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Submission Guidelines

Submitting an Article Online

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Article Types

Research

Research articles must describe the outcomes and application of unpublished original research. These should make a substantial contribution to knowledge and understanding in the subject matter and should be supported by relevant figures and tabulated data. Research articles should be between 6000 to 10000 words in length.

This section is peer reviewed.

Book Review

Book Reviews can cover current books and should critically engage with relevant aspects of the book in light of recent literature demonstrating a strong tie with the journal focus. Reviews should be no longer than 200 words in length. Book Reviews follow specific guidelines which can be found here; please read these before submitting a review

Editorial

Editorials can cover a range of issues and topics, as long as it is relevant to the field of cross-cultural human rights. If written for a Special Issue, the Editorial must relate to the thematic issue. Authors may also discuss what they are currently working on within the field of cross-cultural human rights, and perhaps the way the author thinks this field should develop.  As it is not an article, there is no need for footnotes. Authors interested in submitting an Editorial must contact the Managing Editor via email, indicating their interest in submitting and attaching their CV, before submitting a manuscript. The Editorial should be approximately 1000 words.

Column

Columns should reflect upon or critique a specific "happening" such as a release of a major study or other notable occurrence related to journal focus. Authors interested in submitting a commentary piece should discuss the content with the Managing Editor before submitting a manuscript. Commentary articles should be no longer than 3,000 words in length.

This section is peer reviewed.

Author Guidelines

Submissions should be made electronically through this website. Once submitted, the author can track the submission and communicate with the editors via the online journal management system.

Please ensure that you consider the following guidelines when preparing your manuscript. Failure to do so may delay processing your submission.

All word limits include citations.

 

Structure

Title page
To ensure blind peer review, please only list the title and abstract on the submitted manuscript file.

The names of all authors, affiliations, contact details, biography (optional) and the corresponding author details must be completed online as part of the submission process. All authors must fit within the journal's definition of an author, available here.

Author names should include a forename and a surname. Forenames cannot include only initials.

  • J. Bloggs is not preferred. The full name, Joe Bloggs is required (this will enhance the 'findability' of your publication).

The affiliation should ideally include ‘Department, Institution, City, Country’. However only the Institution and Country are mandatory.

If a preprint is available, the author should declare this in a separate document, and include the full title of the submitted manuscript plus the names and complete contact details of all authors. This page will not be accessible to the referees.

Abstract                                                                                                               

Research articles and Columns must have the main text prefaced by an abstract of no more than 150 words summarising the main arguments and conclusions of the article. This must have the heading ‘Abstract’ and be easily identified from the start of the main text. You may include translated version in French or Chinese.

Abstracts should be italicized.

Keywords

5-6 keywords relating to the topic of the paper, should also accompany each paper.

The Abstract and Keywords should also be added to the metadata when making the initial online submission.

Headers

The (shortened) title of the article should be printed in the header of the uneven pages (right justified) and the name of the author printed in the header of the even pages (left justified).

Footers

Page numbers should be printed at the bottom of the page, right justified.

Main text

The body of the submission should be structured in a logical and easy to follow manner. A clear introduction section should be given that allows non-specialists in the subject an understanding of the publication and a background of the issue(s) involved. Methods, results, discussion and conclusion sections may then follow to clearly detail the information and research presented.

Format of Sections/Sub-sections

Always use one blank line above and under each title. The Review uses the following outline:

  1. title of the paper/contribution: capitals bold, centered and size 14 font. Two lines under this: the name of the author in small caps bold and size 12 font (same font size as text of the article). The name of the author is followed by an asterisk footnote with affiliation information. Any note thanks should be put next to an asterisk following this.
  2. 1st level: “1. XXX”: capitals (1. INTRODUCTION);
  3. 2nd level: “1.1. Xxxx”: small capitals (2.3. THE PHENOMENON OF RELIGIOUS DIVORCE);
  4. 3rd level: “1.1.1. Xxxx”: italics (2.5.6. Territory and Jurisdiction Limitations);
  5. 4th level: “1.1.1.1. Xxxx”: Regular type with initial capitals (3.3.1.1. Restrictions on the Right to Freedom of Religion).

 Please avoid the use of short paragraphs – e.g. only one or two sentences. All text should be justified.

Manuscript pages should be numbered consecutively, at the bottom right of the page.

