CIS Economic Court); the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice (ECCJ); the European Free Trade Agreement Court (EFTA Court); the European Court of Human Rights (ECTHR); the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACTHR); the OSCE Court of Conciliation and Arbitration (CCA); the UN Human Rights Committee (UNHRC); and hybrid tribunals. In this manner, the Yearbook fills in the gaps left by other journals that provide partial coverage of international judicial decisions; international law scholars can rely on it to better understand the wealth of case law emanating from international jurisdictions. The originality and utility of this Yearbook lie precisely in its “intermediary” role between case law and international scholars, practitioners and students.
Finally, an updated overview of the current international law literature, in the section entitled “Recent Lines of Internationalist Thought”, provides readers with an opportunity to study and interpret global legal issues from different perspectives; examine different methodologies; and explore ideas from different legal, philosophical and cultural traditions. I would like to focus on this section and on an additional innovation introduced by GCYILJ 2024. In 2017, the Yearbook began to use a more person-centric approach to the manuscript submissions for the section entitled “Recent Lines in Internationalist Thought” by asking the contributors to talk about their own work, affording them the opportunity to reflect on their own accomplishments and innovations. This made it possible to get a glimpse of the individual subject behind the authorship. In 2024, a step to get even closer was attempted. To dive into the corners of the thinking of leading scholars and practitioners and simultaneously personalise the information-gathering strategy, the Yearbook launched an interview-based style on an experimental basis. In this way, “Recent Lines of Internationalist Thought” broadened its methodology; with a dialogical format comes dialectical advantages, such as being able to ask questions which the subject may not have contemplated on the immanent premises of their own work. The kind of “close-up” that an interview allows can only be successful, of course, if the cooperation between the interviewer and the interviewee is successful – that is, if they both proceed with open-mindedness and a willingness to venture outside their individual comfort zone. An interview-based format is like a piece of improvised music; this is really another way of saying that something new has come into existence that, in turn, can inspire new discourse.
The Yearbook is a one-stop resource for all researchers of international/global law, various related disciplines and the jurisprudence of international courts and tribunals. It is aimed at academics, legal practitioners and law students in the fields of international/global law, national law, legal philosophy and ethics, political science and economics. Although the Yearbook is temporarily published under a book contract, its contributions are to be treated and described as peer-reviewed articles in accordance with its long-standing editorial practice.
Giuliana Ziccardi Capaldo
General Editor
13 December 2024
“Editorial.” Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence. 2001.