It is with great pleasure that I, along with the other members of the editorial board present to you, the 15th volume of the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal (OUCLJ).
The academic year 2015–16 has been one of great significance for the OUCLJ. This year marks the 15th year since the Journal was first published — an important milestone in the life of any journal. In addition, the Journal witnessed significant changes to its publishing arrangements this year. We are now published by Taylor & Francis. While we remain grateful to Hart Publishing (our earlier publishers) for their unwavering support through the initial years of the Journal, we are excited about working with Taylor & Francis at fostering a mutually fruitful relationship. Finally, this year, the OUCLJ started accepting submissions through an exclusive online submissions platform — ‘the Editorial Manager’. We hope that this will increase transparency and improve the user experience for our authors. It has been a personal privilege for me to be able to steer the journal during this crucial phase.
I am grateful to a number of people without whose time and help none of our work this year would have been possible. The foremost among them are members of the current Editorial Board — Andelka Phillips, Kunal Sharma, Pip Coore and Tobias Lutzi. I am also immensely thankful to Andelka Phillips and Poorna Mysoor, both members of the previous editorial board. They worked very hard with us to make the difficult process of transition as smooth as it possibly can be. Our team of Associate Editors, all graduate students at the Oxford Law Faculty, painstakingly edited articles despite their hectic academic schedules. I am greatly indebted to them.
The OUCLJ receives submissions from exceptional scholars from all around the world. It has been a pleasure to work with them. The backbone of a law journal like the OUCLJ is the peer-review process. I am grateful to our anonymous referees who were kind enough to spare time to review our articles.
As always, the Journal has benefitted enormously from the support we receive from the Oxford Law Faculty. In particular, I am thankful to Laura Hoyano, our faculty adviser for her guidance. I also take this opportunity to remember gratefully, the help we received from several members of the law faculty including our Dean, Anne Davies, Sandra Meredith, Elizabeth Wells and David Trenchard.
In June 2001, in his foreward to the inaugural edition of OUCLJ, The Hon Justice James Edelman (one of the founding editors) wrote, ‘the OUCLJ has embodied two key, foundational aims. The first is to support and foster legal scholarship by providing a much-needed, dedicated academic forum for the exchange of ideas and experience on legal topics of interest throughout the Commonwealth … The journal's second foundational aim … is its commitment to student editorship.’ 15 years since then, I take this opportunity to renew our commitment to these core aims and to express my hope that the Journal will continue to cherish these ideals in the years to come.
Krishnaprasad KVOxford UniversityGeneral Editor, 2015–164 January 2016