Welcome from the Journal's Editor-in-chief

• Publication year: 2020
• Author: Catherine (Cathy)

WELCOME FROM THE JOURNAL'S EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

Catherine (Cathy)

Carlisle^*

Editor-in-Chief

At the risk of stating the obvious, this past year has posed an unprecedented challenge for all of us professionally and personally. The twin catastrophes of the COVID-19 pandemic and (more recently) massive wildfires have upended our lives and professional activities, and have cut those of us in California off from our colleagues and partners around the world. And yet, as International Law Section (ILS) Chair Josh Surowitz notes in his message below, our Section continues its vital work on a number of fronts, whether in agitating against disruptive government policies that target international students in the United States (US), or in adapting to host our annual meeting virtually.

Given all of the issues that we have encountered this past year, I am proud of the fact that we are still able to publish this edition of The California International Law Journal. Its completion is the result of the extraordinary dedication and hard work of our editorial staff, the ILS Executive Committee, and our publishers. The articles in this edition offer a slight respite from the ongoing pandemic and accelerating climate change (although these might very well be topics for a future issue of the Journal); as always, we hope that the Journal's unique mixture of practical articles and rigorous academic analysis continues to help you in your practice and provides interesting reading about a wide variety of areas of international law.

This edition also marks my last issue as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal. Over the last two years, our editorial team embarked on an initiative to revamp and revitalize the Journal's design and content to make it more interesting and useful for our readers. In response to reader feedback, we implemented a complete redesign of the Journal with our partners at Sublime Designs to both modernize its look and feel and make it more accessible. We also made a commitment to improve the relevance, diversity, and quality of our content to ensure that our publication meets our readers' needs—both in California, the US as a whole, and across the globe—as well as to promote and facilitate an open and ongoing dialogue with our ILS members, representatives...