Author Guidelines

Author Guidelines

GUIDELINES FOR AUTHORS

All work submitted to the SJIL for publication must be original.

The use of inclusive language is recommended in submitted manuscripts.

Contributions should be submitted in Word for Windows format only (files with .doc or .docx extensions) following the template provided by the SJLS.

Submissions should be made exclusively through the SJLS application (authors must register in advance to submit their work).

The text submitted to the journal must be anonymous. The body of the manuscript must not include any references that identify the authors or co-authors. When submitting the original manuscript, the details of each author or authors, their affiliation and a contact email address for each author must be provided.

If the manuscript has already been published in the journal, at least two years must elapse between the date of acceptance and the submission of a new proposal. No more than one paper by the same author will be accepted for the same issue of the journal.

STRUCTURE

Articles: must contain an abstract (no more than 20 lines or 250 words), keywords (no more than 5) in lower case and separated by commas, and a summary.

The title, abstract and keywords must be written in two languages: English (title, abstract, keywords) and Spanish (title, summary, keywords). The title of the paper may not contain abbreviations.

The summary shall comply with the following rules for numbering headings:

I.- First level (Roman numerals, capital letters and bold).

1.- Second level (Arabic numerals, lowercase letters and bold).

1.1.- Third level (Arabic numerals, consecutive, lowercase).

LENGTH

Articles: The minimum length shall be 15 pages (including abstract, keywords, list of sources cited, and, where applicable, figures and tables) and the maximum length shall be 40 pages.

Notes: The text may not exceed 2,500 words or 6 pages.

FORMAT

Contributions (articles and notes) must comply with the following format:

  • Margins:
    • top and bottom 2.5 cm
    • left and right 3 cm.
  • Font: Trebuchet MS font, 10 points, with 1.5 line spacing, no spaces between paragraphs.
  • Text should always be justified and indented 1.5 cm at the beginning of each paragraph.
  • If there are quotations or transcriptions, they should be in Trebuchet MS Font, 8 points, and indented 1.5 cm from the entire paragraph.
  • Quotation marks should always be English (“ ”).
  • If images are added, they must be high resolution and contain a caption indicating their title and source. Images must be numbered.
  • Abbreviations:
    • Excessive use of abbreviations should be avoided.
    • The abbreviations ‘art.’, ‘par.’ and ‘pars’, ‘p.’ and ‘pp.’, ‘vol.’, ‘no.’ or ‘nos.’, ‘apdo.’, “ver”, ‘ed.’ should be used.
  • Capital letters and bold type should not be used to emphasise words or phrases; instead, if necessary, italics may be used.

Manuscripts that do not comply with these guidelines will be automatically rejected.

CITATIONS AND REFERENCES

Citations in the main text

Authors should be cited in the text by their initials and surname (with a diacritical capital letter). Example: As highlighted by J.A. Pérez Juan...

Footnotes

Articles should contain footnotes. The footnote number should be superscript and without parentheses.

References included in footnotes should comply with the following rules:

Monographs: SURNAME(S), First name, Title of the book (in italics), edition number, publisher, place of publication and year, pages cited.

Example: PASTOR RIDRUEJO, José Antonio, Curso de Derecho Internacional Público y Organizaciones internacionales, 24th ed., Tecnos, Madrid 2020, p. 235.

Journal articles: SURNAME(S), First name, ‘Title of article’ (in quotation marks), Title of journal (in italics), volume and/or issue number in which the article is included, year of the issue in which the article is included (in parentheses), pages of the article and pages cited, including p. or pp.

Example: FUENTES SORIANO, Olga, ‘Criminal procedure and the gender perspective,’ Spanish Journal of Legislative Studies, no. 6 (2024), 68-108, p. 72.

Book chapters: SURNAME(S), First name, ‘Title of chapter’, in Name SURNAME(S), Title of the work containing the chapter (in italics), edition number, publisher, place of publication and year, numbering (of the volume, etc.), complete pages and pages cited using p. or pp.

Example: CRESPO NAVARRO, Elena, ‘Temporary protection in the European Union for persons displaced from Ukraine: state practice’, in María Dolores BOLLO AROCENA and Eduardo JIMÉNEZ PINEDA, (Eds.), Contemporary international and European law in the face of Russian aggression against Ukraine, Tirant lo Blanch, Valencia 2024, 435-495, p. 443.

If the work cited is published in an electronic medium, this should be indicated with the words [online] and the date of consultation should be added: day, month and year at the end of the note.

