New General Editors for CUP’s International Law Series

I’m delighted to announce that two good friends, Leiden’s Larissa van den Herik (also one of my PhD supervisors!) and Manchester’s Jean d’Aspremont, are the new General Editors for CUP’s prestigious Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law book series, which celebrates its 70th birthday next year. Here is Larissa’s statement:

It is with great enthusiasm that I take on the general editorship of one of Cambridge University Press’ flagship series in law. I feel honoured to lead this series into the twenty-first century with a view to promoting the most outstanding scholarship on international law as we previously did as joint editors-in-chief of the Leiden Journal of International Law. Building on the Cambridge Studies in International and Comparative Law series’ impressive heritage and committed to fostering its repute of excellence, it is my ambition to be open to new and fresh voices in terms of perspective and geography as well as to a great range of themes and approaches. Such an overture is essential, in my view, to preserve the Law series’ generalist character and its position of standard-setter in international legal thought and practice.

And here is Jean’s:

Books, like courtrooms, are where choices about what we call international law and what we do with it are debated, made, and unmade. Books are serious matters. Taking the helm of the prestigious series is thus a huge responsibility. It is also a great honour given the unequalled credentials of the preceding General Editors. The challenges ahead are gargantuan, especially in the light of some of the dramatic changes witnessed in the scholarly landscape. In order to keep some a-temporal relevance, scholarship must denote a certain degree of methodological, conceptual and political self-awareness. This means that it must be possible to situate any claim made about what we call international law by any professional of the subject. In my view, it is only as long as the series nurtures such a culture of self-awareness that it can make the works it publishes today relevant to the thinkers and practitioners of tomorrow.

CUP has done well replacing James Crawford. The series is clearly in good hands. Please join me in congratulating Larissa and Jean!