Guide

GENERAL SUBMISSION GUIDELINES

  1. Word limit: The Journal accepts articles not exceeding 10,000 words (excluding footnotes), case notes and commentaries not exceeding 5000 words (excluding footnotes), and book reviews not exceeding 3000 words (excluding footnotes). Exceptions may be granted on a case-specific basis.
  2. Font type: Times New Roman.
  3. Font size: 12.
  4. Paragraph spacing: Spacing (1.5)

Author name(s): Author name(s) should be included immediately beneath the submission title in the manuscript. If there is one author, the special symbol footnote feature must be used to insert an asterisk after the name, and the institutional and professional affiliations of the author should be included in the corresponding asterisk footnote. If there is more than one author, the second author’s name should take double asterisks, and the third author triple asterisks, in that order.  For example, Kofi Hughes*; Kimberly Fitzgerald** and Araba Mensah***).

  1. Abstract: A submission must include a concise abstract not exceeding 200 words. The abstract should be indented (0.5 points left and right) and italicised.
  2. Sources: All sources used must be duly cited strictly in accordance with this Guide. Note that the UGLJ does not permit the use of in-text citations.
  3. Articles submitted will be screened with anti-plagiarism software to ensure that the submissions received are original.
  4. Presentation: Papers submitted must fully comply with this Guide.

 

Manuscripts should be submitted electronically as an attachment in Microsoft Word. The electronic version should be sent to the deputy editor, Dr. Ama F. Hammond, via email at uglj.submissions.ug.edu.gh or afhammond@ug.edu.gh.

Only articles that have been duty formatted in accordance with this Guide will proceed to the evaluation stage, where the journal editors will screen articles to assess their initial suitability, taking the journal’s scope and aims into consideration. Where articles are considered satisfactory, they undergo a double-blind peer review process.

LANGUAGE

  1. British English should be used. Words ending in ‘ise’, such as emphasise and organise, among others, should retain their ‘ise’ suffixes.
  2. Gender-neutral language should be used. Words such as chairman, businessman, and tradesman should be stated as chairperson, businessperson, or tradesperson, respectively.
  3. Latin ‘gadgets’ such as supra and infra should be avoided.
  4. Foreign words or region-specific words should be translated or explained in the footnotes. 

HEADINGS AND PARAGRAPHING

  1. Title Heading: All uppercase, bold.
  2. Author Name(s): The first author’s name should be centred and in bold. The second author should be directly beneath the first author, centred, bold, in that order. Use the ‘Capitalise Each Word’ feature for each name.
  3. Abstract: The word, “Abstract” should be placed beneath the author’s name(s).
  4. First Level Heading: All uppercase, bold.
  5. Second Level Heading: Use the “Capitalise Each Word” feature and bold.
  6. Third Level Heading: Use the sentence case, bold, italicise.
  7. Fourth Level Heading: Use sentence case and italicise.

Also, number First Level Headings as 1, 2, 3; Second Level Headings as 1.1, 2.1, 3.1; and Third Level Heading as 1.1.1, 2.1.1, 3.1.1, in that order.  All heading levels should be indented at 0.5.

  1. FIRST LEVEL HEADING

1.1. Second Level Heading

1.1.1. Third level heading

1.1.1.1 Fourth level heading

The first paragraph after each heading level should be aligned 0. Subsequent paragraphs should be indented by 0.5.

REFERENCES

The Referencing Style is generally the Oxford Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA), subject to modifications stated in this section of the Guide. Please note the following:

  1. OSCOLA is a footnote style, and in-text citations are NOT permissible. Footnote markers should be placed after punctuation marks. If placed at the end of the sentence, the footnote superscript should be placed after the full stop and not before.
  2. Authors are not required to insert a reference list or bibliography at the end of the text. Though the Journal normally engages ‘subciters’ to check the veracity of references, the ultimate responsibility lies on the author(s).
  3. OSCOLA uses very minimum punctuation. Each footnote must, however, be closed with a full stop.
  4. Round brackets normally enclose the year of publication when there is a volume number. Square brackets enclose the year of publication when there is no volume number.

Author names

  1. List names as stated in the publication.
  2. If two authors, list their names and use (‘and’ and not an ampersand [&]), e.g., Kofi Hughes and Kimberly Fitzgerald, and not Kofi Hughes & Kimberly Fitzgerald.
  3. If there are three authors, list all their names. Remember not to use an ampersand [&], e.g., Kofi Hughes, Kimberly Fitzgerald and Araba Mensah.
  4. If more than three authors, list the first author and use “and others”. E.g., Kofi Hughes and others.