In general, it is recommended that bibliographical references be accompanied by the DOI (Digital Object Identifier) number. Bibliographical references with DOI can be found at http://search.crossref.org/references

Example: RUÍZ, Esther and CRATO, Nuno, ‘Can we evaluate the predictability of financial markets?’, International Journal of Forecasting, vol. 28, no. 1 (2012), 1-2, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2011.02.002.

Repeated citations from the same work

When referring again to a work (whether a book, article or contribution to a collective work), use op. cit. (in italics) instead of the full title, together with the corresponding page or pages.

Example: PASTOR RIDRUEJO, Jose Antonio, op. cit., p. 28.

If two or more works by the same author have been cited, it must be clear which of them corresponds to the subsequent citation by indicating the first words of the work.

When referring to the same work mentioned in the immediately preceding note, use ibidem.

Websites: Author, Title [online] [date consulted: day month year] Availability and access.

Example: European Parliament, New EP committees on security and defence, health, democracy and housing [online] [date consulted: 07-01-2025], available at: https://acortar.link/l4cVPD.

If the links to be added are long, they should be shortened. To do this, you can use any URL shortener such as https://acortar.link/.

International treaties. Examples:

  • Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, Geneva, 28 July 1951, United Nations Treaty Series, No. 2545, v. 189, p. 137.
  • Convention on the Rights of the Child, New York, 20 November 1989, United Nations Treaty Series, No. 1577, p. 3.

To cite international treaties, it is advisable to consult the United Nations Treaty Series website.

To cite the name of treaties in Spanish, the form that appears in the BOE or official gazette of the corresponding State should be used to avoid different translations of the names of treaties, unless they are cited in the language in which they were originally written.

Resolutions of international organisations

Examples:

  • Security Council: S/RES/2777, ‘The situation in Afghanistan (UNAMA)’, 19 March 2025.
  • General Assembly: A/RES/78/322, ‘Multidimensional vulnerability index’, 14 August 2024.
  • ECOSOC: E/RES/2024/2, “An inclusive and representative Commission on Statistics to leave no one behind”, 12 July 2024.

Legislation: Referenced according to its name in the corresponding bulletin or official gazette.

Examples:

  • Regulation (EU) 2025/327 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 February 2025 on the European Health Data Space and amending Directive 2011/24/EU and Regulation (EU) 2024/2847, OJEU, L 327, 5 March 2025.
  • Organic Law 1/2004, of 28 December, on Comprehensive Protection Measures against Gender Violence, BOE, no. 313, 29 December 2004.

Case law

  • Case law of supranational or international bodies: The official format of the court itself shall be used, if available
  • Court of Justice of the EU: the model provided by the CJEU itself shall be used (European Case-Law Identifier: http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/P_126035/).

Example: Judgment of 16 January 2024, Intervyuirasht organ na DAB pri MS (Femmes victimes de violences domestiques), C-621/21, ECLI:EU:C:2024:47, paragraph 62.

  • European Court of Human Rights: use the model based on the official citation system.

Example: Sabalić v. Croatia, no. 50231/13, paras. 112 and 114-116, ECHR 2021.

  • Decisions of other international courts (permanent or arbitral), a formula in Spanish shall be used with the name of the case, including, where applicable, the name of the States parties, separated by ‘c.’ and in parentheses (in italics), followed by the case number, the date of the decision or award and the paragraph.

Examples:

  • Case concerning the Diplomatic and Consular Staff of the United States in Tehran (United States of America v. Iran), ICJ, No. 64, Judgment of 24 May 1980, para. 91.
  • Medioambientales Tecmed, S.A. v. United Mexican States (ICSID Case No. ARB(AF)/00/2), award of 29 May 2003, para. 64.

Case law of Spanish state bodies:

  • Constitutional Court: STC 136/2024, of 5 November, ECLI:ES:TC:2024:136.
  • Supreme Court: STS 3162/2025 (Civil Chamber, Section 1), Roj, of 4 July 2025, ECLI:ES:TS:2025:3162.
  • National High Court: Judgment/Order of the AN (Chamber ...), Roj, of 18 November 2024.
  • Provincial Court: Judgment/Order of the Provincial Court of Madrid (Section ...), Roj, of 20 May 2025.
  • Court of First Instance: Judgment/Order of the Court of First Instance No. 1 of Cádiz, Roj, of 10 May 2019.

For internal rulings from other States, a similar format will be followed, attempting to standardise references.

Bibliography

Bibliographical references should appear at the end of the article or note, following the same rules as for footnotes, but without including the pages cited.

They should be listed alphabetically by the author's surname, with justified text.