The Public Good of Academic Publishing in International Law

Abstract

This piece has been written as an editorial of the Leiden Journal of International Law. It seeks to entice (self-) reflection on the public good at the heart of academic publishing. It argues that, in the intricate social process from information to knowledge, law journals constitute an essential medium and that the public good of law journals like LJIL primarily boils down to their contribution to the crystallization of information and opinions in legal knowledge. This means that law journals, like LJIL, are constitutive parts of the assembly line for the validation as knowledge of information and opinions about international law. Yet, the digital age has come with huge challenges. These observations particularly focus on 5 core questions whose answer will define the assembly line of knowledge about international law of tomorrow.

Keywords: International Law, Production of Knowledge, Public Good, Academic Publishing, Peer Review, Impact Factor, Law Journal, Quality control, Digital publication, Interpretative Community