Submission guidelines

Policy facts

These facts come from the journal’s settings in the portal, so they always describe how the journal actually works.

Before you submit

Please read the Aims and scope and the current call for papers before you begin. A paper that falls outside the journal’s field, or that does not address the theme of the call, is likely to be declined at the first stage however good it is. When you submit, you will be asked to choose the sub-theme of the call that your paper addresses.

The journal publishes original work only. By submitting, you confirm that the paper is your own work, that it has not been published anywhere else, in print or online, and that it is not under consideration by another journal or publisher. You should not send it elsewhere until the journal has given you its final decision or you have withdrawn it.

• Preprints. A version posted on a non-commercial preprint server, or in your institution’s repository, is not treated as prior publication. Please tell the editors about it when you submit. Once your article is published, please add a link from the preprint to the published version.
• Conference papers. A paper presented at a conference may be submitted if it has not been published in the conference proceedings. If an earlier version appeared in proceedings, please tell the editors. They will consider the paper only if it is substantially developed beyond that version, and the earlier version must be cited.
• Theses and dissertations. A paper based on a thesis or dissertation submitted for a degree may be sent to the journal. Please say so on the cover page, and rewrite the material as a self-contained article.

Article types and length

Please choose the type that fits your manuscript and keep within its word limit. The types and limits are listed beside this text.

The word count includes the main text and the footnotes, unless the call for papers says otherwise. It does not include the title, the abstract, the keywords or the cover page. A paper that is well over or well under its limit may be returned to you before review, so please check the count before you upload the file.

Authors

• A manuscript may have at most two authors.
• Every person listed must have made a real contribution to the work and agreed to its submission.
• The journal asks each co-author by email to confirm their authorship before review begins.
• AI tools cannot be authors. Any use of AI tools must be declared when you submit.

To be listed as an author, a person should have contributed substantially to the idea, the research or the analysis; written the paper or revised it critically; approved the final version; and be willing to answer for the work as a whole. Help that falls short of this, such as reading a draft, supplying material or general supervision, should be thanked in the acknowledgements on the cover page instead.

The authors decide the order of their names among themselves before they submit. One author acts as the corresponding author. That person submits the paper, receives the journal’s letters, answers the editors on behalf of all the authors and keeps the co-authors informed. Each author needs a different email address.

Once the paper is submitted, the author list can be changed only by a request from the tracker, with the reason for the change. The editors agree to it only when every author, including anyone being added or removed, has confirmed the change. The Publication ethics page explains how authorship disputes are handled.

The abstract and keywords

You first submit an abstract. If the editors select it, you are invited to submit the full paper. The abstract should be between 250 and 500 words, and you give exactly five keywords.

A good abstract tells the reader what question the paper asks, why the question matters, how the paper approaches it and what it concludes. It should stand on its own, so please avoid footnotes, abbreviations that are not explained and references to sections of the paper. Write it in the third person, without mentioning yourself or your institution.

Choose keywords that a reader would type when looking for work like yours. Use the specific terms of your subject, and avoid repeating words that already appear in the title.

The abstract is uploaded as a Word file. Please give the title of the paper at the top, followed by the abstract and the keywords, and nothing else.

Structure of the manuscript

Most papers in the journal follow a simple structure, and following it makes review easier:

• Title. Short and specific. A subtitle may say more about the argument or the jurisdiction.
• Abstract and keywords, as described above.
• Introduction. State the question, explain why it matters, set out your argument and tell the reader how the paper is organised.
• Body. Divide the argument into numbered sections with headings that describe their content. Please use no more than three levels of heading.
• Conclusion. Draw the argument together and, where useful, set out its implications or recommendations. A conclusion should not introduce new material.

A case comment should state the facts and the decision briefly and spend most of its length on analysis. A book review should give the full details of the book, describe its argument fairly and then assess it.

Formatting

• Submit the manuscript as a Microsoft Word file (.doc or .docx).
• Cite your sources in the Bluebook (21st edition) style. Please check every citation and make sure every link works.
• Use headings that show the structure of the argument, and keep footnotes for references and short comments.

