This editorial aims to foster debate on the possible roles of implicit social cognition in international law. The editorial is in part inspired by a book entitled Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People, written by Banaji and Greenwald, researchers of social psychology. According to them, a large set of implicit biases reside in our minds, which may influence our behaviour towards ourselves and others. It is safe to argue that international judges, arbitrators, diplomats, domestic officials who apply international law, and international legal scholars are not immune from implicit bias. Within international legal scholarship, some relevant experiments have already been conducted in unveiling decision makers’ intuitive and automatic thinking. While implicit bias is hard to identify and remedy, this editorial encourages international legal practitioners and scholars to diversify their own experiences and engage in the imagination of counter-stereotypes.

On 6 September 2017, Professor Emeritus Frits Kalshoven passed away at the age of 93. I learned about his passing the day afterwards, and although in some ways it should not have come as a complete surprise given his age, it had a very deep emotional impact on me. This was not only from the perspective of an international humanitarian lawyer, since in this moment we lost one of the most respected scholars of the field, someone whose expertise as an academic as well as whose impact as a practitioner can only be described in the highest praise. The great Jean Pictet wrote in his foreword to the Liber Amicorum for Frits Kalshoven that he stands in the long tradition of Dutch legal scholars ‘who, since Grotius, have greatly added to the fame of their country throughout the world’. But an even more important reason for this great feeling of loss was that we had to say good-bye not only to a great scholar, but also to a wonderful human being, a role model, a true humanitarian, a man who despite his numerous achievements remained humble and kind until the end, someone who inspired generations of colleagues, experienced lawyers and young students, in their way to apply, research and disseminate International Humanitarian Law.

Last year the International Court of Justice (ICJ) marked its seventieth anniversary, and in the most recent issue of the Leiden Journal of International Law, Hugh Thirlway recognized this milestone with a look back through some key developments at the Court, focusing on the last few years. Here, we would like to undertake a retrospective of another sort, paying tribute to the ongoing connection between the Court and the Journal by taking a brief tour through the Journal's coverage of the Court over the years. It is hoped that this retrospective will not only bring back some fond memories but also – by viewing this material as a whole, and pointing out certain gaps in the Journal’s coverage of the Court's work – stimulate future analyses.

Rankings and indicators have been with us for a while now, and have increasingly been objects of attention in international law. Likewise, they have been with the LJIL as a journal for a while now. Our so-called ‘impact factor’ is, to my untrained eye, the most prominent feature on the LJIL webpage hosted by our publisher. So this editorial is something of a rearguard action. The indicators and rankings, however, keep piling up. Proliferation may afford a perverse sort of optimism, about which below but, as will be clear, I do not share it. The increasing number and command of indicators and rankings reflects a consistent trend and a bleak mode of knowledge production. Knowledge production has been a topic in these pages recently, for instance Sara Kendall's excellent editorial on academic production and the politics of inclusion. I mean to continue in that vein, with respect to other aspects of the political economy of the academic production of international law, especially at a nexus of publishing, scholarship and market practices. There is an undeniable element of nostalgia in what will follow, but I do not really mean to celebrate the publishing industry, status quo ante, that has put me in this privileged position to wax nostalgic. The academic publishing business is flawed. What we are preparing the way for is worse. When I say we, I mean to flag my complicity, both as an individual researcher and as an editorial board member. I use the word complicity to convey a personal anxiety, also in my role as editor, so let me be clear: the LJIL board has no policy concerning rankings, and rankings have never influenced review at the journal. Moreover, while I cannot claim to speak for the LJIL as a whole concerning the topic of rankings or any other matter, nor is mine exactly a dissenting voice on the board. The tone of this polemic is mine alone; the concern is not.

In 2017 the Leiden Journal is celebrating its 30th anniversary. Since the inception of the journal in 1988, much has changed. This includes not only the structure, lay out, organization and publisher of the journal, but also the general environment in which the journal is published. This editorial's aim is to briefly sketch the journal's life over the past 30 years and to reflect on it.

This editorial takes a practical approach. It aims to stimulate reflections on the way we teach international law today, on how new technologies could enhance the pedagogical experience, on the upgrading of the role and participation of students, and on a better connection with the ‘real world’. It focuses on ‘how’ rather than on ‘what’ or ‘for what purpose’ we teach international law. With this aim in mind, it serves a few ideas seasoned with suggestions and examples.

Before the 2015 annual meeting of the European Society of International Law, participants were notified of a ‘women in international law’ happy hour for exchanging ideas on ‘the improvement of representation of women’. At the convivial and well-attended event in Oslo, organizers thanked the men who were present, remarking that their support was not only welcomed but also necessary. This theme of inclusion resurfaced in side conversations about past conference panels on gender that noted the supportive role of senior male academics in audiences comprised primarily of women. Gender was mainly discussed along a single axis of male/female rather than intersectionally. Other categories of identity, such as ethnicity and nationality, remained on the sidelines of this event, which focused on the role of women within the field.

