Membership Requirements
The Journal carefully selects approximately twenty-five to thirty students from each second-year class. Members are selected based on their performance in the summer writing competition, with consideration given to first year grades. The Journal also considers a student's interest in international law as evidenced by the student's preferential ranking of the journals included with the writing competition. The ILJ does not have an automatic grade-on policy, although students can submit notes of the highest quality in an attempt to write on if not selected through the writing competition.
Once admitted to the staff, in the fall semester of their second year, new staff members must take an approved international law-related elective--if they have not already done so--such as the International Law course taught by Professor Daniel Partan, the ILJ faculty advisor.
Each ILJ staff member authors a note or case comment of publishable quality in their second year. They are strongly encouraged to submit their notes and comments for satisfaction of the law school's certification requirement. ILJ members exercise a great deal of intellectual creativity and freedom in developing their topics. The current growth in international legal activity provides a broad range of potential topics including international trade, human rights, intellectual property, health care, and environmental policy. Alternatively, staff members may write a comparative or foreign law piece on virtually any area of the law.