Launched in 1965, the Australian Year Book of International Law (AYBIL) is Australia’s longest standing and most prestigious dedicated international law publication.

The Year Book aims to uniquely combine scholarly commentary with contributions from Australian government officials. Each volume contains a mix of scholarly articles, invited lectures, book reviews, notes of decisions by Australian and international courts, recent legislation, and collected Australian international law state practice.

It is a valuable resource for those working in the field of international law, including government officials, international organisation officials, non-government and community organisations, legal practitioners, academics and other researchers, as well as students studying international law, international relations, human rights and international affairs.

It focuses on Australian practice in international law and general international law, across a broad range of sub-fields including human rights, environmental law and legal theory, which are of interest to international lawyers worldwide. This special issue of the Australian Year Book of International Law is a collection of essays providing commentary on how international law relates to the different dimensions of situations unfolding around us. Written during school shut-downs, campus closure, border restrictions, rising global infection rates and ongoing uncertainty as to what would happen next, they are also valuable reflections in a time of great crisis: fitting perhaps for a discipline famously critiqued by Hilary Charlesworth as one of crisis, rather than situated in the everyday. At root, this collection go some way in analysing and answering the question of how, exactly, COVID-19 will impact on international law more generally.