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International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, vol. X no. 30 (1997), 217-220

Editorial: ten years on

by

Dragan Milovanovic, Editor,

Northeastern Illinois University

This issue marks the completion of the tenth year of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law and of the first year of my Editorship. Much has been accomplished in getting the journal off its feet and much has yet to be done. Ten years would seem a good time to also ask the Board members and the readership to reflect on where we have been, where we are, and what needs to be changed for the future.

As to the past ten years, I would like to take this opportunity to express my (and I am sure I speak for many who have been involved with the journal) deep gratitude to three people. Eric Landowski, the first editor of the journal, was to do the difficult job of getting a unique journal running. His work over the years has certainly catapulted the journal into a high caliber scholarly journal. Eric's dedication to the development of a semiotics and law perspective and the IJSL/RISJ is now a matter of historical record. For eight years he carried the principal burden of the editorship, obtaining initial support from the CNRS and maintaining meticulous standards. Maarten Henket, who took over from Eric, maintained the high traditions of the journal while expanding the scope of subjects included in each issue. I would also like to thank Bernard Jackson for his work behind the scenes. His coordination of the productive process of the journal and his tireless energy and commitment to its timely circulation often remains unrecognized. For those of us who have been in the Editor's position of journals we know only too well the importance of this role that Bernard fills.

And finally I want to give special thanks to the many international members of the Board. Their evaluations of manuscripts and recommendations to the Editor are indispensible components for maintaining a quality scholarly journal. Reviewers often spend many hours in doing conscientious reviews. In my first year as Editor of IJSL/RISJ it has been my experience that the reviews are exceptional in their critical, elaborate, but constructive commentary. The editor's timely decisions and substantive responses to authors are intimately connected with the caliber of reviews received. I want to thank the Board members for their reviews as well as for their input on various issues that have been raised and for which I needed (and continue to need) the collective wisdom of the Board.

As to where we are now. The journal continues to receive high quality manuscripts on semiotics and law. I have made a special effort to maintain the uniqueness of the journal, as spelled out in its philosophical statement. In part, it reads: "The IJSL welcomes articles applying different forms of textual analysis to the discourses of law." The question of what constitutes a "semiotic" (textual) analysis in law at times is problematic, especially when some manuscripts are more implicitly semiotic in orientation. The special burden then rests with Board members as reviewers of manuscripts to make professional judgments as to where the line should be drawn. I want to especially thank those who have been diligent in this task. Unlike many journals where the subject matter is very broad, IJSL/RISJ takes on a very unique direction and its integrity is measured in many ways by how well it maintains an allegiance to its philosophical statement. The Editor's editorial decisions are strongly dependent on the recommendations made by the reviewers.

The journal's stated editorial policy includes diverse perspectives in semiotics and law - "the semiotics of Greimas and Peirce, rhetoric, philosophy of language, pragmatics, sociolinguistics and deconstructionism, as well as more traditional legal philosophical approaches to the language of the law". Even the most superficial review of the contents of the thirty issues now completed shows how imaginatively, and with what distinction, this program is being accomplished. Thus, our pages have been graced by some of the most senior legal philosophers, e.g. (the much-missed) Jerzy Wróblewski, Georges Kalinowski, Aleksander Peczenik and Neil MacCormick; Greimassian semiotics have been well represented by Landowski and Jackson; Peircian by Kevelson and Brion; the relationship between hermeneutics and semiotics has been discussed by Ricur, Ost, Stanley and Gaete; rhetoric and sociolinguistics have been well represented by Coulon, den Boer, Hickey, Kurzon, Scott and Sobota, as have postmodernism, both deconstructive (Douzinas and Warrington) and psychoanalytic, the latter with special focus on Lacan (Milovanovic, Caudill, Arrigo) and Legendre (Goodrich). Nor has the history of the semiotics of law been neglected (van den Bergh, Carrión-Wam).

A topical review is also revealing. Thematic issues have been devoted to Proof, Institutional Theory, Human Rights, Linguistics and Legal Discourse, and Images of Justice; there have been debates on the Normative Syllogism, and Truth and Verisimilitude. Individual theoretical studies have ranged from traditional topics in legal philosophy (hard cases, legal argument, Hohfeld), via issues of pragmatics and semantics to studies of Hegel's semiology and Ockham. Legal history has been represented by studies of Coke, the linguistics of equitable remedies, and the Salem witch trials. Various aspects of international law have been studied, from theory to the ABM Treaty. Speech act analysis has been applied to Contract and Legal Argumentation. The use of different narrative models has been a pervasive theme, complemented by Law and Literature studies including Antigone, Bacchanals and Hamlet. Anthropological and cross-cultural studies have addressed issues of legal ritual and have ranged from the ancient Hittites through the Bible to Greenland, to the internment of Japanese prisoners in Canada and the treatment of both Hindustani Women and a Turkish Defendant in the Netherlands. Location (including courthouse architecture) and identity have been explored. The criminal trial has been the focus of many studies, ranging from the linguistics of the police caution, through various aspects of courtroom interaction to the judicial summing-up, jury studies. Substantive criminal law (including the insanity defense) has also attracted a number of contributors, as have torture, the lex talionis, revolutionary speech and brand names.

The journal also relies heavily on Board members' active recruitment of manuscripts that are semiotics and law in their orientation. I would like to thank Board members for encouraging authors to submit manuscripts for the journal and hope this will continue. There are certainly many scholars world-wide who are doing semiotic research and who are looking for outlets for their work.

The addition of two Book Review Editors - one French speaking, Benoît Frydman; one English speaking, Judy Grbich - has added further to the international flavour of the journal. The journal has from the beginning included occasional articles in French. Our web site, http://www.legaltheory.demon.co.uk/ijsl.html, has also contributed to an international presence. When taking on the function of Editor of IJSL I was quite amazed as to how truly international the journal is, especially since I had been editor or co-editor of three previous journals. Routinely I find myself conversing with scholars around the world for input on manuscripts submitted and for feedback on various issues that surface. I too have been active in encouraging manuscript submissions from various parts of the world and from various semiotic persuasions. I foresee the continuous expansion of submissions of diverse semiotic perspectives taking place in the future. These are exciting times!

As to the future. Having come ten years and thirty issues it is always important to reflect on where we have been and where we wish to go. I am certain that various issues that have been presented to me by a number of Board members, as well as some of the issues I am in the process of formulating, will have their full airing at the next annual meeting of the International Association for the Semiotics of Law. I look forward to comments sent to me in this regard. Certainly we need to be engaged in self examination in pursuit of maintaining the highest quality scholarly journal in the semiotic and law field. I foresee continuous expansion of scholarly submissions from various parts of the world and of diverse perspectives in semiotics and law. I plan to encourage more debate sections in the journal, in which the various differences are focused on central controversial and/or problematic issues in semiotics and law. Through these discussions/debates the field of semiotics and law will certainly be brought into sharper relief.

To conclude (or more appropriately, to begin the next ten years) I look forward to the continuous support and constructive critique of all those that have made the journal what it is today, and to welcoming new contributors. It is a collective effort that will surely make the IJSL/RISJ a viable and exciting one, distinguishable by its unique emphasis on semiotics and law.

For complete contents of the International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, click here.

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