Fourth edition of the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) now available

The Faculty of Law at the University of Oxford has recently published the fourth edition of the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA), which is now available at www.law.ox.ac.uk/oscola[linkme].

OSCOLA is designed to facilitate the accurate and uniform citation of UK legal authorities. OSCOLA was first devised by Professor Peter Birks in 2000, in consultation with law students and faculty at Oxford University, with Oxford University Press and with Hart Publishing. Subsequent editions of OSCOLA were produced in 2002 (by Professor Birks) and in 2004 and 2006 (by Professor Timothy Endicott and Sandra Meredith). Although originally designed for use within the University of Oxford, OSCOLA is now used by many law schools in the UK and overseas, and by a number of legal journals and publishers.

The fourth edition provides more detailed coverage of domestic legal sources; in particular, the treatment of Welsh, Scottish and Northern Irish sources has been considerably expanded. Other changes include a new section on bibliographies, expanded coverage of legal historical sources, a guide to neutral citations and a quick reference guide.  OSCOLA no longer covers international law sources (apart from EU legal sources and the European Court of Human Rights), but the section on international law sources in the previous (2006) edition is available from the OSCOLA web page.

Updated versions of the OSCOLA Endnote styles are available from www.law.ox.ac.uk/publications/oscola_endnote.php[linkme].

It is intended that a revised fourth edition will be published sometime next year, following feedback from users, and at that point a print version will also be made generally available. 

The fourth edition of OSCOLA was edited by Sandra Meredith and Donal Nolan, with assistance from the OSCOLA Editorial Advisory Board. The editors would very much welcome feedback on any aspect of the fourth edition.  Feedback should be sent to oscola@law.ox.ac.uk.