The American Journal of Comparative Law

About the Journal

The American Journal of Comparative Law was founded in 1952. As the official journal of the American Society of Comparative Law, it publishes four issues a year and is devoted to comparative and transnational legal studies – including, among other subjects, comparative law, comparative and transnational legal history and theory, private international law and conflict of laws, and the study of legal systems, cultures, and traditions other than those of the US.

In its long and rich history, The AJCL has published articles authored by scholars representing all continents, regions, and legal cultures of the world. A peer-reviewed, leading journal in the field, it has been hosted in the past by institutions such as the UC Berkeley School of Law, Columbia Law School and the University of Michigan Law School; currently, the Georgetown University Law Center and the McGill University Faculty of Law jointly serve as its host.

From our latest issue

Volume 72, Issue 1, Spring 2024

Articles

  • Strategic Judicial Empowerment 

    Pages 170–234, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avad040

    When courts seek to strengthen their own institutional power, they often need to be strategic. In many fraught political contexts, judiciaries lack a history of asserting authority against powerful political actors.

  • The False Hope of Stewardship in the Context of Controlling Shareholders: Making Sense Out of the Global Transplant of a Legal Misfit 

    Pages 109–169, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avae011

    In 2010, the United Kingdom issued the world’s first stewardship code. Since then, stewardship codes have been issued in many of the world’s leading economies and now exist in twenty jurisdictions on six continents, with more jurisdictions considering adopting them.

  • Formal vs. Informal Voluntary Disclosure Policies

    Pages 75–108, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avae015

    Tax administrations have long grappled with the question of how noncompliant taxpayers should be allowed to correct their tax affairs voluntarily.

  • Global Value Chains, Labor Rights, and the Nature of Transnational Law 

    Pages 33–74, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avae013

    This Article develops a framework to analyze the laws that bear on working conditions in global value chains (GVCs), a production structure based on hierarchical international firm networks.

  • For Whose Sake and Benefit? A Critical Analysis of Leading International Treaty Proposals to Protect Nonhuman Animals

    Pages 1–32, https://doi.org/10.1093/ajcl/avae018

    Despite the considerable expansion of international law into virtually all areas of modern life, to date there is no international treaty in force to protect the interests of nonhuman animals.

Editors-in-Chief

Helge Dedek

Associate Professor of Law and Director, Institute of Comparative Law
McGill University Faculty of Law

Franz Werro

Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center and University of Fribourg Faculty of Law

Book Review Editors

Richard Albert, University of Texas at Austin School of Law
Joshua Karton, Queen’s University Faculty of Law

Former Editors-in Chief

Hessel E. Yntema † (1952-1966)
B.J. George † (1966-1968)
Alfred F. Conard (1968-1970)
John G. Fleming † (1971-1987)
Richard M. Buxbaum (1987-2003)
George A. Bermann (2003-2006)
James Gordley (2003-2008)
Mathias W. Reimann (2003-2013)
James Feinerman (2014-2015)

Executive Editorial Board

Luisa Antoniolli, University of Trento Faculty of Law
Gary F. Bell, National University of Singapore Faculty of Law
Francesca Bignami, George Washington University Law School
Mauro Bussani, University of Trieste Law Department
Donald C. Clarke, George Washington University Law School
Dominique Custos, University of Caen Law School
Tom Ginsburg, University of Chicago Law School
Simone Glanert, University of Kent Law School
Hoi Kong, University of British Columbia Peter A. Allard School of Law
Máximo Langer, University of California Los Angeles School of Law
Ralf Michaels, Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law
Álvaro Santos, Georgetown University Law Center
Walter Stoffel, University of Fribourg Faculty of Law
Symeon C. Symeonides, Willamette University College of Law

Managing Editor

Paula Potter (Oxford University Press)

Articles Editor

Amber Lynch (McGill University Faculty of Law)

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