Dear reader

• Author: Marju Luts-Sootak
• Pages: 1-1

1

JURIDICA INTERNATIONAL 24/2016

Dear reader,

The number of legal journals published in Estonia has always been limited. On the

one hand, the reasons for such scarcity have always rested with the small population,

which limits the size of the Estonian legal audience and thus the potential number

of readers. On the other hand, the twists and turns of (recent) history have always

meant interruptions in the publication of legal journals. Publishing two, three or

even four journals at the same time has proven possible only in a very limited num-

ber of years. There is usually no reason to talk about decades in this context. All the

more reason for us, as the publishers and authors of this journal, to be proud of the

publication of yet another issue of our magazine. The f‌i rst issue of Juridica Interna-

tional – the foreign language companion to the Estonian language journal Juridica,

which has been published since 1993 – appeared twenty years ago, in 1996. Professor

Paul Varul, Editor-in-Chief of Juridica International from 1996–2015, took a look

back at these f‌i rst twenty years in the editor’s column of our last issue. Juridica Inter-

national has acted like a seismograph when it comes to ref‌l ecting reforms in Esto-

nian law and legal education. When Estonia joined the European Union in 2004,

new and signif‌i cantly more international challenges alreadly came along during the

preparatory stage, not to mention the subsequent active participation in the har-

monisation processes of European Union law. The foreign language journal, pub-

lished at and with the means of the Faculty of Law of Estonia’s own national uni-

versity, the University of Tartu, has given our legal practitioners a chance to express

their views among an international community of scholars in a highly visible man-

ner. Juridica International has also played an important part in publishing materi-

als from legal conferences and seminars held in Estonia. Juridica International has

become an attractive international journal that reaches well beyond the borders of

Estonia and the European Union. This widespread circulation has been assisted by

free access online – a decision made by Juridica International years before “open

access” became a keyword of global research policy.

In the span of only a couple of decades, the journal that f‌i rst started as the “call-

ing card” of the Faculty of Law at the University of Tartu, mainly introducing and

analysing Estonia’s own legal developments, has become an internationally open,

peer-reviewed legal journal that is represented in the most acknowledged databases.

Since Juridica International is a universal legal journal by its very essence, and this

number is not a topically focused conference issue, the geography of both the authors

and the topics covered ref‌l ect points of interest and concern in the legal science of

our region. A special place is reserved for the principal foundations of the European

Union and European legal culture in general, and the latest developments in the law

of Europe, Estonia, and other countries are addressed as always. One of the obvious

causes for concern is Russia’s legal concept, and the legal situation of both it and its

neighbours deserves an observant analysis.

As the new Editor-in-Chief of the journal, I thank all the editors, colleagues

at the editorial board, and the technical team for their continued energy and hard

work. For our readers, as well as current and future authors, I hope this issue will

be thought-provoking, give you topics to ref‌l ect on, and a reason to join us time and

again.

Marju Luts-Sootak

http://dx.doi.org/10.12697/JI.2016.24.00