The journal sets every accepted article in its own house layout, so you need not spend time on design. A plain, consistent layout with one standard font, numbered pages and footnotes (not endnotes) is all that is needed. Please do not use text boxes, coloured text or tracked changes in the files you submit. Tables and figures should be numbered, given a short title and placed where they belong in the text, with their source stated beneath them.

Citing your sources

The journal uses the Bluebook (21st edition) style for all citations, and references are given in footnotes. Please follow the style consistently from the first footnote to the last. Good citation lets a reader find exactly what you relied on, and the editors look at it closely.

• Give a pinpoint reference (the page, paragraph or section) whenever you rely on a particular passage, not only the source as a whole.
• Rely on primary sources wherever they exist. Cite the judgment, the statute, the treaty or the official report itself, not a newspaper story, a blog post or a textbook that describes it.
• Cite judgments in full as the style requires: the name of the case, the year, the law report or neutral citation, and the court where it is not clear from the report. Use a reported citation where one exists.
• Cite legislation by its short title and year, with the section, article or rule you rely on. Make sure you are citing the provision as it stands, and say so where you discuss an earlier version or a repealed law.
• For online sources, give a stable link and, where the style asks for it, the date on which you last consulted it. Links to search results or to pages behind a login are not useful to readers.
• Check every quotation against the source, word for word.
• Every authority you cite must exist and must say what you say it says. AI tools are known to invent cases, statutes and quotations, so please verify every citation yourself. A fabricated or misdescribed authority is treated as a serious matter under the ethics policy.

Language and style

Please write in clear, formal English and use either British or Indian spelling consistently throughout. The journal prefers plain sentences to elaborate ones: a reader should be able to follow the argument at the first reading. Explain technical terms and spell out an abbreviation the first time you use it.

Use gender-neutral language unless you are referring to a particular person, and describe people and groups in the terms they use for themselves. Quotations from sources in other languages should be given in English, with the original in the footnote where the wording matters.

The editors may suggest changes to language and style. They do not change the meaning of your work without asking you.

Preparing for double-blind review

• Remove all names, affiliations and acknowledgements from the manuscript and from the file properties.
• Prepare a separate cover page giving each author’s name, affiliation, contact details and a short biography.
• Refer to your own earlier work in the third person.
• Remove anything else that would identify you, such as the name of your institution in the text, a mention of a project you led or a link to your own website. Where it is unavoidable, replace it with “[removed for review]”.
• Do not post or circulate the paper in a way that invites reviewers to find out who wrote it while it is under review.

The cover page

When you submit the full paper, you upload two files: the manuscript and a separate cover page. The cover page carries everything about the authors, so that the manuscript itself can go to reviewers without revealing who wrote it. Please include:

• the title of the paper and its type;
• each author’s full name, designation and institution, as they should appear in the published article, and an email address;
• a biography of each author in two or three sentences;
• acknowledgements, and any funding received for the work;
• anything the editors should know, such as an earlier version presented at a conference, a preprint, or a reviewer you believe should not be asked because of a conflict, with your reason.

Declarations

When you submit, you declare any competing interests, your funding and any use of AI tools. If your research involves people, you also declare that informed consent was obtained. These declarations are printed with the article.

• Competing interests. Declare anything that a reader might reasonably think could affect your work, such as acting as counsel, arbitrator or adviser in a matter you discuss, a financial interest, or a close connection with a party. If there is nothing to declare, say so.
• Funding. Name every body that funded the research or the writing, with the grant number if there is one, and state whether the funder had any role in the work.
• Use of AI tools. Say whether you used any AI tool, which tool, and what you used it for (for example, checking grammar, translating a source or searching for material). You remain responsible for every word and every citation in the paper.
• Research involving people. If you interviewed or surveyed people, observed proceedings or used personal information that is not public, explain how consent was obtained and how the people concerned are protected, and give the approval of an ethics committee where your institution requires one.

Empirical research and data

Much legal scholarship rests on published sources alone, and for such papers the citations are the evidence. Where a paper relies on empirical work, such as interviews, surveys, case files, court data or a dataset you built yourself, please describe in the paper how the material was gathered and analysed, so that a reader can judge its reliability.