File Format 

Text files should preferably be in Microsoft Word format (and saved as .doc or .wpd).

Contact Address 

For any questions or problems relating to your manuscript please contact: CCHRR.frt@vu.nl
 
Data Accessibility
 
If data, structured methods or code used in the research project have been made openly available, a statement should be added to inform the reader how/where to access these files. This should include the repository location and the DOI linking to it. Read our reproducibility guide for more information on best practice and maximising the impact of your open data.

If it is not possible to use a repository then the journal can host supplementary files. Such files must be listed in the Data Accessibility section, with a corresponding number, title and optional description. Ideally, the supplementary files are also cited in the main text.

e.g. Supplementary file 1: Appendix. Scientific data related to the experiments.

Supplementary files will not be typeset so they must be provided in their final form and must be submitted for review during the original submission process. They will be assigned a DOI and linked to from the publication by the publisher.

NOTE: If data used in the research project has not been made available, a statement confirming this should be added, along with reasoning why.

The journal's data policy is available on the Editorial Policies page.

Ethics and consent (if applicable)
Research involving human subjects, human material, or human data, must have been performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki. Where applicable, studies must have been approved by an appropriate ethics committee and the authors should include a statement within the article text detailing this approval, including the name of the ethics committee and reference number of the approval. The identity of the research subject(s) should be anonymised whenever possible. For research involving human subjects, informed consent to participate in the study must be obtained from participants (or their legal guardian) and added to this statement. If a study involving human subjects/tissue/data was exempt from requiring ethical approval, a confirmation statement from the relevant body should be included within the submission.

Funding Information (if applicable)
Should the research have received a funding grant then the grant provider and grant number should be detailed. 

Competing interests

If any of the authors have any competing interests then these must be declared. A short paragraph should be placed at the end of the main texts. Guidelines for competing interests can be found here. If there are no competing interests to declare then the following statement should be present: The author(s) has/have no competing interests to declare.

 

Permissions

The author is responsible for obtaining all permissions required prior to submission of the manuscript. Permission and owner details should be mentioned for all third-party content included in the submission or used in the research.

If a method or tool is introduced in the study, including software, questionnaires, and scales, the license this is available under and any requirement for permission for use should be stated. If an existing method or tool is used in the research, it is the author's responsibility to check the license and obtain the necessary permissions. Statements confirming that permission was granted should be included in the Materials and Methods section.

 

Language & Text

Capitalisation

Capitalise: State, Member State, State Party(ies) [do not capitalise government]

(when followed by a number) Article, Chapter, Section

(when referring to specific text) Resolution, Declaration, Treaty, Draft

When referring to a specific court or chamber within that court, always capitalise:

Trial Chamber I, Grand Chamber, the Court held…

When referring generically to courts, do not capitalise.

Spelling
Submissions must be made in English. Authors are welcome to use American or British spellings as long as they are used consistently throughout the whole of the submission.

  • Colour (UK) vs. Color (US)

When referring to proper nouns and normal institutional titles, the official, original spelling must be used.

  • World Health Organization, not World Health Organisation

Grammar

The Oxford, Harvard, or serial comma. Use the comma before the word “and” and “or” at the end of a list (A, B, and C; D, E, F, or G). For example, this sentence: “The triad of purgation, illumination and perfection.” should be “The triad of purgation, illumination, and perfection.”

Font

The font type used should be Times New Roman.   Please ensure that the font size of the main body of text, including headings (apart from the title of the paper) are in font size 12.  Footnotes must be in font size 10.

Margin

The margin should be set at normal on Word Processor, that is: Top 2.54 cm; Bottom 2.54 cm; Left 2.54 cm, Right 2.54 cm.

Paragraph

Please ensure that paragraphs are indented. All sentences must have a space of 1.15pt. This can be set using the line spacing option on Word Processor. Please avoid the use of short paragraphs – e.g. only one or two sentences. All text should be justified.

Where the author has inserted a quote of more than 3 lines, a space should be left and quote indented on a new line, without quotation marks (“…”), the font size should also be reduced to 11.   Any sentence or paragraph following a quote of more than 3 lines, does not need to be indented.

