The Yale Journal of International Affairs is sporting a new look this year. We’ve redesigned our print format, and we’ve streamlined the organization of our website at Yalejournal.org. In our continuing efforts to link the policy and academic worlds, we also feel that the current issue of the Journal marks a definitive high point in our publication’s history, made possible by our excellent contributors.

We are excited to feature a selection of articles for Volume VII, Issue I covering a diverse array of policy-oriented subjects. Hossein Askari, Iran Professor of Business and International Affairs at George Washington University, discusses the risk-reduction benefits of a global financial system modeled after the tenets of Islamic finance. Peter Uvin, Henry J. Leir Professor of International Humanitarian Studies at Tuft’s Fletcher School, and Bhaskar Chakravorti, Senior Associate Dean for International Business and Finance also at Tuft’s Fletcher School, engage in a dialogue about the lessons aid agencies can teach multinational corporations about working successfully in emerging markets. Oona Hathaway, Sabria McElroy, and Sara Aronchick Solow of Yale Law School explore the enforceability of international treaties in US courts, and Steven C. Roach, Associate Professor at the University of South Florida, reviews the power of the International Criminal Court. J. Michael Greig, Associate Professor of the University of North Texas, and Paul Diehl, Henning Larsen Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois, ask if peacekeeping can actually undermine peacemaking in the long run. Conflict management consultant Jeffrey Bernstein talks about the relationship between peace and fighting in Afghanistan. Michael Beckley, research fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School, looks at the relationship between China and Pakistan, while Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, director of the Center for the Study of Terrorist Radicalization, and Tara Vassefi of the Naval Postgraduate School, consider Pakistan and Afghanistan.

This issue also offers illuminating interviews with US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano; chief prosecutor of the Rwandan and Yugoslavian war crimes tribunals, Richard Goldstone; former economics ministers of Argentina and India respectively, Domingo Cavallo and Rakesh Mohan; human rights activist John Prendergast; and intelligence expert Michele Malvesti. Rounding out the issue, our op-eds and book reviews take us from international copyright law and US military power, to Kosovo, Africa, and Syria.

We are particularly excited about our upcoming issue, Volume VII, Issue II, in which we will be showcasing our first-ever “IR Scholars Forum,” where top international relations scholars will discuss the impact of their scholarly work on their policy opinions. Look for it late summer 2012.

Now in its seventh year, the Journal has made some tremendous strides since its inception, and owes much of its success this year to the labors of previous years’ staff. We are proud to continue the creative, hard-working tradition they started.

Audrey Latura
Editor-in-Chief
2011–2012

Click here to access March 2012 issue (pdf)