Editorial | Volume 20 No 1 (2019)

Dear Readers,

Winter has been short, but we have used time well and can happily announce: this Issue of the German Law Journal, marking its twentieth anniversary, is the first one published jointly with Cambridge University Press — for all friends of this remarkable project truly a moment to rejoice!

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Along these lines, we are happy to report that the transition process, moving the Journal under the roof of Cambridge University Press, was completed smoothly, and we are incredibly thankful to all the great individuals at CUP who have helped to manage this. A shout-out first and foremost to Rebecca O’Rourke and Andrew Hyde, and also to Beatrice Carrigan-Maile, Jennifer Malat, Richard Horley, Alison Fox and Adam Blow at Cambridge: It is a true treat to be working with you, and we are thrilled to embark on this joint endeavour to cultivate open access publishing. All of this would not have happened without the diligent, even sacrificial, work of the team of Student Editors at Washington & Lee University School of Law, under the serene guidance and oversight of Quentin Becker and Caroline Diemer.

So everything is up and running, and you will probably notice a few changes: The most obvious is the fresh new layout of the articles, along with a facelift for our logo. Our website will also undergo an overhaul in the coming weeks, next to our publication-focused presence on CUP’s platform it will focus on strengthening the ties with the vivid community that flocks around the Journal. We have also implemented a new submission process, relying on ScholarOne Manuscripts — if you are interested in publishing with us, please go to http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/glj, as we can no longer accept email submissions.

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To celebrate the Journal’s anniversary and the cooperation with CUP, there will be a symposium on Populism and Constitutionalism, hosted by the London School of Economics and Political Science on 25 and 26 April 2019. Nicola Lacey will give the keynote. If you haven’t done so already, mark your calendar and plan the trip. Full details and registration can be found at https://www.cambridge.org/glj/symposium20.

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With Europe still being under the impression of the aftermaths of the refugee emergency, the first Issue of 2019 features articles that tackle the pertinent topic ofImmigration Law. These entail a thorough analysis of the legal bases in EU Law for exclusion from refugee status. Janja Simentić concludes, that through EU legislation and the CJEU’s case law the EU has already left the basis of the international law provisions; she anticipates further developments and changes with regard to theprinciple of non-refoulment.

Johan Rochel  focuses on labour immigration and identifies a strategy how a joint application of the general principle of proportionality with the right to a reasoned decision might transform the way procedural guarantees are applied to immigration cases under the Single Permit Directive.

With a focus on a specific issue of immigration in Germany, Susan Willis McFadden takes on the prevailing prejudice against dual citizenship in Germany. For her it is a main factor why only a very small percentage of Turkish migrants have naturalized as German citizens and therefore nurture the perception they were failing to integrate. Not only for the sake of Turkish immigrants but for all foreigners in Germany she recommends giving up resistance and permit dual citizenship for all foreigners willing to naturalize in Germany.

Looking at the current condition of the international community, one notices that a rising number of derogations from the European Convention on Human Rights have been declared under Article 15 of the Convention. By reference to the examples of Ukraine, Turkey and France, Triestino Mariniello outlines the difficult balance between defending national interests and protecting individual rights during public emergencies. However, he urges the European Court of Human Rights to adopt a more rigorous approach in examining the conditions of the derogation under Article 15 of the Convention in order to effectively protect individual rights and judicial authority.

The article “Law, Language, and Knowledge: Legal Transplants from a Cultural Perspective” by Julio Carvalho certainly will draw the interest of our readers from the field of Comparative Law. Analysing the philosophical grounds for Legal Transplants, he concludes that they are bound to be unsuccessful as they convey an erroneous conception of law, language and legal knowledge. This surely will bring a new aspect into the prevalent discussion on Legal Transplants.

Marnix Snel’s article on the quality standards for traditional legal scholarship goes right into our own business of editing. The article identifies a lack of clear standards for evaluating legal scholarship, and by analysing the international literature on evaluative standards, as well as through interviews with 40 law professors, the author tries to come up with a catalogue of criteria that could help researchers meet those standards — and that should enable journal editors, faculty boards or publishing houses to clarify their own evaluation measures.

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Spring is in the air, tempting us to leave the desk and to enjoy the first warm rays of sun! So take this Anniversary Issue to a quiet and sunny corner, wherever you are: And happy reading!

Emanuel V. Towfigh
for the Editors in Chief