Example: 

Within the sphere of international law, politics has significant ramifications in how law is decided, much like national law. Kasey Windhall stated:               

The intertwining of law and politics is such that one could argue that you could not have one without the other. Since the ages of time politics has always engaged with what laws should be made, what they should look like and how they should be enforced. Simply put you could not have without politics. The same is for international law, which is highly politicized, interest driven and consequently reflects the interest of states.

For this reason, to understand international law, one must engage with politics.

Italics and quotation marks

Isolated words and phrases in foreign languages (Fremdwörter) should be italicized. Direct quotations of texts should be placed in quotation marks (“…”).

Quotations longer than 3 typed lines should be treated as block quotations (indented, without quotation marks (see above)).

Single quotation marks are reserved for quotations within quotations and for definitions in a linguistic context.

Note that quotation marks are placed behind punctuation marks, except in the case of these punctuations ‘:’ (colon) and ‘;’(semi-colon).

For example: “…the word holds significant legal ramifications”: “…legal consequences thus still remain”;

It must be clear from the text and/or citation where the quote is sourced. If quoting from material that is under copyright then permission will need to be obtained from the copyright holder.

Lists

Use bullet points to denote a list without hierarchy or order of value. If the list indicates a specific sequence then a numbered list must be used.

Lists separated from the main text:

Use Arabic numerals, ending in a semi-colon and adding ‘and’ after the last semi-colon.

For example:

The Court has identified three rights pertaining to victims:

1. the right to protection;

2. the right to participation; and

3. the right to reparation.

Listed items within a sentence:

When a sentence lists more than single words or phrases, use a semi-colon to separate the listed items, or use lower-case Roman numerals in parentheses for a numbered list.

Lists should be used sparingly to maximise their impact.

Acronyms & Abbreviations
With abbreviations, the crucial goal is to ensure that the reader – particularly one who may not be fully familiar with the topic or context being addressed – is able to follow along. Spell out almost all acronyms on first use, indicating the acronym in parentheses immediately thereafter. Use the acronym for all subsequent references.

Abbreviations should usually be in capital letters without full stops.

  • USA, not U.S.A

Common examples from Latin origin do not follow this rule and should be lower case and can include full stops.

  • e.g., i.e., etc.

The period should not be omitted after abbreviations. French place-names containing “Saint” are spelled out, and the hyphen is essential: “Saint-Denis.”

Use of footnotes/endnotes

Notes will be printed as footnotes. However, some citations may be inserted in parentheses in the text. Footnote numbers are placed behind punctuation marks (e.g.: …the right to life.13). Footnotes should be sequentially numbered. They should never be set in tables, as the positioning of the tables may have to be changed during the editing process. Notes to headings should be avoided. Several sources mentioned in one footnote should be separated by a semi-colon. Conclude each footnote with a period (full stop).

The asterisk-footnote on the first page of the article should contain the affiliation of the author. There is also room for personal remarks.

Scholarly reference words

Words and abbreviations such as “et al.,” “ibid.,” “idem,” “passim,” “e.g.,” “i.e.,” and “ca.” should not be italicized. The only exception is “[sic].” Note that “cf.” means “compare” and should not be used when “see” or “see also” is the accurate expression.

Dates

The correct form is 1590s, not 1590’s or spelled out. Centuries should be spelled out; the adjectival form requires a hyphen, as in “twelfth-century manuscript.” NB: “In the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries …” (plural); “In eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature …”

Citation Practice in Brief

Arabic numerals are to be used for volume, part, and section numbers. Roman numerals are retained when the original work uses them for page numbers (in Foreword, etc.).

General Points

  • Please do not use Latin 'mechanisms' such as supra, with the exception of ibid (never capitalized).
  • For subsequent referencing, give 'author (n 0)', then page number or paragraph number.
  • When referencing articles from academic journals, give the first page number of the article, and then the relevant page number on which your work is based.
  • Where a page number is pinpointed, separate by a comma (ie 848, 856).

 

 

Data & Symbols

Symbols
Symbols are permitted within the main text and datasets as long as they are commonly in use or have explanatory definition on their first usage.

Hyphenation, em and en dashes
There is no set rule on the use of hyphenation between words, as long as they are consistently used.

Em dashes should be used sparingly. If they are present, they should denote emphasis, change of thought or interruption to the main sentence and can replace commas, parentheses, colons or semicolons.

  • The president’s niece—daughter of his younger brother—caused a media scandal when…

En dashes can be used to replace ‘to’ when indicating a range. No space should surround the dash.

