The Yearbook is structured into the following sections:
Articles
This section is devoted to significant doctrinal contributions to international legal theory and gives priority to works dealing with changes in the rules and structure of the international community. The aim is to follow the development of the international legal order and the building of the global community heralded at the end of the second millennium. This section is always open to report on fresh developments and to debate new – and contradictory – trends.
Notes and Comments
This section contains short articles on current issues in international/global law. In line with the Yearbook’s orientation, comments addressing international case law are given precedence.
Global Law and Legal Theory
Beginning with the 2008 issue, the Yearbook includes a section entitled “In Focus: Global Policies and Law,” exploring the globalisation of politics, communication, economics, culture and the environment, while identifying objectives, programmes, models, public policy choices and emerging global policies and considering some of the major issues and challenges facing the world as a whole, in an attempt to enhance the coordination and harmonisation of norms and procedures and the implementation of global law.
Global Politics, Security and Ethics
Ethics remains an embryonic phenomenon within the realm of international law and international relations. Aiming to be at the forefront of the evolutionary globalisation processes that also affect the political counterpart to the legal order, the Yearbook has dedicated – beginning in 2023 – a section to interdisciplinary studies that accentuate the role of ethics. Methodologically, contributions may span descriptive analysis and prescriptive assessment, just as historical or culturally comparative approaches may be instrumental for the objective of capturing or evaluating those special and often subtle synergies between law, politics and justice. They can become controversial in the event that substantive morality is invoked, the ethically normative domain par excellence. If anything, this introduces a common feature to global constitutionalism, which does not shun value discourse. Instead, it relies on insights that essentially unite philosophers, political scientists and legal scholars and practitioners alike. Critical inquiry is necessary for progress, just as the Quest for Justice is the “coat of arms” that characterises pioneers of global law and governance who seek to promote the interests of mankind as a whole.
Global Justice: Jurisprudential Surveys and Cross-Fertilisation
The decisions of international courts and tribunals receive ample coverage in the Yearbook, reflecting their recognised importance for the development of international law. International courts and tribunals covered 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.
Each international court, tribunal or quasi-judicial body has its own section, which includes a “Survey” that annually examines and comments on their jurisprudence, entrusted, as in the past, to outstanding international scholars and judges.
Beginning with the 2010 issue, the Yearbook has focused on the process of cross-fertilisation between courts, with a view to analysing judicial dialogue and the emergence of common legal principles and concepts across different branches of international law. While earlier volumes articulated this comparative perspective through dedicated thematic modules, the same analytical function is now integrated into the annual Surveys, which systematically highlight points of convergence and divergence across jurisdictions and legal fields. In this way, cross-fertilisation remains a core methodological feature of the Yearbook, embedded within the examination of jurisprudence entrusted to each section.
This comparative perspective is developed across the main areas of international law:
1) Criminal Law: The Relationship Between International Criminal Tribunals and Their Relationship with the ICJ or Another International Court or Arbitral Tribunal;
2) European Law: The Relationship Between the European Courts and Their Relationship with the ICJ or Another International Court or Arbitral Tribunal;
3) Human Rights Law: The Relationship Between Courts of Human Rights and Their Relationship with the ICJ or Another International Court or Arbitral Tribunal;
4) Economic and Financial Law: The Relationship Between International Judicial Bodies in Economic Matters and Their Relationship with the ICJ or Another International Court or Arbitral Tribunal;
5) Investment Law: The Relationship Between the ICSID Tribunals and the ICJ or Another International Court or Arbitral Tribunal;
6) Environmental Law, Law of the Sea, Global Commons Law: The Relationship Between the ITLOS and the ICJ or Another International Court or Arbitral Tribunal; and
7) International and Domestic Law: The Relationship Between International Courts and Domestic Courts.
The aim is to identify the emergence of common rules (substantial and procedural) in the various contexts. In each area, eminent international law scholars will perform an analysis of the points of convergence and divergence – not just between the decisions handed down by courts operating in the same area, but also between the decisions of tribunals and international courts operating in other areas, dealing with different matters and examining the coherence (or lack thereof) of their jurisprudence when they apply the same international norms. In comparing the decisions of the various tribunals, a consistent element will be the reference to the International Court of Justice and the ways in which the decisions of other international tribunals relate to its jurisdiction. However, not all the modules will be offered annually, but only whenever there are developments of note.
The Yearbook is the first academic journal to present an annual overview of the process of cross-fertilisation between courts, based on the drafting and systematic compilation of a comprehensive and complete annual framework by eminent international law scholars. These scholars explore, evaluate and document this process, which has the potential to enhance our contribution and further guide our understanding of how to reduce conflicts and foster an effective exchange of legal reasoning between different courts. The aim is to promote a favourable environment for the courts to advance the process of judicial cooperation, with a view to the possible harmonisation of legal principles governing the global community.
Recent Lines of Internationalist Thought
This section, included in the Yearbook since 2006, has focused on the thought of leading international law scholars who have been “innovative” in their responses to challenges that have faced contemporary global societies. 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 and afford 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 that comes with 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 purpose is to give an overview of the current international law literature, providing readers with an opportunity to view arguments from different perspectives; examine different methodologies; and explore ideas reflecting cultural diversity. This would certainly allow an understanding of the relevance of internationalist thought on the changes in international law and contemporary politics in the context of globalisation.
General Information
This issue may be cited as 24 GLOBAL COMMUNITY YILJ (Giuliana Ziccardi Capaldo General ed.) (2025). All views expressed in the articles, notes and comments, editorial comments and other contributions to the Yearbook represent the opinions of the individual authors and should not be interpreted as an expression of the views of the Editors.
Submission of Manuscripts
Manuscripts should be submitted by email to globalcommunityearbook@gmail.com, preferably in English, although a small percentage of papers may be accepted in other languages (French, German and Spanish) at the discretion of the General Editor. Abstracts should be submitted in English only.
The Yearbook is committed to ensuring ethics in publication and quality of articles. Manuscripts submitted for publication are blindly peer-reviewed. The Yearbook will not consider submissions whose content has been, or will be, published before it appears in this Yearbook. It is, therefore, important to agree upon ethical guidelines for Yearbook publication – see the Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement available on the journal’s website at: http://www.globalcommunityyearbook.org/forauthor-publication.php, where you can find other useful information.
Manuscripts should meet the editorial standards specified in the Yearbook’s stylesheet, which may be obtained from the journal’s website. The latter also provides other helpful information about the Yearbook, including the content of previous volumes.
Orders
The Global Community Yearbook of International Law and Jurisprudence is published annually (in two volumes from the 2002 to 2014 editions and in one volume from the 2015 edition onwards) in English.
The Yearbook is also available in nonprint form as an ebook.
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