The Leiden Journal of International Law (LJIL) is many things. In the present editorial we highlight three of its activities – both old and new. First, we look back briefly at the symposium on ‘The Changing Role of Scholarship in International Law’ that we held in March 2015. Second, we present the winner of the second LJIL Prize and draw attention to her contribution. Third, we announce the first LJIL lecture and introduce the inaugural laureate. We do this in a way that continues to reflect on the roles of the journal. We do not aspire to define its identity simply because we value its diversity too much. But we wish to contribute to the ongoing debates on how a journal of international law might position itself in light of many new outlets for scholarship, in the context of porous or battled disciplinary frontiers, and in response to expectations that scholarship ought to meet. These are recurrent issues in the journal and its editorials. In particular, Carsten Stahn has drawn attention to the theme that shaped the symposium, the changing role of scholarship. He has since stepped down as an Editor-in-Chief and Ingo Venzke has assumed this position, continuing to work alongside Eric De Brabandere. Once again we thank Carsten for his immensely valuable contributions to the journal – past, present, and future.

In his recent review of Neil Boister's book, An Introduction to Transnational Criminal Law, Robert Currie praises the author for shedding light on a field of law that has suffered from inattention. Transnational criminal law (TCL), the ‘other’ branch of what was traditionally called international criminal law, has been overshadowed by international criminal law ‘proper’ (ICL). The establishment of international criminal tribunals after the end of the Cold War, culminating in the establishment of the ‘flagship’ court, the International Criminal Court (ICC), came with a spectacular rise of ICL as a separate legal discipline. As a result, ICL stole the limelight at the expense of TCL. Currie deplores this since TCL presents features and issues that are worthy and in pressing need of in-depth study. Also, in his view the attention to ICL is unjustified: ICL ‘as an academic and legal inquiry or study has become distended by over-study’. While he supports the mission of international criminal justice in general, Currie points out that ICL as an academic discipline is saturated; each article, paragraph and subparagraph of the ICC Statute has been pulled apart and dissected.

Taking up the torch from my fellow co-editors who have addressed substantive and methodological issues of international criminal law (ICL) in their contributions, I propose to turn to the current state and prospects of its scholarship. The moment is opportune for such a reflection. The questions raised by the production and dissemination of international legal scholarship were the leitmotif of past editorials and its (changing) role was chosen as the theme of the latest LJIL symposium. The professional functions of international legal scholars have been the subject of renewed interest and debate. To give an impulse to a similar debate in ICL, I will try to capture the zeitgeist of its academia and offer some observations on the positioning of scholarship vis-à-vis practice in ICL. Perspectives from this specialized field may enrich the existing conceptualizations of international legal scholarship and provide a new angle on its place within the profession.

In the summer of 2014 I attended a conference panel on international lawyers as public intellectuals. The academics on the panel talked about their twitter accounts, their blogs, their occasional radio and television appearances, and their opinion-editorials in major newspapers. The discussion really focused not on whether international lawyers should be public intellectuals, but on how they can do so, and what the ramifications of such public engagement can be. What struck me most, however, was a notable omission: no one on the panel or in the audience mentioned books as a medium through which public international lawyers might reach a mass audience. In reflecting on this omission I realized that academics in this field do not, for the most part, write books for a general readership. To the extent that public international lawyers reach a mass audience at all, they have chosen do so through other means – with some exceptions.

Questions about methodology are questions of disciplinary identity. It is thus not surprising that they provoke such heated debates. The state of methodological debates is indicative of the condition of a discipline. If those debates advance to the centre of attention within any specific field of scholarly practice, it typically indicates a moment of crisis or – less dramatically – a push for change. In other times of relative stability, questions of methodology tend to stay on the margins of the field. Scholarly practice goes about its routine business along well-established lines. It uses the tools of a discipline without further ado.

This editorial explores some methodological difficulties that might be faced by the practice of the critique of international criminal law (ICL). It more particularly explores what it might mean to do an ‘internal’ critique of ICL, both on a disciplinary level and an intra-disciplinary level. The editorial also addresses two important issues: (i) the ambiguities of the normative agendas of critical legal scholars; and (ii) the difficulty of dialogue between critical legal scholars and positivists. The editorial concludes with the fact that while disciplinary dialogue might not always be possible, it will always take place on a personal, more complex level, in the Leiden Journal of International Law (LJIL) as elsewhere.

Three intertwined threads run through many recent editorials of the Leiden Journal of International Law (LJIL). They tie together many debates within and beyond the board of editors. The threads are those of the Journal's plural identity, the conversation about methods, and the spicy theme of interdisciplinarity. They are related for obvious reasons. Methodology forms one – not the only and perhaps not the foremost – factor in assessing submissions. We need to have an idea of good methodology for such an assessment to be possible. At the same time such an idea must not go against the plurality of perspectives or the Journal's aspiration to provide a forum to new and possibly unsettling voices. Research that cuts across disciplines seems especially valuable in this regard. But it comes with its own methodological challenges and tests the Journal's identity which is – albeit plural– that of a Journal of international law. It is against the background of these intertwined threads that I wish to offer a discussion of a central question that mirrors these recent debates: What makes for a valid legal argument?

