Editorial: A Blockbuster Symposium Season to Mark Our 1-Year Re-Launch Anniversary

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An Amazing Year

It’s hard to believe that it’s just a year since we were putting the final touches to the IACL-AIDC Blog for its re-launch at the IACL World Congress in Seoul in June 2018. The new-look Blog went live on 11 June and was launched on Tuesday 19 June.

Key features of this redevelopment included a full aesthetic redesign and restructuring of the Blog, and development of a new Mission Statement and publication strategy. The latter has regularised the publishing schedule (with 3 posting days: Monday, Wednesday and Friday), placed a greater focus on partnerships, on actively approaching and identifying potential contributors, and on Blog Symposia (collections of blog posts on a selected theme) to enhance coherence and allow us to frame debates and cultivate conversations on selected issues.

Key Successes

The re-launch of the Blog has been a great success:

  • Readership Figures are now five times higher than before re-launch.

  • Global readership: The Blog’s readership is truly global, with readers from 165 countries worldwide since the re-launch

  • Regular posting has been maintained: we have maintained our publication strategy objective of publishing more regularly (3 times per week), with a mix of substantive analysis, Blog symposia, and author interviews.

  • Feedback from Blog users has been overwhelmingly positive. As well as a lot of glowing face-to- face feedback at conferences worldwide, examples from social media include:

    —   “This update of the IACL blog in the hands of terrific CCL scholars Tom Daly and Erika Arban means it is now more than ever one to subscribe to!” – Dr Jeff King, University College London (UCL) (Twitter)

—    “This blog is unmissable and really is a gem.” – Catalina Botero, former Special Rapporteur for Freedom of Expression, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (Twitter)

Anniversary Symposium Season

To celebrate our one-year anniversary since re-launch, and reflecting the Blog’s vibrancy and range of coverage, we are publishing 4 Blog Symposia back-to-back as a 'Symposium Season' from today until the end of July.  

The 4 Symposia will be:

1. 'Venezuela's 2019 (Constitutional) Crisis' (Guest Editor: Raul Sánchez-Urribarri) 29 April-22 May

2. ‘Unwritten Constitutional Principles’ (Guest Editors: Vanessa MacDonnell & Se-Shauna Wheatle) 27 May-12 June

3. ‘Membership and Exclusion’ (Guest Editors: Elisa Arcioni & Amelia Simpson) 17 June-28 June

4. '2019 Global Review: Looking Back, Looking Forward' [working title] (Edited in-house) 1 July-24 July

Our Sincere Thanks to Associate Editor Toerien van Wyk

We can’t celebrate the Blog’s success without mentioning the Blog’s Associate Editor, Toerien van Wyk (appointed in January 2019), who has been extremely helpful in helping to enhance production and management of the Blog, including generating ideas and acting as an excellent sounding board. Thank you Toerien!

Help us Celebrate!

Thank you to our readers and all our supporters during the past year – as we always say, the Blog is YOUR Blog, and we remain eager to connect with you. Help us celebrate our one-year re-launch anniversary by contacting us with your feedback and comments. Tell us what you like, and what you’d like to see on the Blog. We want to hear from you!

 

Erika ARBAN & Tom Gerald DALY

Suggested Citation: Erika Arban & Tom Gerald Daly, 'Editorial: A Blockbuster Symposium Season to Mark Our 1-Year Re-Launch Anniversary' IACL-AIDC Blog (29 April 2019) https://blog-iacl-aidc.org/2019-posts/2019/4/29/editorial-a-blockbuster-symposium-season-to-mark-our-1-year-anniversary-since-re-launch