German Law Journal Speakers Bring European Issues to W&L This month, the German Law Journal welcomes to the law school two speakers who will address pressing issues in law and policy in Europe.

By Law Communications
March 16, 2023

This month, the German Law Journal welcomes to the law school two speakers who will address pressing issues in law and policy in Europe.

On March 23 (3.00-4.00 in Classroom B), the Journal will host an informal conversation with Lt. Col. Jan Ganschow, a lawyer and advisor with the German Armed Forces (Bundeswehr).  The discussion will focus on Lt. Col. Ganschow’s service in Afghanistan, his current assignment as a German Exchange Officer with the Center for Law and Military Operations at the U.S. Army’s Judge Advocate General’s Legal Center and School (Charlottesville), and the way in which the War in Ukraine has impacted international law and security policy in Europe.  Lt. Col. Ganshow has an extraordinary background in international law, military policy, and operational command, including high-level service to Germany’s Ministry of Defense and a tour as the Chief Legal Advisor for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan.

“The Russian war against Ukraine is the greatest disruption to European security since the end of the Cold War – it’s the first major land war in Europe since WWII,” explained W&L Law Prof. Russell Miller, Editor of the German Law Journal (GLJ).  “This terrible shock has prompted alarm and major changes across the continent.  Neutral states such as Finland and Sweden have applied for membership in NATO.  The Germans, long reluctant to assume a muscular security posture, have announced a Zeitenwende (Historical Turning Point) that will involve massive new defense expenditures and security commitments.”

Miller noted that “W&L is extremely lucky to have the chance to hear from Lt. Ganshow to help us understand these important developments and especially the role that international law will play in them.”

Then, on March 28 (4.30-5.30 in Classroom A), the Journal welcomes Prof. Jen Hendry to the Law School for a workshop presentation of her paper “Knife Crime Prevention Orders and the ‘Difficult’ Regulatory Subject.”  Hendry is a Professor of Law and Social Justice at the University Leeds School of Law (U.K.) where she is a former Director of Leeds’ Centre for Law and Social Justice.  Prof. Hendry’s research and teaching focuses on the fields of social and legal theory, socio-legal studies, comparative legal studies, indigenous justice, and legal pluralism.

The “Knife Crime” paper, which recently published in the British Journal of Criminology, critically engages with new preventative policing tools in the United Kingdom.  The paper concludes that the newly instituted knife crime orders are “an ideologically driven policy that is instrumentally and disproportionately employed to regulate the behavior of ‘difficult’ populations—in this instance, predominantly Black children in urban environments who carry knives.”

Prof. Miller noted that “Hendry is a leading voice on issues of social justice and legal pluralism in the U.K.  Her work gives the W&L community an exciting opportunity to gain a profound comparative perspective on issues of social justice and policing in the American context.”

Prof. Hendry is visiting W&L in her capacity as a member of the GLJ’s international Editor-in-Chief Committee.  That Committee, encompassing prominent scholars in the U.K., Switzerland, Holland and Germany, partners with the GLJ’s student editors based at W&L.  Prof. Miller explained that this structure allows the international editorial board to make peer-review approval of the GLJ’s content while intensively collaborating with W&L’s student editors for managing and publishing the GLJ.

“Hendry and her colleagues on the EiC Committee rave about their cooperation with our students,” said Miller.  “This visit has two purposes:  to deepen that working relationship and to give Hendry the chance to express the EiC Committee’s gratitude for the brilliant and essential work of the W&L student editors.”

The GLJ is the world’s leading forum for the publication of legal research from a transnational perspective, with Google Scholar Journal Rankings #1 in “European Law” and #4 in “International Law.”  The GLJ pairs W&L law students with an International Editorial Board of world-renowned scholars for the editorial and production work that leads to the publication of up to 10 issues each year, including several curated special issues.

The GLJ pioneered the online and open-access model that is emerging as the standard for the publication of legal research.  Beginning with its twentieth volume, the GLJ launched a publication partnership with the respected Cambridge University Press.  W&L students work intensively on the full-text of the Journal’s content, providing substantive, editorial, and stylistic feedback to authors from around the world.  Association with the GLJ serves as a framework for deeper exposure to comparative and European law.