Resumen de Impact factor - The food is bad and what's more there is not enough of it; EJIL - the beginning of an existential debate; masthead changes

Joseph H. H. Weiler

• A loyal reader recently sent me the following email:

  Just a quick note to let you know that EJIL and I.CON get the first and third position respectively in the general ranking of NON US Law Journals elaborated by Washington and Lee University School of Law (sections non US law journals) http://lawlib.wlu.edu/LJ/index.aspx Congratulations! The only reason I was happy to learn this exciting news was that no one will be able to dismiss what I am about to write as prompted by "sour grapes".

  But let us backtrack a bit. I invite you to visit this Washington and Lee University School of Law website. It requires some getting used to, especially in setting the search parameters. Experiment a bit (after you read this Editorial!). In its own way it is admirable and provides an important tool for legal academics. Its purpose is simple enough. When an author has to choose in which journal to publish his or her article, is there a way of making a choice based not on an impression of prestige or importance but on some hard data on readership, citations, impact (whatever that may mean) and the like?. This meticulously constructed database (not the most user friendly, but it should not be a challenge to smart law professors and the like) tries to help in this worthy endeavour. In the USA, in which most, though not all, law journals are edited by students and associated with a law school, the typical choice used to be based on the "ranking" of the law school with which the journal is associated. The Washington and Lee database tracks instead impact through citation and shows the law school ranking (itself a problematic notion) to be a crude and approximate measure. Especially when it comes to specialized, rather than "general" �