  • 10-25 years
  • pp. 10-65

Numbers

For numbers zero to nine please spell the whole words. Please use figures for numbers 10 or higher.

Please use figures to represent large whole figures (i.e. 1,000,000).

If the sentence includes a series of numbers then figures must be used in each instance.

  • Artefacts were found at depths of 5, 9, and 29 cm.

If the number appears as part of a dataset, in conjunction with a symbol or as part of a table then the figure must be used.

  • This study confirmed that 5% of…

Do not use a comma for a decimal place.

  • 2.43 NOT 2,43

Numbers that are less than zero must have ‘0’ precede the decimal point.

  • 0.24 NOT .24

Units of measurement
Symbols following a figure to denote a unit of measurement must be taken from the latest SI brochure. See http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf for the full brochure.

Formula
Formulae must be proofed carefully by the author. Editors will not edit formulae. If special software has been used to create formulae, the way it is laid out is the way they will appear in the publication.

 

Figures & Tables

Figures
Figures, including graphs and diagrams, must be professionally and clearly presented. If a figure is not easy to understand or does not appear to be of a suitable quality, the editor may ask to re-render or omit it.

All figures must be cited within the main text, in consecutive order using Arabic numerals (e.g. Figure 1, Figure 2, etc.).

Each figure must have an accompanying descriptive main title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the figure image. A short additional figure legend is optional to offer a further description.

  • Figure 1: 1685 map of London.
  • Figure 1: 1685 map of London. Note the addition of St Paul’s Cathedral, absent from earlier maps.

Figure titles and legends should be placed within a footnote.

The source of the image should be included, along with any relevant copyright information and a statement of authorisation (if needed).

  • Figure 1: Firemen try to free workers buried under piles of concrete and metal girders. Photo: Claude-Michel Masson. Reproduced with permission of the photographer.

If your figure file includes text then please present the font as palantino linotype font. This will mean that it matches the typeset text.

NOTE: All figures must be uploaded separately as supplementary files during the submission process, if possible in colour and at a resolution of at least 300dpi. Each file should not be more than 20MB. Standard formats accepted are: JPG, TIFF, GIF, PNG, EPS. For line drawings, please provide the original vector file (e.g. .ai, or .eps).

Tables
Tables must be created using a word processor's table function, not tabbed text.

Tables should be included in the manuscript. The final layout will place the tables as close to their first citation as possible.

All tables must be cited within the main text, and numbered with Arabic numerals in consecutive order (e.g. Table 1, Table 2, etc.).

Each table must have an accompanying descriptive title. This should clearly and concisely summarise the content and/or use of the table. A short additional table legend is optional to offer a further description of the table. The table title and legend should be placed above the table.

Tables should not include:

  • Rotated text
  • Colour to denote meaning (it will not display the same on all devices)
  • Images
  • Vertical or diagonal lines
  • Multiple parts (e.g. ‘Table 1a’ and ‘Table 1b’). These should either be merged into one table, or separated into ‘Table 1’ and ‘Table 2’.

NOTE: If there are more columns than can fit on a single page, then the table will be placed horizontally on the page. If it still can't fit horizontally on a page, the table will be broken into two.

 

References

This journal uses the Oxford University Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities  system – see below for examples of how to format:

Footnotes, References/Citations

We have adopted the OSCOLA rules for references and citations. These can be found at: http://www.law.ox.ac.uk/publications/oscola.php. For a quick reference guide, see https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/oscola_4th_edn_hart_2012quickreferenceguide.pdf

Keep footnotes to a minimum. They should not represent a disproportionate segment of the text. Please use the same system of bibliographical reference throughout the article. There is no need for an extensive bibliography, as sources used should be incorporated into the footnotes.

Please note that OSCOLA aims for consistency and readability. Generally, this means that there is no unnecessary italicization.

Please ensure the font size of footnotes are set at 10 and that there is a line spacing of 1.15 pt.

Examples

Article in an academic journal

Judy Klein, 'The Right to Make a Living in the ECHR' (2011) 16(3) Human Rights Law Review 82.

Book

Makau Mutua, Human Rights: a Political and Cultural Critique (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008) p.15.

For the correct referencing of case law from different jurisdictions, please consult the OSCOLA style guide.

Copyright Notice

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).

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