Author’s Guidelines

Introduction

Welcome to Kutafin Law Review – we are delighted to have you coming to find out more about how to get published in our Journal.

We are an English language, academic grade law journal published twice a year by Moscow State University of Law named after O.E. Kutafin – consistently one of Russia’s foremost and most prominent law universities. As such, we have high standards that we endeavor to achieve and maintain by a number of means – foremost of which is a fruitful dialogue with our contributors. These Guidelines should be read as our introduction to you, and we will be delighted to help you understand them and use them.

We are committed to using our Journal to improve the quality of legal writing in the English language – arguably the “lingua franca” of international law and the international lawyer. Again, we are devoted to helping you achieve publication in English, and our Editorial team will do everything to assist you. We encourage gender neutral writing.

These Guidelines set out our basic requirements for publication. If your first submission is non-compliant, we will inform you with detailed comments, and help you meet the standards. We very much look forward to working with you.

Generally

We are interested in publishing articles, and other submissions, which explore contemporary themes and developments in law (both domestic and international), jurisprudence, legal history and philosophy of law. The Journal is under the management of a new Editorial Team – who are interested in publishing the following categories of submissions

Articles – between 5000 to 20,000 words, preferably no less than 7,500. This works out at approximately 15-25 pages of A4 text in 12 point font, (excluding footnotes). These should be scholarly, with citations and references – exploring (with conclusions) a topic of significant interest. Articles of more than 20,000 words will be considered, but anything more than 30,000 words is unlikely to be acceptable without good reasons

Case Notes – we would like to expand our Journal with an infrequent section, where significant new cases are reported – and commented on. Students in particular, are encouraged to review the websites of prominent law firms where such cases are regularly (if rather superficially) covered, often by Associates as part of the firm’s marketing strategy to Clients. Kutafin Law Review would like to see students taking such examples, and expanding them into well thought out and researched studies – which highlight the issues and boundaries of the judgements or other decisions – such as international investment arbitration awards. Such articles should be between 2,500 and 5000 words long, 12 point font – and ideally no less than 3,500 words.

Book Reviews – important new books can be reviewed, with knowledgeable commentary placing them in the context of the other literature in the field and the new contributions which they make. Such reviews should be between 1,500 and 4000 words long, 12 point font, - and ideally no less than 2,000 words long.

All submissions are peer reviewed, and editorially reviewed. All submissions may be subject to requirements for modifications before they can be published.

Authors

We accept materials from any person who is a graduate in law, or other field related to the law. Undergraduates are encouraged to write for our Journal, however their submissions must be with a co-author who is a law graduate, preferably a PhD Candidate or Doctor in a recognised academic institute or university.

Language

We accept submissions written only in English, and we recommend that if English is your non-native language, that – if possible - you have your submissions proof-read by a native speaker before sending them to us.

We do not offer any translation or other language services. However, our University works in partnership with Enago (https://msal.ru/content/nauka/portal-enago-perevod-i-redaktirovanie-tekstov/) who provide a range of manuscript preparation services - including language editing, translation and figure preparation. Please note that the use of such services is voluntary and does not guarantee that the manuscript will be accepted for publication. The edited manuscript will still be subject to the same editorial assessment at submission stage.

Format

Authors should submit their manuscript as Microsoft Word documents (.doc or .docx format), double spaced (both the main text and footnotes). The font must be “Times New Roman” 12 point, text fully justified.

The text must be fully justified. The first line of each paragraph must be indented, and there no linespace under headings or subheadings.

The submission must include:

1. The title of the article – in capital letters, centred on the page, with the name of the author (tagged with a footnote, the text of which is to be merely an asterisk (*) for the Editorial Team to insert the text.

2. The author’s position, academic credentials, place of work, contact information (postal address, phone, and email).

3. An Abstract of the Article – between 100-200 words, together with up to 15 keywords. The purpose of the Abstract is to identify the subject matter of the article, and summarize its unique contribution to the field under discussion

Footnotes

All footnotes are to be exactly that – additional notes referred to from the text – sequentially numbered using the footnote feature of Word.

Footnotes must provide reference to the principal sources on which the author relies to support his or her argument rather than a comprehensive list of what the author has read or the materials which the reader could use to follow up the argument.

A point which is often misunderstood is the degree to which a footnote should be used to expand on an argument, or provide additional detail – as opposed to including such information in the main body of the text. There are no hard and fast rules, but the following principles should help:

- Interesting additional information, which would be a pause in the main flow of the text should be in a footnote.

- Significant points, which are fundamental to the main ideas, should however be in the body of the text.

- Source materials, or references to them, used as foundations for the points being discussed should in the footnotes.

