This is a short message from the TWAIL Review editorial collective as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to unfold. We just wanted to send our thoughts and best wishes to our readers, authors and reviewers. These are testing and anxious times. For everyone in our movement and our networks, it goes without saying that our families and communities take priority at the moment. We will do our level best to keep the TWAIL Review ticking over – to work through the reflection pieces and journal articles that are already in the editorial process, and to respond to new submissions that come in. This will likely happen at a slower pace, as we juggle our care responsibilities and prioritise personal and public health. We are equally conscious that the capacity of our authors and reviewers will in many cases also be impacted. Please be in touch with us if you need to send us an update or let us know how you are doing. We hope everyone is holding up as best as can be. It is a time to take care of ourselves and those around us, to adapt our production processes and prioritise our social bonds.

This pandemic lays bare the iniquity and unsustainability of many of the social, economic and political structures that the Third World Approaches to International Law movement has been concerned with. At the same time, it blasts apart the dogma of there being no alternative to prevailing neoliberal models. The pandemic is a global public health crisis penetrating a world already in perpetual crisis and defined by horrendous inequality. It further exposes the incapacity of the existing capitalist economic order to prioritise and protect the health of all people, communities and societies. Because of the structural inequality and exploitation built into that system, the impact of Covid-19 on the Global South will be disproportionate and potentially devastating. As such, it needs a radical transnational and internationalist response. Over the coming months and years, the pandemic will provoke sustained reflection, radical re-imaginings and, hopefully, the type of transformative politics that we need – urgently so, as environmental catastrophe and existential threat loom. We very much hope that the TWAIL Review will be a space where some of the thinking towards that can happen. For now, we will leave you with a link to a recent piece by one of our advisory board members, Vijay Prashad. It reminds us of powerful Third World and socialist traditions of health workers and communities launching themselves into rapid local and global responses for the good of humanity, and stresses the importance of international solidarity, more than ever, in times like these. 

With all of our best wishes,

The TWAIL Review editorial collective