About the Journal

Focus and scope

The Nomadic Law Review is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to nomadic law: the legal orders, disputes and institutions of communities, practices and people on the move. Founded in 2026 and edited from Zurich and Bishkek, the Review examines how customary norms, state law and transnational regulation meet in fields that the territorial legal imagination has long overlooked.

The Review welcomes contributions from all legal traditions and from neighbouring disciplines, including anthropology, history, sports science and cultural studies. Its areas of interest include:

  • Nomadic sports law: ethnosport, nomadic games and traditional sports; the customary rules of play (lex nomadica) and their relationship with lex sportiva; field-of-play decisions, anti-doping, animal athletes and animal welfare, and the governance of federations, festivals and games;
  • Nomadic art law: traditional arts, crafts and cultural expressions; authenticity, attribution and provenance; cultural heritage, intellectual property and the protection of traditional cultural expressions;
  • Nomadic science law: science and traditional knowledge; free, prior and informed consent, benefit-sharing, research ethics, data and the protection of sensitive knowledge;
  • Dispute resolution: arbitration, mediation and specialised tribunals for ethnosport, ethnoart and traditional knowledge disputes; cultural assessors, expedited on-site procedures and the enforcement of awards;
  • Migration and mobility: jurisdiction, sovereignty and statelessness; pastoral and nomadic communities and the territorial state; digital nomadism, remote work and cross-border regulation;
  • Comparative and historical perspectives: the law of Central Asia and Eurasia; legal pluralism; legal history and theory concerned with movement, displacement and belonging.

Sections

The Review publishes Articles (8,000 to 15,000 words including footnotes), Short Articles (3,000 to 8,000 words), Case Notes on judgments, arbitral awards and decisions of sports and cultural bodies (2,000 to 5,000 words), Conference Reports (1,500 to 3,000 words) and Interviews with scholars, practitioners, arbitrators, athletes, artists and tradition-keepers (2,000 to 5,000 words). Proposals for symposia and guest-edited thematic sections are welcome.

Peer review

Articles and Short Articles are subject to double-anonymous peer review by at least two external reviewers selected for their expertise in the subject matter. Case Notes are reviewed by the editors and, where appropriate, by one external reviewer. Conference Reports and Interviews are reviewed editorially. Authors can normally expect a first decision within ten weeks of submission. The editors reserve the right to reject manuscripts without external review where they fall outside the scope of the Review or do not meet its standards.

Publication frequency

The Review is published twice a year, in a Winter and a Summer issue. Accepted contributions may be published online ahead of their inclusion in an issue.

Access

The Nomadic Law Review is a subscription journal. Abstracts and metadata are freely available to all readers; full texts are available to subscribers and subscribing institutions. Authors may deposit the accepted manuscript of their contribution in an institutional or subject repository twelve months after publication. Details are set out in the submission guidelines.

Publication ethics

The Review follows the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Submitted work must be original, must not be under consideration elsewhere, and must properly acknowledge the work of others. Authors are required to disclose funding sources and any competing interests. Allegations of misconduct are investigated by the editors, and corrections or retractions are published where warranted.

Fees

The Review charges no submission, processing or publication fees.