Document Type
Article
Publication Date
6-2025
ISSN
0272-5037
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Language
en-US
Abstract
Despite the centrality of international law scholarship in international law, little work has been done to understand the contours and forces at work in what international law scholars write, where they publish that work, who reads international law scholarship, and scholarship's relationship to the policy world. For international lawyers, identifying answers to these questions and appreciating the impact of our collective work is essential, particularly at a moment of profound political struggle in communities around the world. We have remarkably few data as to what topics, methodologies, and perspectives of international law scholarship journals and publishers print, by whom, in what languages, through what media, and subject to what parameters.
The SAILS project—the Consortium for the Study and Analysis of International Law Scholarship—seeks to fill this gap.Footnote2 SAILS is an effort by a committed group of international law scholar-practitioners to cultivate this sustained attention to international law scholarship, and its interaction with practice. The purpose of the consortium of doctrinal, clinical, and library faculty from around the world is to elucidate answers to these many lingering questions to help us understand our own discipline as well as the forces behind it and that it unleashes. SAILS investigates the relationship among theory, research, and practice to address international law's twenty-first century challenges.
This panel, which also served as a launch event for the first SAILS essay symposium, was charged with some stocktaking and some introspection on these matters. First, the moderators—three student editors from the Georgetown Journal of International Law, the Virginia Journal of International Law, and the Yale Journal of International Law—recognized their recent publication of the symposium. Each of the three journals published three essays as part of the symposium, reflecting the bread of and interest in the SAILS network. Second, the moderators invited five distinguished speakers to reflect on their own scholarship and that of the symposium to explore how leading scholars approach their contributions to the field. They asked the speakers to describe who they consider to be their audience, and whether they write with international law journals in mind as compared to other types of scholarly outlets. They invited the speakers to consider whether the field is oversaturated with publication outlets such that the collective impact of international law scholarship may be diminished. They also pursued distinctions between international law scholarship in the United States and international law scholarship in other parts of the world, among other issues.
At the core of the panel, the speakers were asked to consider whether the current system of international law scholarship relates to the values that the speakers believed international law should reflect, and more squarely: does international law scholarship support international law? The speakers grappled with this important query, and then turned to the fundamental issue of scholarship's impact on international law practice. The speakers likewise engaged in a conversation about how international law practitioners consume and benefit from some forms of scholarship.
This overview sets the scene for the two written contributions that follow from Professor MJ Durkee and Professor Steven Arrigg Koh. Also participating on the panel were Professors Julian Arato, Rebecca Ingber, and Neha Jain. Their discussion opened up several lines of inquiry that future SAILS participants and contributors will benefit from unpacking in future years.
Recommended Citation
Kathleen Claussen, Melissa J. Durkee, Rebecca Ingber & Steven A. Koh,
SAILS Symposium Launch on International Law Scholarship: What We Write, Where We Publish, and Why it Matters
,
118
Proceedings of the ASIL Annual Meeting
387
(2025).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4203
