End of Year Editorial

2021 is quickly coming to an end. It has been another challenging year for many of us on multiple fronts, the impact of the global pandemic on our professional and social interactions being just one of them.  

The end of 2021 is also the end of our time as co-editors of the IACL Blog. After a few years at its helm, we will step down from our role. It has not been an easy decision, because it has been truly rewarding to see the blog grow from strength to strength over these past several months, and become one of the leading international online academic hubs in the field of constitutional law. For both of us, it has been an enriching journey, which has allowed us to contribute and shape the constitutional law debate and grow as academics. It is however reassuring to know that the blog will be handed over to the very capable hands of our wonderful colleagues Mariana Velasco Rivera and Anna Dziedzic. 

For us at the IACL Blog, 2021 has been exciting on many levels, as we have been able to mark a number of achievements. When we launched the New Look Blog in 2018 with Tom Daly, we set five values for the blog: to be user-friendly, provide added value, and to be responsive, inclusive, and truly global. We intended to pursue these aims in four ways. First, by providing a user-friendly meeting place for constitutionalists around the world to present their research, share their views, and discuss crucial constitutional law topics, as well as overlooked issues and more technical discussions of constitutional law. We also aimed to take an inclusive approach, to reflect the wide diversity of the research community across IACL and beyond. Second, we wanted to cultivate conversations, by framing debates, providing context, making useful links between different developments, and looking ahead to what constitutional developments may take place in the future. Third, we wanted to be a truly global blog that serves all areas of the world. To that end, we featured blog posts that represent all regions of the world, and we placed significant focus on ensuring the inclusion of regions that are under-represented in global constitutional conversations. Finally, we aimed for the blog to provide added value to the existing landscape of constitutional law blogs, also by drawing on the extensive IACL network, by engaging in selected collaborations with global leaders in the field of constitutional law and by initiating new partnerships. 

These goals and values have shaped our vision of the blog ever since. Our blog symposia signature feature has continued to be very successful: in 2021 we published ten different symposia and launched a new initiative, the Workshop my Paper series, to bring together scholars to critically engage with forthcoming and recently published scholarship in the field. We introduced video and audio as new formats for featuring new scholarship, for author interviews and for conversations with scholars. In preparation for the IACL-AIDC World Congress of Constitutional Law of 2022 in Johannesburg, we launched in September Spotlight on Africa, a series of blog posts presenting the constitutional features of several African jurisdictions in which constitutional experts from the region present, from their perspective, significant characteristics of African constitutional systems. Furthermore, in addition to continuing the collaboration with our existing partners, we partnered with the Centre for Comparative Constitutional Studies and the Laureate Program in Comparative Constitutional Law in the launch of a new podcast, Constitutional Café, a place for scholarly but informal conversation about constitutions and constitutional law with a global focus.

Last but not least, throughout this past year our editorial team has continued to grow, with the additions of Berihun Adugna Gebeye, Miriam Cullen, Alexandra Flynn, Phoebe Galbally, Iain Payne, Elisabeth Perham, Pravar Petkar, Nomfundo Ramalekana, Joshua Snukal, Imogen Timms and Ayesha Wijayalath. We started out as a team of three, with Tom Daly, Erika Arban and Toerien van Wyk: today we have a team led by two Co-editors, an Associate Editor, Assistant Editors and a Communications Assistant. The IACL Blog team has been an absolute delight to work with, and it is a reminder that there is much that is good, honourable, professional and fulfilling in our world of work. We are thankful for the continued support provided to us by IACL, particularly by the incumbent President, Professor Adrienne Stone. 

During this time, comparative constitutional law has continued to grow in terms of its reach, substance and engagement. Academic debates about theory, methodology, and interdisciplinary approaches are but some examples of this dynamic engagement. Through our work at the Blog, we too were able to contribute to these dynamics. We are increasingly aware that in addition to being a platform for sharing ideas, the Blog also provides scholars an ideal hub to influence agenda setting, disturb the status quo and draw attention to lesser known/studied issues or jurisdictions. We are mindful that academic blogging is gathering force as a means of scholarly engagement. Moreover, it is now linked with social media engagement and is therefore increasing in its appeal and use for scholars who wish to present their ideas to the world. The COVID 19 pandemic and the climate change crisis have made humans more aware of our interconnected nature. Scholars too have to grapple with the challenge of thinking globally, regionally as well as locally. The IACL Blog offers an accessible, flexible and responsive platform that is well suited for such engagement in the English and French speaking world. The future does indeed look bright for the Blog with numerous possibilities, under the able leadership of Mariana Velasco Rivera and Anna Dziedzic.

As this year comes to an end, we would like to thank you for all your engagement and support. We extend to you and your families our very best wishes for the holiday season, hoping to see old and new friends in person in Johannesburg in 2022!

Erika Arban and Dinesha Samararatne