The John Jay Journal of International Affairs

The John Jay Journal of International Affairs exists to provide Patrick Henry College students with a platform to produce and publish quality international affairs research and analysis pieces. Run and staffed by students in the Government: International Politics and Policy major, it is a journal specifically dedicated to the realm of international relations, foreign policy, and global issues. 

John Jay was an American statesman who helped lay the foundation for America's judicial system and foreign policy in the immediate aftermath of the War for Independence. A key diplomat in the American Founding, Jay secured wartime loans for the U.S. government from Spain and was a central negotiator in the Treaty of Paris, which formally conceded the United States' independence. He would later negotiate the infamous Jay Treaty in 1794 with mixed results.

An author of several of the Federalist Papers, Jay's contributions discuss the dangers that foreign influence posed to the fledgling republic as well as the role of each branch of government in crafting foreign policy. Later, he was appointed the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court by President Washington, strictly upholding the High Court's political neutrality during his tenure. This journal takes John Jay's name in light of these immense contributions and the guiding role he played in pioneering American foreign policy during the nation's founding.