Deadline for submissions: October 8, 2021
CUNY Law Review (CUNYLR) invites submissions on a variety of topics at the intersection of environmental justice (EJ) and critical race theory (CRT) for Volume 25, Issue 2. Recent attention on critical race theory offers an opportunity to explore its theoretical foundations and examine its current application to environmental law and justice. Scholarship within the field of geography, for example, draws directly on critical race theory to problematize the role of the racialized state in producing environmental injustice. Other environmental justice scholarship has looked at the relationship between environmental racism and racial capitalism, and conceptualized environmental injustice as a form of state-sanctioned violence.
We seek articles, essays, and other submissions that address unresolved problems and emerging issues related to critical race theory as applied to environmental law and justice, including, but not limited to:
- An analysis of anti-Black racism and White supremacy in property law, the built environment, urban planning, disaster response, and development
- The consequences of neoliberal “colorblind” and reformist policies to address environmental injustice
- Reparations for environmental racism
- The intersection of EJ & CRT in the context of U.S. settler-colonialism and indigenous sovereignty
- International models of association that respond to the historical causes and current impacts of environmental racism on a global scale
- Analysis of anti-CRT legislation and its impact on addressing the climate crisis
- Uses and limitations of litigation, legislation or regulatory enforcement concerning the public health consequences of environmental racism
We are seeking pieces that analyze injustice through a CRT lens, as well as those that present possibilities to think critically about changing the law.
For consideration in Volume 25.2 of the CUNY Law Review, contributors are strongly encouraged to submit a manuscript or an abstract by October 8, 2021 to cunylr@law.cuny.edu.
Final decisions on all submissions will be made on a rolling basis. For more information, see our Eligibility and Submissions Guidelines below.
Selected authors will be invited to speak at CUNY Law Review’s annual symposium in April 2022.
Eligibility and Submission Guidelines
CUNY Law Review accepts submissions for the following sections: Executive Articles, Public Interest Practitioners Section (PIPS), Footnote Forum and the CUNYLR Blog.
Executive Articles: CUNYLR is dedicated to providing a forum for legal commentary that promotes public interest and social justice; informs the legal community of new developments in public interest law; and provides a forum for practitioners from a wide array of social justice work. Articles should be 25,000 words or fewer (including footnotes).
Public Interest Practitioner Section (PIPS): The PIPS section of the Law Review welcomes submissions from practitioners who are dedicated to working with underrepresented communities. PIPS articles distinguish themselves for their flexibility. Unlike most law review articles, the articles published in PIPS do not require the typical time-consuming tasks such as heavy footnoting or redrafting pieces to meet a considerable length.
The purpose of the PIPS section is to provide a space for practitioners to share their thoughts and strategies with other public interest practitioners. CUNYLR accommodates practitioners by providing them with some degree of flexibility so that the collection of articles provides a multifaceted conversation.
Practitioner articles may range between 5,000 to 20,000 words (including footnotes).
Footnote Forum: CUNYLR’s Footnote Forum pushes the boundaries of the traditional legal canon by publishing essays, articles, poetry, interviews and other content produced by students, professors, practitioners, policymakers, advocates and other nontraditional authors. The Footnote Forum pieces generally address recent changes to federal or state case law and provide critiques of legislative proposals and legally relevant analyses of current events. Submissions are subject to a limit of 10,000 words (including footnotes).
Blog: CUNYLR’s Blog supplements the print journal and Footnote Forum by publishing short, timely legal pieces related to social justice issues. Interested authors should submit their post or a description of their proposed post with any citations as hyperlinks. Final posts must range between 500-2,500 words. Submissions will be reviewed on a rolling basis.
A Note to Student Authors: CUNYLR welcomes submissions from all law students. Unfortunately, we are not accepting submissions for the Notes and Comments section for Volume 25.2. Student authors are encouraged to submit to the Footnote Forum or the Blog.
Submissions Requirements:
- Citations: Citations for all articles and essays should conform to The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (21st ed.) and appear as footnotes rather than endnotes. Blog citations will be hyperlinked. Citations for Blog submissions must include the full URL in the body of the text, in parentheses.
- Length: Please adhere to the suggested word account for each section, and we encourage brevity. For all sections of the journal, except for the Blog, CUNYLR accepts essay submissions ranging between 5,000-7,000 words.
- Format: All submissions must be in Microsoft Word.
- Abstracts: All abstract submissions must include an expected word count. Authors are encouraged to indicate whether the submission is for Executive Articles, PIPS, Footnote Forum, Notes and Comments or the Blog.
- Bio or Resume/CV: All submissions must include either a short biography (consisting of a brief list of previously published work) or a resume/CV.