Keep your data, notes and records until well after publication, because the editors may ask to see them if a question arises. Where you can share the data without breaching a promise of confidentiality or the law, please say in a short data availability statement where it can be found or how it may be requested. Interviewees must not be identifiable unless they agreed in writing to be named.

Similarity and AI screening

Every manuscript is checked for similarity with Turnitin and for AI-generated text with Turnitin AI detection. A manuscript whose similarity is above 15% is not accepted. A manuscript with more than 20% AI-generated text is not accepted.

The editors also read the reports themselves. A low overall figure can hide a passage taken from a single source without credit, and such a passage is treated as plagiarism whatever the overall figure. Matches with properly quoted and cited material, with the text of statutes and with standard phrases are taken into account.

If you reuse wording from your own published work, cite it and keep the reuse small. Presenting substantially the same work twice, even in different words, is redundant publication and is not accepted.

After you submit

You will receive a Manuscript ID by email straight away. Please quote it whenever you write to the journal. You can follow your paper at every stage on the manuscript tracker, where you sign in with the Manuscript ID, your email address and a one-time code sent to that address. The editors’ letters are sent to you by email.

1. The editors read the abstract and decide whether to invite the full paper. If they do, the invitation gives the date by which it is due.
2. Each co-author receives an email asking them to confirm their authorship. Review does not begin until every author has confirmed.
3. The editors check the format, length and anonymisation of the paper and run the similarity and AI checks. If something needs fixing, the paper is returned to you with the reasons, and you upload corrected files from the tracker.
4. The paper then goes through editorial and external review, as described in the Peer review policy.
5. The editors send you their decision by email, with their reasons.

The journal does not promise a fixed time for review, because careful review takes as long as it needs. The tracker always shows where your paper stands.

Revising your paper

If the editors ask for revisions, please upload the revised paper from the tracker by the date given in the decision letter. The revised manuscript must be anonymised in the same way as the original.

With the revision, please give a response to the comments set out as a table with three columns:

• the comment, quoted or summarised, numbered in the order in which it was made;
• what you have done in response, or why you have decided not to make the change;
• where the change can be found in the revised paper (section, page or footnote).

You are not obliged to accept every suggestion, but where you disagree, please explain your reasons courteously and with reference to the sources. A response that answers each point clearly makes a second decision much quicker. The revised paper may be sent back to the reviewers if the editor thinks it necessary. A revised paper can still be declined if the main concerns have not been met.

Acceptance, copyright and proofs

After acceptance, each author completes and signs the journal’s copyright form, which transfers copyright in the article to Centre for Legal Research and Studies and records that it will be published under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) licence. The editors check every form before the paper moves into production. There is no charge for publication.

When the final files are ready, the corresponding author receives a proof from the tracker. A proof is for correcting errors, such as typing mistakes, a wrong citation or a problem introduced in production. It is not the time to rewrite the argument or add new material. Please reply within seven days, either approving the proof or listing the corrections needed. If no reply arrives in that time, the proof is treated as approved. The journal allows up to two rounds of proof corrections.

After publication

• Your article receives a Crossref DOI under the prefix 10.63108. Please use the DOI link whenever you cite or share the article.
• Each author receives an e-certificate of publication, which anyone can check on the Verify a certificate page.
• You are free to share the published article and to deposit it in institutional or subject repositories, with a link to the article on this site, as explained on the Open access page.
• If you find an error in your published article, please report it from the tracker. The editors will decide whether a correction is needed, as explained in the ethics policy.

Withdrawing a manuscript

You may withdraw your manuscript at any stage before publication by sending a request from the tracker, giving your reason. The editors confirm the withdrawal in writing, and only then are you free to send the paper elsewhere. After a paper has been accepted, a withdrawal can be agreed only by the Editor-in-Chief, and the journal may publish a short note recording it.

A published article cannot be withdrawn. If something is wrong with it, it may be corrected or, in serious cases, retracted, as set out in the Publication ethics policy.