Editorial

• Author: Francis Snyder,Agustín José Menéndez
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/eulj.12060
• Date: 01 July 2013
• Published date: 01 July 2013

Editorial

This issue marks the beginning of a period of transition from one editorship to the

next, a transition that comes hand in hand with changes in the composition of the

Editorial Board and the Advisory Board of the journal. Starting 1 July 2013, Francis

Snyder will be joined by Agustín José Menéndez as joint editor-in-chief. Then, start-

ing 1 January 2014, Agustín José Menéndez will become editor-in-chief, with Francis

Snyder remaining on the Board of Editors. Other changes of the Editorial Board and

the Advisory Board will be announced in due course.

Since its beginning, and especially in recent years, the ELJ has had three main

objectives. The first objective is to support and develop a new kind of EU law

scholarship, ‘law in context.’ In this respect, the ELJ has been very successful. Other

journals have followed our lead, even though EU legal scholarship in many parts of

the world remains stuck in the mode of doctrinal analysis. A second aim is to attract

talented young people into teaching, research and publication on EU law. A system of

blind peer review, supported by the ScholarOne database, has ensured young scholars

that their scholarship will be judged on the basis of quality alone. In addition, the

bilingual, (nearly) annual International Workshop for Young Scholars (WISH; Ren-

contre international des jeunes chercheurs) has supported and published the work of

a host of outstanding young scholars, now an international network. Selected revised

papers from the ninth WISH, held at Peking University School of Transnational Law,

Shenzhen Graduate School, China, on the topic of ‘The EU, the USA, the BRICS

and China: The Future of Transnational Law,’ will be published in ELJ 19:6.

A third objective is to transnationalise and internationalise EU law scholarship by

expanding the ELJ contributors, reviewers, editors and readers to the community of

people interested in EU law throughout the world. Today the ELJ is among the small

number of truly international journals on EU law.

Any change in terms of persons brings new things. Perspectives, backgrounds and

disciplinary interests have their influence. But change comes very naturally to the

European Law Journal. The contextual approach to the study of law, which is and will

remain the core identity of the journal, is premised on a constant questioning: the

questioning of what is taken for granted in legal-dogmatic discourses by reference to

the perspective and standpoint of other social disciplines, or to put it in slightly

different terms, of other ways of seeing the law. Indeed, it seems to us that profound

changes will result from asking anew what law in context means, and what it entails.

A contextual approach to the analysis, reconstruction and assessment of EU law,

pioneered by the European Law Journal, is more necessary than ever at a time when

the EU is facing an existential crisis. The crisis today is very different from previous

crises. In fact, we should perhaps speak of five mutually interacting and reinforcing

crises (economic, financial, fiscal, macroeconomic government and democratic legiti-

macy). Reflecting on the crises may require reinforcing the bridges between legal

analysis, on the one hand, and politico-economic and historical analysis, on the other.

The European Law Journal has perhaps been more active than many other European

law journals with regard to the present crises, but we certainly intend to be at the

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European Law Journal, Vol. 19, No. 4, July 2013, pp. 455–456.

© 2013 John Wiley & Sons Ltd., 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford, OX4 2DQ, UK

and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA