The Role of Regional Journals in Comparative International Law
Recent scholarship on comparative international law highlights distinctive national and regional approaches to the discipline, raising the question of how these perspectives communicate and interact. An important recent development has been the emergence of several prominent regional international law journals. This Article investigates the orientations and roles of the five most salient journals, drawing on new quantitative data on the authors and topics published in the period 2005-2020 and on qualitative assessment of the journals’ editorial statements and content. Based on this analysis, the Article concludes that the five journals fulfill significantly different roles in the international law scholarly ecosystem. The core Western journals, American Journal of International Law and European Journal of International Law, primarily play a “broadcast” role, diffusing views from their regions to the rest of the world. By contrast, African Journal of International and Comparative Law appears to fulfill primarily a “localized” role, cultivating a forum for regional authors to write on issues of regional interest. Chinese Journal of International Law and—to a lesser extent— Asian Journal of International Law appear to embrace a “dialogic” role, publishing a more balanced mix of local and outside authors on both general and regional topics. These patterns reveal both longstanding core-periphery dynamics and conscious efforts to overcome them.