- Footnotes should not normally account for more than 3-5% of the overall text. Footnotes do not count towards the overall word count. If the author considers this limit needs to be exceeded, please give us your brief explanation as to why this is important.

- Footnotes should be in 10 point Times New Roman font.

Headings

In all submissions, a maximum of four levels of heading is allowed, one of which is reserved for the title and three of which can be within the article. These are:

1. Main Heading – Title of Article or other submission. Centred. Type in capitals, eg:

CENTRED CAPITALS FOR TITLE OF ARTICLE

2. Sub-Heading 1. Type in capitals (preceded by number 1, 2, 3 etc), eg:

1. SUB-HEADING 1 IN CAPITALS/SMALL CAPITALS

3. Sub-Heading 2. Type with initial capitals for main words only and underline for italics (precede by 1.1, 1.2, 1.3 etc), eg:

1.1 Subheading in Italics

4. Sub-Heading 3. Type with initial capitals for the first word and proper names only and underline for italics (precede by 1.1.1, 1.1.2, 1.1.3 etc)

1.1.1. Subheading in italics

Quotations

Quotations in the main taxt should be indented and linespaced from the text with quotation marks and be in italic text. Quotations within quotations should use single marks. The footnote indicator should be placed after the quotation. As a guide, quotations should be minimal, and certainly no more than 5% of the overall text wordcount.

Citations

Text and citations should conform to the 20^th edition of “THE BLUEBOOK, a Uniform System of Citation” published by the Harvard Law Review Association (ISBN 978-0-692-40019-7). For any author not familiar with the principles of international standard Citations – and whose academic library colleagues cannot help with a copy of this important document, the Editorial Team can provide further assistance.

The citation of foreign language – particularly Cyrillic language – sources is a problem which is often encountered by Russians writing in English. We ask you to provide a citation that provides the English translation first, followed by the Russian original. Transliteration of Russian names is a problem, as there are a number of standards available. If in doubt, please contact the Editorial Team who will be happy to help. An example is:

Byzov A.L., Utina I.A. The centrifugal effects on amacrine cells in the retina of frog. Neirofiziologiya. 1971; (3):293- 300. (In Russ.). (Бызов А.Л., Утина И.А. Центробежные влияния на амакриновые клетки сетчатки лягушки. Нейрофизиология 1971; 3: 293—300

Submission Process

All manuscripts should be submitted via email to editors@kulawr.ru, and to chagoddard@msal.ru as well, together with a scanned copy of the submission form below.Please do not send a hard copy of your submission. Each author / co-author must complete and sign their own form for our record purposes.

A submitted manuscript will be considered for publication even if the author does not conform to the required style. However, once the manuscript is accepted, an author will be asked to revise it in line with principles highlighted above.

Database and Copyright matters

Authors are required to agree to the Journal, and the University holding their personal information and details on their internal computer databases. Such information will not be shared with other individuals or organisations – but may be used by the Journal and University to further correspond with the Author on matters related to the work of legal academics and practitioners.

Authors retain full copyright in their material, but agree and grant Kutafin Law Journal the right of first publication with a simultaneous grant of licence under a Creative Commons Attribution Licence (allowing others to share and reference the work provided there is an acknowledgement of the work’s authorship and initial publication in Kutafin Law Journal).

Authors can make separate, additional arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (such as posting it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), provided there is an acknowledgement of it being first published in Kutafin Law Journal

We are pleased to see our Author’s posting their work online (for example on their personal websites) prior to and during the submission process. If you would like to do this, please let us know/ In particular, we think it can give additional opportunities for the Author to receive crititcal and useful comments, as well as enabling wider citation and use by other authors.

Proofs

We will send you a proof copy of your submission. Proofs will be sent via e-mail (as provided with the submission) to the author for checking. We do ask you to check and return this within 5 working days. Corrections should be returned by means of a “tracked changes” revision of the original submission word file, via e-mail (with a filename extension such as Rev01). If we do not hear back from you within a reasonable time, Kutafin Law Review reservcs the right to postpone publication of the submission.

To the Chief Editor, Kutafin Law Review Journal

Dear Sir,

I send you the following submission, for consideration for publication

From: (full name)…………………………………….

Address……………………………………………......

Name of Submission…………………………………..

I confirm, by my signature, the following:

1. This article or text has not been published – or submitted for publication – elsewhere

2. I agree to Kutafin Law Journal, and Moscow State University of Law named after O.E Kutafin retaining my personal information and details in electronic format in their internal databases and systems, all in accordance with Russian law.

3. I agree to abide by, and agree to, the information provided in the Author’s Guidelines of Kutafin Law Journal as appearing on their official website (www.kulawr.ru/submissions)

Signed:

……………………………………….

Name…………………………………

Date…………………………………..