Call for Papers | Athena – Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization (DOAJ, HeinOnline, EBSCO): Special Issue on the Board of Peace and the Shaping of Global Governance

Athena – Critical Inquiries in Law, Philosophy and Globalization is a diamond open access, double-blind peer-reviewed scholarly journal published by Alma Diamond at Alma Mater Studiorum, Università di Bologna, and owned by the Alma Mater Research Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (Alma Human AI). The journal examines the problems of globalisation and global concerns from legal, philosophical, historical, political and social perspectives, and functions as an interdisciplinary laboratory welcoming work in philosophy of law, political thought, cultural anthropology, international law, political philosophy, ethics, philosophy of technology, history and legal history.

Athena carries ISSN 2724-6299 (Online) and publishes two issues a year. It is indexed in DOAJ, HeinOnline, EBSCO, ERIH PLUS, BASE, ACNP, ROAD, Ulrichsweb, WorldCat, ZDB, Sudoc, Google Scholar, Jisc Library Hub Discover and the Publication Forum (JUFO), and appears on the scientific journal lists of the Italian National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research Institutes (ANVUR) for Area 11a, Area 12 and Area 14. Average time from submission to publication is about 15 weeks.

On 17 November 2025 the UN Security Council adopted Resolution 2801, which laid the groundwork for implementing the peace plan for the Gaza Strip agreed on 13 October 2025 and established the foundations for the creation of the Board of Peace (BoP). The Board appears to be an entity endowed with international legal personality, tasked with the reconstruction of Gaza in accordance with the Comprehensive Plan of peace, known as the Gaza Action Plan (GAP).

The editors treat the creation of this new entity as a watershed in the international legal order built after the Second World War. Building on the issues explored in the journal's Webinar Series, the Special Issue seeks to foster an interdisciplinary dialogue among scholars from different fields, analysing the Board of Peace as a phenomenon within the international order from legal, political, historical and philosophical perspectives, and asking whether it represents a controversial model of global peace governance alongside, and potentially beyond, the institutional framework of the United Nations.

Contributions addressing one or more of the following topics are particularly welcome:

• The characteristics of the BoP in light of the traditional conception of international organisations, including whether it is an international organisation in the traditional sense or a novel or hybrid institutional model
• The BoP's internal institutional framework, its decision-making process and its funding
• The nature of the BoP as a means to solve international disputes, in particular diplomatic ones
• The BoP as an alternative actor to the UN Security Council in the governance of international peace and security
• The interaction between the BoP and the broader system of global governance of peace and security
• The BoP and emerging models of global governance of peace and security, particularly those involving private or non-state actors
• Constitutional and public law issues arising from participation in the BoP
• The role of the BoP in establishing peacekeeping and peace-enforcement operations under the GAP
• The legal and institutional conditions for implementing the GAP
• The participation of the Palestinian people in the creation and implementation of the GAP
• Economic development and reconstruction under the GAP
• The role of the European Union and other international actors in global governance through participation in the BoP and the implementation of the GAP
• The principles of EU external action in relation to the BoP and the GAP
• The future of the BoP and the evolution of the global governance of peace and security

The call is addressed to scholars and researchers working across law, philosophy, political science, international relations, history and the social sciences. The journal states no restriction on the nationality, jurisdiction or institutional affiliation of contributing authors; the submission metadata simply asks each author for a name, institutional affiliation, institutional email address, ORCID identifier where available, and country.

Submissions must be original scholarly work that has not been previously published and is not concurrently under consideration elsewhere. Athena does not accept simultaneous or multiple submissions. Manuscripts may present original theoretical research or revised versions of papers presented at academic conferences.

• Length: between 6,000 and 15,000 words
• Language: British English, appropriate to the discipline. Authors must complete their own language review and proofreading before submitting; papers may be rejected if not written in good English, and no translation service is provided
• File format: Microsoft Word, OpenOffice or RTF
• Formatting: 12-point Times New Roman, 1.5 line spacing, paragraph titles numbered in Arabic numerals and in bold, with a maximum of two sub-levels
• Referencing: the author-date system throughout the text, with a full list of cited bibliographical references at the end
• A separate metadata file carrying, for each author, given name, family name, institutional email address, ORCID identifier where available, institutional affiliation and country, plus the manuscript title, an abstract of 100 to 150 words and a minimum of five keywords separated by semicolons
• Manuscripts must be prepared for blind review in line with the journal's Ensuring a Blind Review instructions, and authors must declare the absence of competing financial interests or personal relationships and disclose any research funding or institutional support
• Every submission is screened through Turnitin before being sent to two external independent reviewers for double-blind peer review

There is no fee to publish. Athena has neither article submission charges (ASCs) nor article processing charges (APCs). The journal provides immediate open access to its content, releases articles under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC BY 4.0), and authors retain copyright and publishing rights without restriction.

Before submitting a manuscript, interested authors should first contact the Editors of the Special Issue with a proposal outlining their intended topic. Proposals must be sent by email to athena@unibo.it, indicating "BoP Special Issue – Proposal" in the subject line.

If a proposal is accepted, the author must submit the full manuscript by 7 December 2026 through the journal's OJS submission system, after registering or logging in at the journal's Submissions page. All submissions must be made exclusively through the OJS platform by completing the required five-step submission process.

The Editors of the Special Issue will conduct a preliminary editorial assessment of all submitted papers by 18 December 2026. Revised manuscripts must be submitted no later than 8 January 2027. All manuscripts will subsequently undergo anonymous peer review, and publication will be subject to a successful outcome of that process. The Special Issue is scheduled to be published in March or April 2027.

The Scientific Committee for the Special Issue comprises Aytekin Kaan Kurtul, Micol Pignataro, Luigi Sammartino and Martino Tognocchi.