Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law

Published by the
Max Planck Institute for Comparative
Public Law and International Law
under the Auspices of Rüdiger Wolfrum

  Advisory Board

Rudolf Bernhardt, Armin von Bogdandy, Edith Brown Weiss, Jean-Pierre Cot, Yoram Dinstein, Thomas M. Franck, Jochen Abr. Frowein, Meinhard Hilf, Rahmatullah Khan, Martti Koskenniemi, Thomas Läufer, Thomas A. Mensah, Hanspeter Neuhold, Francisco Orrego Vicuña, Michael Reisman, Bruno Simma, Daniel Thürer, Christian Tomuschat, Tullio Treves, Rüdiger Wolfrum, and Sir Michael Wood

Under the auspices of Professor Dr. Rüdiger Wolfrum, Director of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law (‘Max Planck Institute’), an initiative was launched in 2004 to compile the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (‘Max Planck EPIL’). This work represents a new edition of the Encyclopedia of Public International Law that was published between 1991 and 2001 under Professor Dr. Rudolf Bernhardt. The Max Planck EPIL will be made available in electronic and print form by Oxford University Press. Online publication is expected to begin in the summer of 2008 with more than 400 articles. The online publication will then be steadily expanded until all of the nearly 1700 articles are made available by 2010. Once the online publication is completed, a print version will be published.

 

Upon its completion, the Max Plank EPIL will be an updated, comprehensive work covering the central and essential topics in international law. Accordingly, the previous edition is not being revised, rather, nearly all topics are being rewritten and many new topics included in order to capture the latest developments in international law. To do justice to the changing nature of international law, an increased emphasis will be placed on the relevance of each keyword for contemporary international law. Particular attention will be paid to the contextualization of each topic within international law as well as the presentation of current trends while maintaining a focus on the mainstream/majority view. The goal is to avoid a purely Eurocentric perspective and this will be achieved with the assistance of academics and practitioners from various legal backgrounds and perspectives. The intention is that the Max Planck EPIL will be a work that reflects international law from a global perspective while taking into account regional perspectives.

 

A number of persons are currently involved or have been involved in the Max Planck EPIL project since its initiation. The Managing Editors oversee the project as a whole and to that end, they are involved at all stages of the editorial and publication process, including initiating contact with potential authors, coordinating the evaluation and editing of each article, and ensuring each article travels down the production line in an efficient manner, all the while ensuring a high level of quality for each article.

 

With nearly 1700 keywords, the Max Planck EPIL will cover the following over-arching themes:

 

• Settlement of Disputes;
• Decisions of International Courts and Tribunals and International Tribunals and International Arbitration;
• Use of Force, War and Neutrality, Peace Treaties, Laws of War, Humanitarian Law;
• International Organizations in General, Universal International Organizations;
• Regional Cooperation and Organizations;
• History of International Law, Legal Theories;
• Human Rights, The Individual in International Law, Particular International Law Issues;
• International Relations, Legal Cooperation in General, Diplomacy and Consular Relations;
• States, Particular Issues Concerning States, International Responsibility, International Law and Municipal Law;
• Law of the Sea, Air and Space Law;
• Geographic Issues;
• Foundations and Principles of International Law, International Law Sources;
• International Economic Relations; and
• International Protection of the Environment.

 

Since the articles are submitted at different times, all of the thematic areas will be worked on simultaneously. The advantage of this method is that the Max Planck EPIL will be able to go online initially with more than 400 articles and steadily increase the number as time goes on, allowing readers to begin accessing a wealth of information before the entire publication is completed in a couple of years. Given that the information contained in many of the articles may become outdated, authors are asked to update their articles once a year in the first three years after electronic publication of the entire Max Planck EPIL.

 

An Advisory Board, consisting of renowned experts in various fields of international law, applies its expertise to ensure the quality and excellence of each article. They carefully read and evaluate each article, keeping in mind the high standard of the publication. The internal advisors, who are Senior Research Fellows at the Max Planck Institute, also assist with quality-assurance in their supervision of the over-arching themes as well as examination of articles.

 

The Editorial Staff is comprised of Administration, Editors, and Student Assistants. The Administration assists in the daily functioning of the project, including correspondence and maintenance of the project’s support database which contains information on each article and every author.

 

Editors review each article to ensure they are in keeping with the project’s style guidelines and check the validity and content of the authors’ statements. Student Assistants format the articles’ appearance in accordance with the project’s style guidelines and ensure the accuracy of cited materials as well as consistency and uniformity in the formatting of citations and usage of abbreviations. Additional research support is provided by librarians.

 

Over 700 authors from around the globe have agreed to submit articles to the Max Planck EPIL. Among them are not only distinguished professors, judges and legal practitioners, who are involved international law, but also up-and-coming academics and researchers. The latter have been included in order to promote the progressive character of the Max Planck EPIL.

 

To date, over 1000 articles have been submitted. At least 450 of these have undergone a rigorous evaluation by Advisory Board members and the internal advisors, as well as undergone the in-house editing process. After this, they were sent to Oxford University Press for finalization and publication in early 2008. The other articles are in various stages of the review process. It is anticipated that the bulk of the articles will have been submitted in 2008 and that the online publication will be expanded regularly approximately every three months starting in 2008.

 

 

This will be made available after 2010 once the electronic publication has been completed. Please check back here periodically for more information.

For further information on the sales and subscription information contact:
Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP corporatesales.uk@oup.com.