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1 Eur. L. Open 1 (2022)

handle is hein.journals/eurlwop1 and id is 1 raw text is: 


European Law Open (2022), 1, 1-5                               CA     BR IDG   E
doi:10.1017 e1o.2022.12








These lines start on Page 1 of Issue 1 of Volume 1 of European Law Open, and are written with a
sense of occasion of new beginnings, and in deep gratitude for the support of the academic com-
munity  and the trust placed in us by Cambridge University Press. Launching a new open access
journal of European law in times of COVID-19,  economic  slumps and widespread financial pres-
sures on higher education is not a decision to be taken lightly, and it has not been taken lightly.
   Surely, there is a place, indeed a need, for contextual and critical approaches to European law.
Many  of us have dedicated years to fostering such work as editors and Board members of a certain
other journal in another place, which we left collectively in early 2020. It is a heritage we are proud
of, and a tradition we will build on. It is also clear, however, that over the decades - in no small
measure  thanks to that other journal - contextual approaches have become mainstream in EU law,
and  that, as a consequence, 'European law in context' as a description of a particular style of
scholarship has lost much  of its clarity and purpose. Not entirely in jest, we sometimes joke
that the new  frontier, the really cool, edgy stuff in EU law these days would consist of good
old-fashioned doctrinal work. If only it existed.
   The pressing need, we think, is not so much for a journal championing a particular kind of schol-
arship, but for a journal that takes scholarship seriously. This means three things to us. First, we seek
to foster work that interrogates, questions, and unsettles rather than asserting, reifying, and sanc-
tioning. Second, we want to give scholarship space to breathe- literally, by encouraging long, long
articles, and figuratively, by privileging 'slow', well crafted, fully matured work. And third, we want to
nurture a community   of scholars that actively engages with each other and each other's work.
   European  Law  Open (ELO)  is a new journal that will be home to scholars engaged in various
ways  of 'doing law'. A home for legal scholars engaged in legal-doctrinal approaches as much as
for those who find themselves walking the twilight area of interdisciplinarity - the classic case of
neither legal enough nor historical, philosophical, political, etc. enough - daring to deal with
subjects which have been  so far neglected or insufficiently considered in European law scholar-
ship. We are convinced of the need for a critical revision of the categories, tools and principles that
have informed  the work of academics, judges and lawyers, and shaped our collective understand-
ing of EU  law. Thus, European  Law  Open  will confront the normative principles, institutional
structures, decision-making  processes  and  substantive values  that purportedly  found  the
Union  and shape  its law. It will inquire into the extent to which they remain solid or have been
scarred by the diverse trajectories and, perhaps, fragmentation that EU law has witnessed in the
past decades and by the changing contexts in which it has developed. ELO will also foster analyses
that assess the contribution of legal scholarship to the creation and solidification of the current
prevailing understandings of EU  law, with a view to persistently question the taken-for-granted
assumptions  underpinning  EU  law (the dogmas  of EU law).
   European  Law Open  is dedicated to exploring Europe's role regarding some of the most urgent
issues and problems  that the world faces today. Climate emergency, health, care, environment,
race and racialisation, labour, democracy, (post)colonialism (in more ways than one, empire never
ended), gender, migration, globalisation, digitalisation, populism etc. are just some examples of
the questions  which  require the openness  that ELO  fosters. We  believe that European  law
and  scholarship - broadly  understood  - has  an important  role to play in this regard. Not
only is the European  Union   a major  actor that has significant impacts - both positive and
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative
Commons Attribution licence (httpl://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction,
provided the original article is properly cited.

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