By Tobias Thienel

The Goettingen Journal of International Law has just published a new issue, and once again the editors have done tremendous work. The Journal is now on its fifth issue, so the project of running the first student-edited and peer-reviewed journal on international law in Europe (and beyond, as commenter John points out at Opinio Juris) may be taken to be a great success.

The Journal has won many friends, and rightly so, given the obvious strength of their latest issue. Indeed, this issue in particular stands out among law journals in that the editors and authors have made the most of the capacity for rapid publication that is a (quite intentional) hallmark of the Goettingen Journal. The number of "firsts", and also of other extremely topical contributions, in this issue is simply astounding:

The issue for the first time features a GoJIL: Focus, in which a number of contributions discuss a recent event. In this case, the event in question is the Kampala ICC Review Conference. It is already impressive that the Journal has been able to put together a whole section on the conference so hot on the heels of the actual event. It is all the more astounding that it has been able to attract writers like Judge Kaul of the ICC, Roger S. Clark and Morten Bergsmo (to name but a few).

There is also a fine piece on the recent ICJ opinion on Kosovo by Dr Mindia Vashakmadze and Matthias Lippold, which will attract the many scholars now looking (and, until recently, waiting) for comment on that recent and – for all its brevity – important pronouncement. The same scholars would also do well to read, and are sure to appreciate, the article by Ioana Cismas on the broader issue of secession in international law.

Moreover, there are articles on the effect of international economic law in the economic crisis (by Professor Stephan Hobe and Dr Jörn Griebel), on reservations to human rights treaties (by Johanna Fournier), on peacekeeping in Africa and the AU (by Charles Riziki Majinge), on the notion of ‘humanity’ in ‘crimes against humanity’ (by Dr Bernhard Kuschnik), on Protocol 14, Russia and the ECHR (by Bill Bowring).

Not many journals manage to put this much highly topical learning into just one issue. It is a huge credit to the editors of the GoJIL that this young journal does. Congratulations to them, and happy reading to everyone else!