Part II

Seventy years ago, in March 1939, the first issue of the “Annals of the Bucharest Faculty of Law”—as the journal was then called—was published as a quarterly booklet featuring the results of scientific research conducted by professors and students, as well as reports on significant events in the legal and scientific fields of the time.

As evidenced by the preface signed by the then-serving Dean, Professor G.G. Mironescu (reproduced as a facsimile in this issue), the purpose of this publication was to foster and sustain “a scientific movement conducive to progress.”

The table of contents for the first issue included a series of substantial sections: one devoted to legal theory (featuring contributions by prestigious professors such as Paul Negulescu, Mircea Djuvara, Constant Georgescu, Ion Fintescu, and George Fotino); another dedicated to the “works of students from the Faculty’s institutes” (among them the Institute of Administrative Law, where law doctoral student Iancu Toma had submitted an article on administrative litigation and the 1938 Constitution, under the supervision of Professor Rarinescu, or the Institute of the Encyclopedia of Law, whose first-year student Octavian Capatîna—who later became an eminent professor—had written an article on case law as a source of law, under the supervision of Professor G.G. Mironescu); another section devoted to “marginal notes on new works,” highlighting new publications and reviews, as well as a roundup of the main Romanian and foreign legal periodicals.

Next came a roundup of events hosted by the various institutes within the Faculty, a summary of the doctoral dissertations defended at the Faculty of Law, as well as the Library’s collection and new acquisitions. Legal scholarship and certain reviews were written in internationally recognized languages. The journal featured both preliminary findings from certain larger-scale research projects and well-reasoned critiques of certain prevailing theories. Furthermore, with a view to ensuring the widest possible circulation of ideas, the journal included abstracts of each contribution in English, French, German, and Italian.

Following a long period after 1948 during which only one issue was published per year, our journal resumed its quarterly publication schedule after the year 2000, thanks to the presence on its Editorial Board of several prominent figures from the European legal community.

The fact that a large portion of the articles are published in languages widely used internationally, as well as the availability of abstracts in foreign languages, has enabled the journal of the Bucharest Faculty of Law to participate in publication exchanges with nearly 200 libraries and faculties abroad.

It is true that the “Annals of the University of Bucharest: Law Series” is not a widely read journal within the legal community. However, our goal has been—and remains—the same as that of our predecessors: to open the journal’s pages to high-level scholarly debate and to disseminate an in-depth analysis of the Romanian legal landscape not only in Romania but also abroad, in order to demonstrate—to paraphrase the columnist—that “jurists are also emerging in Romania.”

Such an approach is not elitist, but—as strange as it may seem—has a pragmatic rationale: in a world in which, whether we like it or not, ideas are like money (to quote a leading figure in Romanian medieval culture), meaning that their value is determined by their ability to circulate, the “Annals of the University of Bucharest: Law Series” will continue, beyond their 70th anniversary, to follow the same editorial policy, addressing—in equal measure—the Romanian and international legal communities, in the firm belief that, in this way, they serve the advancement of legal scholarship, without which the general progress of society would not be possible.

The AUBD Editorial Board