From Editor: A Call for Unity and Proactive Legal Scholarship in a Turbulent World

This editorial of AJEE Issue 4/2025 addresses the profound challenges of a turbulent world where the illusion of stability has shattered. We face simultaneous, compounding crises — geopolitical conflicts, climate threats and rapid digitalization — that demand a proactive vision, not just reflection, from scholarship. The text highlights the devastating, real-world consequences of authoritarian aggression, citing the catastrophic impact on education and cultural heritage in Syria, and the systematic destruction of Ukraine's scientific ecosystem, which represents a profound loss for global science. In response to these existential threats, the editorial underscores the imperative for a unified global response, exemplified by the new International Coalition for Science, Research and Innovation in Ukraine. It frames legal science as bearing a unique responsibility to provide the foundational framework for reconstruction, accountability and justice, reminding us that law and fundamental rights must be respected by all. This issue vividly reflects this dynamic. The first section of articles confronts the complex legal issues arising from war and its consequences, examining tort law for war-related damages, the execution of ECtHR judgments, philosophical questions of dignity and international responsibility. The second, no less substantial, block analyzes the adaptation of law, exploring institutional reforms, the evolution of fundamental rights and responses to novel societal and technological challenges like digitalization, 

Iryna Izarova

Full Professor, Dr. Sc., School of Law, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, Ukraine;

Guest Researcher at the University for Continuing Education Krems, Austria

irina.izarova@knu.ua

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1909-7020 

Editor-in-Chief of Access to Justice in Eastern Europe Journal

Chair of EASE Ukraine, Chair of the RCPC of the European Association of Science Editors   

Corresponding author, solely responsible for preparing the Editorial. I thank my colleagues, the Managing Editors of AJEE, for their help, thoughts, and comments on my piece, which helped me to improve it.

Competing interests: Prof. Iryna Izarova is the Editor-in-Chief of AJEE and, as such, has no competing interests to declare regarding the content of this Editorial. This Editorial, as is standard for this publication type, was not subject to peer review but aligns fully with the Journal's publication ethics.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this Editorial are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the Journal, the Editorial Board, the publisher or any affiliated institutions.

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Copyright: © 2025 Iryna Izarova. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.