Walking Down Memory Lane on the 50th Anniversary of YJIL
Memorable Milestones
"As a leading member of the New Haven School of International Law, author of countless publications on nearly every subject within the field, esteemed arbitrator, and beloved teacher, Professor Reisman has influenced the lives of many. He is particularly important to this journal because of the integral role he played in its founding, in 1974, as Yale Studies in World Public Order. We have been proud to call him a founding father and patron of YJIL for the past thirty-four years of its existence, and we honor him with this collection of essays as a teacher and writer who has changed the way we understand and approach the study of international law."
Introduction, 34 Yale J. Int'l L. 499 (2009)
List of Timeline Entries
1974
"In secrecy, in the bowels of the international law library, usually working at night in a setting that must have seemed increasingly like an underground bunker, the students designed their journal, solicited the articles for the first issue, and began to lay it out. The Editor-in-Chief whom the small group selected was Eisuke Suzuki, a Graduate Fellow, who had come to Yale from Chuo University in Tokyo. Though Suzuki was living only on his fellowship, he took half of that hardly munificent sum and gave it to the new journal. Thanks to him and the dedication of the original board members, Volume 1, Number 1 of Yale Studies in World Public Order, bearing the date 1974, appeared in January 1975.”
W. Michael Reisman, The Vision and Mission of the Yale Journal of International Law, 25 Yale J. Int'l L. 263,264 (2000)
Displayed here is the inaugural Issue - Table of Contents. See also, Yale Studies in World Public Order: Volume 1(1) Inaugural Issue (1974), which was reviewed by Weston H. Burns as Review of Inaugural Issue, 70 Am. J. Int'l L. 891 (1976).
1977
In April 1979, Ralph H. Smith, the Executive Editor of Yale Studies in World Public Order, received the Deak Prize award by the American Society of International Law for his article titled Beyond the Treaties: Limitations on Neutrality in the Panama Canal, which appeared in the Fall 1977 issue of Yale Studies. See Yale Studies in World Public Order: Volume 4(1) (1977).
"The Editors dedicate the issue [4(2)] to the memory of Professor Harold D. Lasswell of the Yale Law School." See Yale Studies in World Public Order Volume 4(2) (1978).
1979
In December 1980, an entire issue was entered into the record submitted to the United States Supreme Court by the principals in Goldwater v. Carter, 444 U.S. 996 (1979), addressing the question of whether Congress had a constitutional role to play when President Jimmy Carter ended a defense treaty with Taiwan without its approval. See Yale Studies in World Public Order: Volume 6(1) (1979).
1980 / 1984
The Journal underwent name changes in 1980 and 1984. It was renamed Yale Journal of World Public Order in 1980. Articles published were no longer type-written but instead professionally typeset, mechanically printed. See Yale Journal of World Public Order: Volume 7(1) (1980).
In 1984, the Journal was renamed Yale Journal of International Law. “With this volume we mark both an anniversary and an inaugural. It is the tenth volume of a journal that began publication in 1973 as Yale Studies in World Public Order. It is also the first to be published as the Yale Journal of International Law”. Mark David Agrast, Preface: Entering Our Second Decade, 10 Yale J. Int’l L. [vii] (1984). See Yale Journal of International Law: Volume 10(1) (1984).
1998
"Issue Dedicated by the Board of Editors to the memory of Professor Myres Smith McDougal, 1906-1998." See Yale Journal of International Law: Volume 23 (1998).
2000
On the occassion of the 25th annivarsary, Professor Reisman wrote: "The twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of The Yale Journal of International Law is an occasion to reflect on the origins of this remarkable journal, the sense of mission that animated its founders, and the context in which it was forged. It is also an occasion to look forward, for this journal, more than any other international law journal, saw itself engaged consciously and explicitly in an essentially futuristic enterprise. Unlike its contemporary counterparts, which were essentially retrospective, concerned with the codification and assembly of decisions from the past into a neat mosaic, then presented as “the law,” the new Yale journal's avowed mission from the start was to contribute to the formation and appraisal of international policy. So let me begin with a brief informal history of The Yale Journal of International Law." W. Michael Reisman, The Vision and Mission of the Yale Journal of International Law, 25 Yale J. Int'l L. 263 (2000). See Yale Journal of International Law: Volume 25(2) (2000).
2009
In 2009, the Journal published a Commemorative Issue for a Conference titled Realistic Idealism in International Law, which was held at Yale Law School on February 4th 2009, in honor of W. Michael Reisman. See Yale Journal of International Law: Volume 34(2) (2009).