On Departure(s)

In November 1975, the first issue of European Law Review was published. In his Editorial, its founding father, Professor Sir Alan Dashwood QC, referred to a specific task for the new journal: “special attention will be given to the problems of integrating the United Kingdom into the Communities and to the effects of Community membership on our law. It would be wrong to interpret this as parochialism: it is, rather, an indication that the task of becoming good Europeans is taken very seriously…”. It is now 45 years later and the United Kingdom is no longer a member of the European Union. It is, therefore, to the extraordinary process of disentangling its legal order from that of the EU’s that special attention is being given by scholars and policy-makers. This process will be long, and a lot of time, energy and intellectual capital will be devoted to managing its implications in as painless a manner as possible. And while its impact would be different on the two partners, the process is bound to affect both the UK and the EU. This Review will contribute to the study of and reflection on this process in all its implications actively, as will become apparent in our next issue. Seeking, however, to make sense of the end of the long UK-EU relationship is by no means what this Review is about. After all, rather than being UK-focused, the Review was designed as a dynamic, extrovert and international-looking forum for scholarly debate. And as departures provide an opportunity to revisit and reassess the past, it is worth reaffirming the main mission of the Review which neither Brexit nor the increasing and somewhat inevitable current obsession with Brexitology will affect. To quote from its founding father, the ambition of the Review remains “to be recognised as a natural outlet for the best work by the best scholars of European law (in a broad sense), whatever their provenance”. This ambition is served by the following four principles. First, the Review aims to cover all aspects of European Union law widely understood in all their substantive, constitutional and institutional dimensions. We also welcome contributions on developments in the Council of Europe, particularly concerning the European Convention on Human Rights. Secondly, the Review is committed to publishing scholarship of the highest quality, irrespective of the form of the piece submitted. We encourage contributors to send us their work even if its length may not be suitable for a main article. The Analysis and Reflections section intends to accommodate shorter pieces which provide expert commentary on any legal development of European interest, including, but not confined to, individual judgments delivered by the European Courts in Luxembourg and Strasbourg, as well as national and transnational courts in cases with European implications. Thirdly, the Review addresses a wide audience, consisting of academics, students, members of the judiciary, practitioners, officials and policy-makers. We invite submissions from anywhere in the world irrespective of the status or background of the author. Fourthly, we do not intend to give a particular emphasis on any type of scholarship—we are committed to publishing doctrinal, theoretical, contextual and interdisciplinary analysis, as long as it is of the highest quality and its subject-matter falls within the scope of the Review. In light of the above, no matter how painful and difficult Brexit and its management will be, they will not divert the Review from its commitment to the study of and contribution to the development of European Union law. And as if Brexit were not enough, we also have a departure closer to home to report. Jukka Snell has stepped down as the joint Editor. With his keen perception, dedication and enthusiasm, he did an excellent job with the Analysis and Reflections section during the last five years. He has been a source of wise counsel and his good humour made him a joy to work with. We are delighted that he has agreed to join our Editorial Board. Alicia Hinarejos has joined me as joint Editor responsible for the Analysis and Reflections section of the Review. She is familiar to our readers as she has been our Book Reviews Editor since 2015. She is Senior Lecturer at the University of Cambridge where she is also a Fellow at Downing College and her scholarship has made her an authoritative voice in, amongst others, the law of the EU’s economic and monetary union. Our new Book Reviews Editor is Dr Thomas Horsley. A Senior Lecturer at the University of Liverpool, he is the author of The Court of Justice of the European Union as an Institutional Actor—Judicial Law-making and its Limits (Cambridge University Press, 2018). He has written in EU constitutional law as well as the law of the internal market. We are delighted to welcome him to the Review.