Citations should help readers verify the proposition being made. Formal consistency matters, but traceability, authority and accuracy matter more.
Authority hierarchy
- Official primary text: judgment, statute, gazette, rule, treaty or official record.
- Authoritative repository: an official or institutionally reliable database reproducing the primary text.
- Scholarly or professional analysis: used to explain, contest or contextualise primary authority.
- Reliable reporting: used for current events and factual context, not as a substitute for available legal text.
Case references
Provide the case name, available neutral or law-report citation, court, decision date and a link to the full decision where lawfully available. Identify the relevant paragraph or page for a precise proposition.
Legislation
Identify the formal title, year, relevant section or article, amendment status and official source. Distinguish bills, ordinances, rules, circulars and enacted statutes.
Quotations
Quote only what is necessary. Preserve meaning and indicate omissions. Verify wording against the cited text rather than a secondary quotation. Translations should identify the translator or explain that the translation is editorial.
Links and permanence
Use durable official links where possible. A source register may supplement footnotes by collecting the principal materials relied upon. Editors may archive a lawful copy or record bibliographic details where link persistence is uncertain.
House style
The journal may use OSCOLA-informed legal citation adapted for digital reading. The public article also provides a preferred citation for the article itself. Consistency must never hide uncertainty about an authority.
Core citation principles
- Support the exact proposition. A source about the same subject is not enough if it does not establish the claim.
- Prefer the most authoritative version. Use the official judgment, gazette or treaty text where accessible.
- Give a pinpoint. Identify paragraph, page, section, article, schedule or other locator where the source permits it.
- Preserve traceability. Include enough bibliographic information for a reader to find the source if a link fails.
- Do not overcite. One strong source may be better than a chain of repetitive secondary references.
Judgments
Identify the case name, court, year, neutral or reported citation where available, decision date where useful and pinpoint paragraph or page. Make clear whether a proposition comes from the majority, concurrence, dissent, order, headnote or later interpretation. Where multiple versions differ, rely on the authoritative text and note the discrepancy if material.
Legislation and official instruments
Identify the full title, year or instrument number, relevant provision and jurisdiction. Confirm whether the text is enacted, commenced, amended, repealed, proposed or translated. A bill, draft, ordinance, rule, circular and administrative instruction must not be described interchangeably.
International and comparative material
For treaties, identify the instrument, article and relevant status. For international decisions, identify the body, case or communication number, date and pinpoint. Comparative citations should state the jurisdiction and explain relevance rather than assume that foreign authority controls.
Books, articles, reports and datasets
Give author or institution, title, publication, year and page or section where relevant. Reports should identify the issuing body and edition. Datasets require the producer, dataset title, coverage, version or access date and any transformation performed by the author. Working papers and preprints should be labelled accurately.
Web sources and link preservation
Use the original publisher rather than an aggregator where possible. Record the page title, publisher and publication date; add an access date for changing material. Editors may preserve an archive copy where lawful and operationally appropriate. A dead link does not remove the need for a complete citation.
Source register
The public source register is a selected list of principal materials, not necessarily every footnote. It should help a reader reach the judgment, legislation, report or dataset central to the argument. The article’s inline citations or footnotes remain responsible for supporting individual propositions.
Citation questions
Which formal style does the journal use?
The journal may adapt OSCOLA-style legal citation for consistency while prioritising accurate local and official citation forms. Editors may modify punctuation and ordering without changing substance.
Can I cite an AI-generated answer?
Not as authority. Cite and verify the underlying primary or reliable secondary source. A material research use of generative systems should be disclosed to the editor.
What if no official online copy exists?
Provide the best authoritative bibliographic citation and a reliable reproduction if available. Explain access limits and retain the source for editorial verification.