Preface by the Editors-in-Chief

• Author: Robert Diab/Chris DL Hunt/Lorne Neudorf
• Position: Editors-in-Chief
• Pages: 1-2

1

(2015) 1 CJCCL

Preface by the Editors-in-Chief

We are delighted to launch the Canadian Journal of Comparative

and Contemporary Law with this inaugural issue focused on the

theme of health law and human rights.

When the three of us came together last year to discuss the possibility

of founding a new law journal, we looked for a way to strike common

ground as emerging scholars with seemingly di erent preoccupations,

from public to private law. We wondered how we might make a

meaningful contribution to a larger scholarly conversation in law, given

the wide range of existing law journals in Canada and abroad.

Part of the answer was found in the common value we place on

taking a comparative approach to legal scholarship and a shared desire

to gain a global perspective on the legal issues that we study. Although

Canadian law schools already host a number of high quality journals,

none are focused primarily on fostering comparative legal scholarship, and

journals abroad that do so are few in number. Yet, across the many  elds

and sub elds of our discipline, comparative scholarship is undergoing a

kind of renaissance. Scholars are increasingly framing their inquiries by

crossing jurisdictions, theoretical boundaries, and disciplinary borders.

While comparative legal scholarship can trace its roots to  gures such as

Aristotle, Montesquieu, and Maine, it has become critically relevant to

the global age in which we live, an age in which laws and ideas about law

are constantly crossing borders and forging broader, more intricate links.

Within this global horizon, the idea of a law journal with a domestic focus

is beginning to seem anachronistic. We therefore encourage contributors

to take a comparative approach, understanding this in a broad sense of

drawing upon di erent jurisdictions, methods, theories, or disciplines.

Another part of the answer was found in the experience of conducting

our own past research initiatives, in which we valued high quality

publications that o ered an in-depth examination of a particular legal

issue or area of law. Although there are already a number of established

specialist journals in Canada and abroad, our idea to select a new theme

for each issue uniquely enables us to respond to contemporary legal

problems and debates as they arise.