About the Journal

Aims and Scope

After 25 years publishing in Spanish, Isonomía, an open access journal publishing two issues per year, is proud to announce that it will now also accept submissions and publish articles in English, French, Italian and Portuguese. This stance is part of the journal’s ambitious internationalization agenda and effort to make available to its growing and wider readership contributions written in multiple languages reflecting the authors’ distinctive backgrounds, focuses and trajectories.

Isonomía wishes to maintain and reaffirm itself as a forum of excellence theoretical research in law offering a friendly setting to the international community in which to publish in close and constructive interaction with a first-rate portfolio of international referees. Always under the light of the meaning behind its name: “equality before the law”, which also means equality of all potential authors before the Editorial Board, guaranteed by a rigorous double-blind peer review system and the strict observance of our Code of Ethics designed to curb and address any form of ethical malpractice.

Isonomía also wishes to communicate its desire to stimulate critical and interdisciplinary theoretical work in legal research. As such, it wishes to signal its interest and commitment to publish articles not only within the conceptual and analytical tradition of legal theory but also within theory broadly conceived. It thus welcomes submissions from a plurality of disciplines and methods such as critical legal theory, social theory of law, law and humanities, law and AI or law and psychology to name some examples. The sole unifying criterion contributions must meet is the use of theory to achieve a better understanding of law and society and their codes, gaps and contradictions; always in strict observance of our Code of Ethics ensuring the highest standards of academic research.

We would like to close this introduction with a genuine invitation to you all – from the youngest researchers to the most consecrated professors – to spread their scientific voice in our platform.

History

Isonomía is a biannual academic publication born in 1994. For more than two decades the journal has greatly contributed to academic research in legal theory and legal philosophy, having garnered in the process a solid international reputation.

Isonomía was born of Rodolfo Vázquez’s initiative, exceptional effort and skills. Rodolfo also successfully mobilized the support of reputed national and international legal philosophers and legal academics to this cause. The vision was the establishment of a high-quality law review linked to other academic initiatives – for example, the García Máynez Seminar, which has been held every autumn at ITAM for 22 years now – in order to radically change legal education and legal reasoning in Mexico.

From its inception the journal has incorporated and promoted the contributions and views of young academics scattered across the world and who helped cross-fertilizing debates and approaches being held in the wider international academic community. Furthermore, and due to its interdisciplinary stance and openness to methodological pluralism, Isonomía quickly created a privileged forum for authors working on legal theory and legal philosophy narrowly defined as well as coming from other disciplines such as logic, history, political science, sociology and legal practice. A rich, now widespread and ever-changing collective reflection on law and theory ensued.

Another seminal feature of Isonomía as an editorial and intellectual project, developed over time, is its inter-institutional vocation: the will to be a meeting point regardless of the institutional affiliation of the participating academic community. Indeed, it is rare in Mexico to see professors from ITAM, UNAM, UAM and the Escuela Libre de Derecho work side by side in an editorial board. On the other hand, the composition of the Editorial Board and the Advisory Board bears testimony to the international nature of the academic community that collaborates with the Journal. This is one of its great strengths and is accompanied by an increasingly wide geographical range of origin of our authors.

Since 2007 onwards, the transformation of Isonomía into a peer-reviewed journal became a priority to align the journal with the highest standards of excellence in legal research. Since then, articles have been universally subjected to a double-blind peer-review.

During these years, the journal's indexing process was also initiated, leading in 2012 to its indexation in CONACYT’s list of Mexican research journals. The indexing effort continued successfully with the inclusion in SciELO Citation Index, Redalyc, Latindex, CARHUS Plus+ 2018 or ANVUR just to name some examples. At the same time, the internationalization of the Editorial Board, the Advisory Board and the portfolio of referees has been strengthened.

Journal Sections

In addition to the Research Articles section, submitted to a rigorous double-blind peer review system, Isonomía has five additional sections for collaborations of another type: Essays, Book Reviews, Forum, Interviews, and Translations.

Research Articles are full-fledged academic original submissions. The Journal reviews manuscripts of up to 14,000 words (including notes and bibliography), although the ideal length falls between 9,000 and 12,000 words. Therefore, authors may be asked to collaborate with the Editors to trim their papers to fewer words. 

The Essays section includes short research articles and essays, review essays, theoretical case notes and analyses of legislative developments. Submissions should be under 8,000 words (including notes and bibliography).

The Book Reviews section publishes critical analyses of recently published work. Isonomía accepts book reviews under 2,000 words. Longer review essays shall be published and subject to the requirements specified in the Essays section.

In Forum, we accept submissions of variable length engaging with previously published pieces in Isonomía or providing critical reactions to pressing legal issues. Forum submissions do not need to comply with the formal and substantive requirements of Research Articles and are expected to stimulate theoretical reflection on the issues addressed by the journal in a more flexible setting. Maximum length of submissions is 12,000 words.

Interviews offer another venue to make available less formal academic outputs. It comprises conversations with established authors on topics falling within the Journal’s scope.