A question such as this one usually results in a slightly incredulous smile on the addressee's face, as if it implies an assumption that there is time to spare in the life of an international lawyer faced with a myriad of interesting-looking publications. For a long time, writing a monograph used to be the keystone, the ultimate test, to join the academic ranks – yet today, universities grant PhD titles based on the writing of separate articles on a common theme and doctoral researchers are increasingly encouraged to choose this option, so as to ensure their ideas actually reach the intended audience. Arguably, today's academic audience is assumed not to have, or at least not to make, the time to read an entire book.

The Leiden Journal of International Law (‘LJIL’) has always endeavoured to promote diversity and interdisciplinary enquiries in the international law epistemic community. Interdisciplinarity and diversity, albeit necessary in the long-term to refresh and update the discipline, raise numerous questions and epistemic challenges in the short-term. On the initiative of Jean d'Aspremont and Larissa van den Herik, today continued under the present editorship, these challenges have been at the heart of past LJIL editorials.

Like international legal scholarship, LJIL is in transition. Our colleagues, Larissa van den Herik and Jean d'Aspremont, who have shaped much of the role and plural identity of the journal over the past decade, in collaboration with our different sections, have passed leadership on to us, the new team of (co-)editors-in-chief. This editorial reflects on the changing role and function of scholarship in international law, a theme important to our predecessors and ourselves. This is to some extent a niche area. It has not received much attention in discourse. With some notable exceptions, legal journals are typically reluctant to address overarching meta-issues of discourse, i.e. issues of production of scholarship, the role of journals vis-à-vis other media, or the broader direction of the development of international legal scholarship. Such issues might be perceived as non-scientific by some. We feel that it is important to include such dimensions, including critical self-reflection on our discipline, in international legal discourse.

This article examines the evolution of military operations by the Economic Community of Western African States (ECOWAS) and the South African Development Community (SADC) over the last three decades. By looking at constitutional (treaty) developments and organizational practice, it questions whether these sub-regional organizations have displaced the primacy of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in matters pertaining to international peace and security, as foreseen in Articles 24(1) and 103 of the United Nations Charter (the UN Charter). The relevance of this question is underscored by the fact that ECOWAS and SADC have engaged in various peace operations since the 1990s. The article concludes that, since all the interventions under discussion were underpinned by the consent of the recognized government, it would be premature to suggest that the practice of African sub-regional organizations amounts to the emergence of a new customary right to engage in ‘first-instance enforcement action’.

International criminal law has made impressive strides over the past twenty years. The 1990s and 2000s saw the establishment of ad hoc international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda (ICTY and ICTR), the coming into being of the permanent International Criminal Court (ICC), and the birth of several internationalized ‘hybrid’ jurisdictions, notably the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). However, the dynamic development of international criminal law into a new branch of public international law has also led to some problems and confusion. The rules and principles developed by the newly founded international criminal tribunals have sometimes seemed at odds with accepted views on public international law more generally – raising fears about the ‘fragmentation’ of the law. Perhaps the best-known example of this is the controversy over the ‘overall-control’ test developed by the ICTY Appeals Chamber in the Tadić case to determine under which circumstances armed forces may be considered to be acting on behalf of a third state, rendering an internal armed conflict international. The Tadić test differed from the ‘effective-control’ test developed by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Nicaragua case and confirmed in the Bosnia Genocide case, where the ICJ specifically rejected the ICTY approach. Also more generally, the discussion on ‘fragmentation’ and international criminal law continues; recently, Elies van Sliedregt set out in these pages her vision of legal pluralism in international criminal law.

In the previous editorial, Larissa van den Herik and Jean d'Aspremont referred to LJIL's ‘special plural identity’. On the one hand, this plurality shows in its table of contents; on the other hand, the plural identity is equally – if not even more – treasured in terms of appreciating the plurality of voices within the legal discipline, as the editors-in-chief also highlight. Diversity and heterogeneity are an asset for academic debate, and LJIL as such seeks to provide a forum for scholars from different ‘paradigms’. The appreciation of diversity and plurality is also reflected in the interest of LJIL to look beyond the confines of the legal discipline itself and engage with external perspectives to foster discussions about international law. It is in light of this open-mindedness and the wish to reach out to non-legal audiences, and to the international relations community in particular, that I was invited to join the LJIL team some years ago. Whereas there is a growing audience of IR scholars genuinely interested in (theorizing) international law, LJIL is not very well known as a journal with that profile for its International Legal Theory section. As a leading scholar in IR once remarked: ‘LJIL is the best kept secret in IR’. So when the request came for me to write an editorial, it seemed only apt to reflect upon some of the perils and promises of interdisciplinarity from my experience as an IR scholar within the LJIL editorial board.