Articles submitted to the Journal should be original contributions. They should not have been published elsewhere.
Articles should be between 5,000 and 15,000 words, although submissions outside of these parameters will not be disregarded solely for reason of word count.
All articles must be submitted on disk in a format compatible with Microsoft Word. Text should be 12 point, and footnote text should be 10 point. The preferred font for submissions is Arial.
All submissions must be single spaced, with footnote text also single spaced. There should be no line spacing between footnotes. Both text and footnotes should be justified with an inch margin all round.
The title of the submission should be in bold capital letters, centred on the top of the page.
The name of the author should appear two spaces below the title, also centred. The author’s name should not be bold nor in all capital letters. The word “by” should not preceed the author’s name.
Headings should be in bold text and centred, using the same font as the body of the article.
Sub-headings in bold text and left aligned.
Sub-sub headings should be denoted by the use of (non-bold) italics and also left aligned.
Double space between a heading and the following text. Triple space between the end of a section and the next heading.
The font size of headings should be the same as the body of the text.
Periods are not to be used with abbreviations, thus Barrington J rather than Barrington J. or Co rather than Co. or eg rather than e.g.
Exemplum gratium and id est are to be abbreviated as eg and ie (no punctuation and italicised).
Double quotation marks are to be used in all cases unless there is a quotation within a quotation, in which case single quotation marks are to be used.
Punctuation ending a sentence is to go outside of quotation marks, unless the passage quoted ends with punctuation, in which case, the end mark goes inside the punctuation. For example:
The first organisation was known as the “Berne Club”.
The Minister stated that “the factors taken into account by the team are outside the scope of this debate.”
One must ask, why did the founders focus on this concept of “individual freedom”?
Omissions of a word or words should be indicated by the insertion of three periods and if the omission includes a period, then four periods, eg “the laws … had been ignored”.
When a word or letter is altered in a quotation, use square brackets around the altered word or letter.
There should be two spaces after each sentence.
Double space between paragraphs; do not indent new paragraphs.
Quotations of fifty words or more should be double indented without the use of inverted commas and should not be italicised. Quotations of less than fifty words should be enclosed in double quotation marks, but not otherwise set off from the rest of the text. All quotations must be accurate.
Numbering of paragraphs or sections within the text should be avoided if at all possible.
Dates should be cited using the following format: 3 September 1999.
Both text and footnotes should be justified with an inch margin all round. Footnotes should not be indented.
Footnotes are to be used instead of endnotes.
Footnote numbers in the body of the text should appear after end marks and quotation marks. For example:
Statistics from the later decades show a decline in public interest.1
The rationale employed the “contemporary interpretation”.2
Brown and Maher consider this decision to be a “break with all previous interpretations of the statute”,3 but concede that it was not unwelcome.
Only state the surnames of authors in the citation, not the entire name.
Do not put a full stop at the end of a footnote unless it is the end of a sentence or long phrase.
When citing page numbers, use “p”, with no full stop at the end. Multiple pages are cited as “pp”, again with no full stop, using a dash between page numbers. For example, “pp 57-67”, not “pp 57 to 67”.
With citing a paragraph, use “para” with no full stop.
When citing a Chapter, use “Ch” with no full stop.
When citing a section, use “s” and for multiple sections, use “ss”.
The following are examples of correct citations:
Treaties
Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation, 24 November 1978, 14 UNTS 185
Constitutions
Article 20, Bunreacht na hEireann, 1937
Legislation
Ireland
Companies (Amendment) Act, 1999 (No 8 of 1999)
Companies Regulations, 1999 (SI 99 of 1999)
England
Sale of Goods Act, 1979, c21 (UK)
Statutory instruments as above followed by (UK).
United States
Organised Crime Control Act, 1970,17 USC § 201(b) (1988)
*Please note that for US statutes the name of the statute and its year must be followed by a USC reference.
EU
EC Treaty, Article 177
Commission Regulation 1071/68/EEC OJ L210/29
Cases
Cases should be cited with the names of the parties in italics.
Ireland
Smith v Jones [1999] IR 1
Smith v Jones [1999] ILRM 1
Smith v Jones (1999) 57 ILTR 1
Smith v Jones, High Court, unreported, 1 April 1999
England
Smith v Jones [1999] QB 1
Smith v Jones [1999] 2 All ER 1
EU
Citations of cases decided by the ECJ or the Court of First Instance must appear as follows: pre-1989: Case 13/81 Parliament v Council [1985] ECR 100; post-1988: Case C-363/89 Gunter v Germany [1996] ECR I-234; Joined cases T-21 and T-24/99 Tagras v Court of Justice [1999] ECR II-43
ECHR
Judgments of the ECHR and Decisions of ECHR should be cited as follows:
ECHR, James v United Kingdom, 21 February 1999, Series B No 97; (1999) 21 EHRR 123; App No 9900/82, X v France, Dec. 21 May 1983, 32 D & R 261
United States
Smith v Jones 344 F2d 1234 (8th Circuit 1988)
Canada
Fred v King [1990] 2 SCR 123
Books
Jones and Smith, The Legal Citation Process (3rd ed) (New York: Right Press, 1999), p 45
Kelly, The Irish Constitution, (3rd ed by Gerard Hogan and Gerry Whyte) (Dublin: Butterworths, 1994), p 197
Book Chapter
Rozenberg, “Miscarriages of Justice” in Michael Stockdale and Fred Casale, eds, Criminal Justice Under Stress (London: Blackstone, 1992)
Periodical Article
John Smith, “The Legal Citation Process” (1999) 1 Hibernian L J 123
Unpublished article or lecture
Wechesler, Remarks at the Meeting of the Bar of the Supreme Court of the United States in Memory of Chief Justice Stone (Unpublished, 12 November 1947) (available in Columbia Law School Library)
Newspaper Article
Hogan, “Lawyer in Courtroom Battle” The Irish Times (21 June, 1999)
Periodical Titles
Periodical titles should not be italicised and should not be abbreviated save for the following:
Law Review – L R
Law Journal – L J
Law Quarterly – L Q
URL Citations
Smith, “Law and the Internet” http://www.lawpages.com/smith.htm, accessed on 1 May, 2000.
Short Form Citations
Ibid should be used rather than “see note x” or “see previous note” or “op. cit.”. This should only be used when referring to the immediately preceding footnote. If you are referring to the same reference but a different page number within that reference, then the correct citation is “ibid, p 45”.
For material that was fully cited before the immediately preceding footnote, supra must be used rather than “see note x”. Refer to the surname of the author and the footnote number, followed by the page number, eg: “Smith, supra note 12, p 24”.
Shortened forms of reference are permitted for statutes and cases only and should be denoted by the use of “hereinafter” in square brackets, eg Smith v Royal Automobile Club [1999] 3 All ER 123 [hereinafter Smith]. A later reference to this page 28 of this case would then read: Smith, supra note 5, 28.