The Virginia Journal of International Law (VJIL) shares several important traits with the law school of which it is a part.  It is a forum for vigorous and informed intellectual exchange with a long and distinguished history. Yet it is never content to stay in place, but constantly seeks to innovate and improve.

I was therefore not surprised when the editors told me of their plan to establish VJIL Online. Electronic publication, whether of working papers or finished publications, is bringing about a dramatic change in the speed and efficiency of research and the dissemination of knowledge. Where once there were clearly delineated scholarly communities defined by geography and field, legal scholarship is rapidly becoming a global and interdisciplinary enterprise. Nowhere is this shift more welcome than in international and comparative law. Distance and budgets are less formidable barriers to scholarly collaboration and debate across national borders than they were a generation ago.

VJIL Online aims to be a center for such debate. It will post timely articles that can be published on a more aggressive schedule than the typical law review piece. It will also give readers the opportunity to respond, which we hope will increase the visibility and impact of the ideas presented here. Most important, the essays that VJIL Online publishes will have the potential to reach a broader audience than any print publication can.

None of this will come, however, at the price of a decline in scholarly or editorial standards.VJIL Online will carefully select and edit the essays to be published here. VJIL has a well-deserved reputation as one of the premier subject-matter journals in international law — indeed, in any field. I have every confidence that VJIL Online will only enhance that reputation.

VJIL Online is off to an excellent start with the three essays selected for this inaugural edition. Professor David Bederman’s essay, “State-to-State Espousal of Human Rights Claims,” discusses a developing area in which international law claims may find their way into U.S. courts. The essay speculates on whether states may start bringing human rights claims against other states on behalf of the claimant’s citizens, as they sometimes do with respect to property claims. We are particularly proud to present this piece, as it arose from a talk at the Law School’s 23rd Sokol Colloquium on Private International Law.

Jeremy Marsh and Scott Glabe, both officers in the U.S. military, offer an essay on a vitally important and controversial topic of the law of war. “Time for the United States to Directly Participate” discusses the critical but increasingly complex distinction between combatants and civilians. As the United States fights against irregular armed forces that blur that distinction, it is essential that the legal, policy, and military communities converge on a workable set of principles to determine which individuals can be subject to lethal force.

Finally, Joel Slawotsky’s essay, “Corporate Liability Under the Alien Tort Claims Act,” takes up one of the most prominent areas in which international law and U.S. domestic law intersect. The Second Circuit’s September 2010 opinion in Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum creates a circuit split on a question of subject-matter jurisdiction to which both domestic and international norms are relevant. The essay critically surveys the different approaches.

Over the past fifty years, the Virginia Journal of International Law has played an important role in the growth and development of international and comparative legal scholarship in the United States. VJIL Online will help it continue to do so for the next fifty and beyond.