The Rabel Journal of Comparative and International Private Law – Rabel Journal

The journal was founded in 1927 by Ernst Rabel. Continuing in its original tradition, it serves today as a global forum for scholarly exchange in the fields of private international law and international civil procedure, comparative law, and transnational private law. Articles on central topics written by authors from around the world are published in German, English, or French under an open-access model.

Aims and scope

Since its founding in 1927, the Rabel Journal has stimulated the reasoning and decision-making process of the academic community, legislators, and legal practitioners by sharing global experiences and opinions on all aspects of comparative law and the interconnection of legal systems. A key aim of the journal is identifying and analysing European and global developments in the field of private international law and international civil procedure. The journal also aims to perform a fundamentally comparative - and often interdisciplinary - examination of the manifold topics and methods encountered across private and commercial law.

As a journal of an archival nature, the Rabel Journal provides a forum for in-depth essays on topics of lasting importance and not those driven solely by current events. Issues are addressed from an analytical, rather than merely descriptive, perspective, thereby placing significant developments in an international context. The Materials Section documents important new legislative texts and regulations, often in translation and with explanatory notes. A broadly themed Review Section presents and appraises domestic and international literature.

Institutional framework

The Rabel Journal of Comparative and International Private Law has been in print since 1927 and has been published by Mohr Siebeck in Tübingen since 1946. The Journal has carried the name of its founder as its title since 1961. Since 2024, all Rabel Journal articles have been published open access, with no publication fees charged to authors. The journal is published quarterly in both print and online editions, with an average of 950 pages per year. All articles are initially published online via the “Online First” process and thereafter printed in the next available issue under the CC BY 4.0 licence.

“RabelsZ” is a journal of the Max Planck Institute, with its editorial office and managing editor based in Hamburg. In July 2026, scientific responsibility for the journal was taken over by the Editorial Board, which, in addition to Holger Fleischer, Ralf Michaels and Anne Röthel from the Institute’s board of directors, now includes Jens Kleinschmidt (University of Trier) and Wolfgang Wurmnest (University of Hamburg) as external co-editors for the coming years. This group is supported by a newly appointed Academic Advisory Board, on which, alongside emeritus directors and the heads of the Institute’s centres of excellence, as well as members of the former editorial committee, external experts provide advice, carry out peer reviews and offer new ideas. In the Reviews section, Kurt Siehr and Jan Peter Schmidt ensure that relevant new publications in the journal’s core areas are identified and reviewed with expertise.

The team at the Hamburg editorial office consists of Christian Eckl (Managing Editor), Anke Schild (German proofreading and formatting), Michael Friedman and John Foulks (English proofreading), and Andrea Jahnke (editorial assistant). 

Submission procedure

Acceptance for publication will be confirmed in writing and is subject to the condition that the manuscript has neither been published nor submitted for publication elsewhere. Plagiarism software will be used to check a number of randomly selected submissions as well as submissions deemed suspicious. Please note that by submitting your manuscript, you agree to the publishing house’s Publication Ethics.

From July 2026, following an initial screening by the editorial office, all manuscripts deemed suitable will be subjected to the following peer-review process:

Unsolicited manuscripts are subject to a double-blind peer review process. After being anonymised and forwarded by the managing editor, they will be reviewed by at least two academic experts under the supervision of one of the editors. The editorial office aims to complete the process, from submission to decision, within eight to twelve weeks.

Commissioned manuscripts and book reviews are subject to an editorial peer review.

The final versions of manuscripts submitted by authors and accepted by the managing editor will regularly be published within 10 weeks via the ‘Online First’ procedure.

Open access and authors’ rights

The journal is published under the Subscribe-to-Open (S2O) model . By submitting their work, authors agree that that their contributions will, if accepted, be published under the CC BY 4.0 license . Mohr Siebeck is also granted a simple publishing right; this includes the right to reproduce and distribute the article and make it publicly available. The scope of the CC license will apply if it exceeds the granted publishing right.

Authors are permitted to upload to institutional or subject-specific repositories a PDF file of their published article which has been licensed CC BY 4.0. In order to ensure its long-term availability, the publication will be archived with Portico and CLOCKSS.

Authors may publish preprint versions of their manuscript online under the following conditions:

• Only the initial version submitted to the Rabel Journal may be posted online; subsequent versions modified as a result of the peer review process may not be published online as preprints.
• After the article has been published in the Rabel Journal, the preprint may remain in its existing location on the conditions that:
  • Reference is made to the article’s publication in the Rabel Journal, including the DOI cite;
  • The preprint is marked as a “Preprint version prior to editorial processing”.

Articles are not subject to processing charges, and no remuneration is paid. After publication of the issue, authors will receive a free printed copy thereof.