Further Evidence of the Move to Peer Review: New Journal International Theory

As part of the effort to prove itself more like other disciplines and to move away from the trade school model, there’s been a clear trend towards peer-reviewed law journals. Witness this out of Harvard, for law generally. It’s a move mostly to be applauded, with the caution that peer review can perpetuate orthodoxies in a way that law students never could, as peer review will inevitably be less receptive to frontal theoretical challenges.

International law has been ahead of the curve on peer review, mostly in the form of the American Journal of International Law, then with the European Journal of International Law and various interdisciplinary bridges that international law has been building in a more conscious way than domestic fields have.

New to the mix is International Theory: A Journal of International Politics, Law and Philosophy, which has a call for papers out here. From the law side, the advisory board includes Ken Abbott, Tony Anghie, Jack Goldsmith, and Ryan Goodman (IR scholars Duncan Snidal and Alex Wendt are in charge). A law-oriented companion to IO? Looks like a terrific publication in the making.