OUCLJ Submission Guidelines
Thank you for choosing to submit your paper to us. These instructions will ensure we have everything required so your paper can move through peer review, production and publication smoothly. Please take the time to read and follow our guidance as closely as possible, as doing so will ensure your paper matches the journal's requirements.
About the journal
The OUCLJ focuses on doctrinal and theoretical scholarship on matters of current interest to Commonwealth legal systems. The OUCLJ welcomes contributions from academic lawyers, practitioners and policy-makers, wherever situated. We publish articles which are concerned with a single jurisdiction as well as those which undertake a comparative analysis — including comparisons between Commonwealth and civilian jurisdictions — and pieces on international law affecting Commonwealth systems. Our focus is on black-letter law rather than pure legal theory. We do not publish socio-legal or criminological scholarship.
The OUCLJ accepts the following types of article:
- Research articles
- Case comments
- Judicial lectures and other speeches
Instructions for authors
Article
Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; 4-6 keywords; introduction; main text; conclusion; acknowledgements; declaration of interest statement.
Should be no more than 10,000 words*, inclusive of:
- Abstract (no more than 300 words)
- Tables
- References
- Figure or table captions
- Footnotes
- Endnotes
*Well-written and concise contributions which exceed these limits will be considered by the Editors.
Case comment
Should be written with the following elements in the following order: title page; abstract; 4-6 keywords; introduction; main text; conclusion; acknowledgements; declaration of interest statement.
Should be between 2000-4000 words*, inclusive of:
- Abstract (no more than 150 words)
- Tables
- References
- Figure or table captions
- Footnotes
- Endnotes
*Well-written and concise contributions which exceed these limits will be considered by the Editors.
Lecture or other speeches
Those submitting lectures or other speeches should get in touch with the Journal in advance to make sure they are within scope.
Referencing should conform to the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA) 5th edition.
The Journal operates a double-anonymous peer review process, meaning that both authors and reviewers remain anonymous for the review process. We operate robust editorial standards, requiring two positive independent scholarly reviews by experts in the relevant field before articles can be considered for publication. Once the Editorial Board has resolved to send a piece for peer review, the process of securing reviews usually takes 2-3 months although can sometimes take longer. Reviewers are asked to provide formative feedback, even if an article is not deemed suitable for publication in the journal.