Jindal Global Law Review

You are invited to consider submitting your abstract to the special issue of the Jindal Global Law Review on 'Cultural Expertise and Litigation: Practices in South Asia and Europe'. The special issue is part of the Cultural Expertise in South Asia and Europe project funded by the Independent Social Research Foundation (https://www.isrf.org/fellows-projects/cultural-expertise-and-litigation-in-south-asia-and-europe/). The full Call is available on the website of Springer, the publisher of JGLR, at https://www.springer.com/journal/41020/updates/23511022. The form to submit abstracts is available at https://forms.office.com/r/RjQraCeW7a. JGLR is a SCOPUS-indexed journal.

This special issue aims at advancing cross-cultural, cross-jurisdictional and cross-disciplinary perspectives on cultural expertise in South Asia and Europe, thus contributing to the disentangling of the relationship between science and law, the understanding of the diversity of existing practices of cultural expertise and the avenues for the development and reform of the legal doctrine and implementation of formal rules. By bringing in contributions from different legal traditions as well as modes of interaction between judges, attorneys and expert witnesses, the project will shed light on the potential avenues for mutual inspiration as well as the cross-sectoral differences depending on the types of questions the cases with the involvement of expert witnesses in the social sciences and humanities are responding to.

At a theoretical level, the special issue addresses problems such as conceptualizing expertise, the legitimacy of experts as partners to judicial decision making or the (im)possibility of identifying 'objective' truths via interpretive social science. The special issue welcomes the innovative formats the JGLR offers (such as critical case notes, book reviews, review essays, long-form interviews, photo-essays, and field reports) alongside traditional journal articles.

Timelines:

a) Deadline for abstract submissions (max 500 words): rolling basis by 1 November 2022

b) Peer review and selection of contribution: rolling basis by 15 November 2022

c) Complete manuscripts for submission due: 15 March 2023

d) Planned online publication: December 2023

The first three abstracts received and accepted may, depending on capacities, still be considered for presentation at the international workshop to be held within the scope of the project in hybrid format on 2 – 3 December 2022, with the in-person component hosted at the O.P. Jindal Global University in India, provided that the authors submit draft manuscripts or extended manuscript notes by 1 November 2022.