 

Constitutions

Cite the constitutions of countries as follows:

Constitution of Country Year.

E.g.: Constitution of the Republic of Ghana 1992, Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999, Constitution of the Republic of South Africa 1996.

Statutes and other Subsidiary Legislation

Cite as directed by OSCOLA. Do not insert a comma before the year of the statute or subsidiary legislation. In the body of the text, the short title of a statute or subsidiary legislation may be used, and the statute or subsidiary legislation number used thereafter. Authors who prefer to repeat the statute or enactment in full may do so, but they must be consistent and avoid combining the two options provided here.

E.g,: The Companies Act 2019 (Act 992) and not The Companies Act, 2019 (Act 992).

Authors are also welcome to use the short form of the parts of statutes such as ‘s/ss’ for section(s), ‘pt/pts’ for part(s), ‘para/paras’ for paragraph(s), ‘subpara/subparas’ for sub-paragraph(s), and ‘sch/schs’ for schedule(s).

Judicial decisions

Generally, follow OSCOLA subject to the following modifications.

  1. Despite the directions given about case names (e.g., directions not to use terms such as ‘and others’), state case names exactly as stated in the law reports.
  2. Authors can choose between a neutral citation, or the citation stated in the law report. Unlike OSCOLA, authors are not required to state both the neutral citation and the law report citation of the case.
  3. For Africa, neutral citations provided by the African Legal Information Institute and its related country-specific affiliates, including Ghana Legal Information Institute, should be used exactly as stated on their respective websites.
  4. Citations given to cases reported in online law reports such as dennislaw (Ghana), judylegal (Ghana/Nigeria), and eKenya (Kenya), among others, may be used. When an online law report is used, cite case names exactly as stated in the online law report.

Format: If no neutral citation is used: Case name [year] OR (year) volume report abbreviation first page (court), pinpoint.

E.g., Asare v Attorney-General [2003-2004] SCGLR 823 (SC).

If neutral citation is used: Case name [year] court case number.

E.g., Akpass v Ghana Commercial Bank [2021] GHASC 80.

Please note that there is no full stop after the ‘v’.

Books

Citations of books should follow OSCOLA. However, the publisher's name should not be abbreviated (E.g., Cambridge University Press should not be abbreviated as CUP).

Format: Name of Author, Title of Book (Edition, Publisher Year of Publication)

E.g., Akosua Adoma Perbi, A History of Indigenous Slavery in Ghana: From the 15th to the 19th Century (Sub-Saharan Publishers 2004).

PS Attiyah, An Introduction to the Law of Contract (5th edn, Oxford University Press 1995).

Book Chapters

Follow OSCOLA. However, do not abbreviate the publisher’s name.

Format: Name of Author, ‘Title of Chapter’ in Editor’s Name (ed), Title of Work (Publisher Year of Publication).

Example: Patrick Glenn, ‘Sustainable Diversity on Law’ in Brian Z Tamanaha, Caroline Sage and Michael Woolcock (eds), Legal Pluralism and Development: Scholars and Practitioners in Dialogue (Cambridge University Press 2012).

Articles

Cite in the same way as OSCOLA. However, journal names should be written in full and not abbreviated. Remember to use round brackets for the year of publication if there is a volume number. Use square brackets if there is no volume number.

Format:  Name of Author, ‘Title of Journal Article’ (Year of Publication), Volume Number (Issue Number), Title of Journal First Page, Pinpoint (if necessary). 

Name of Author, ‘Title of Journal Article’ [Year of Publication] Title of Journal First Page, Pinpoint (if necessary). 

E.g., Niclas Dahlvang, ‘Thieves, Robbers, and Terrorists: Piracy in the 21st Century’ (2006) 4 Regent Journal of International Law 17.

  1. F. Morris, ‘How Nigeria Got Its Criminal Code’ (1970) 14(3) Journal of African Law 137.

Online Articles/Research or Working Papers

Follow OSCOLA but state the journal name in full. 

Author, ‘Title’ [year] OR (year), Volume/Issue Journal Name <web address> Date Accessed.

E.g., Online Journal: Eric Y Tenkorang, ‘Physical, Sexual, and Psychosocial Health Impacts of Child Abuse: Evidence from Ghana’ (2023) 57 Advances in Life Course Research 100559 < https://doi.org/10.1016/j.alcr.2023.100559> accessed 20 April 2024.

Research Paper: John Reynolds, ‘The Long Shadow of Colonialism: The Origins of the Doctrine of Emergency in International Human Rights’ (2010) Osgoode Hall Law School Comparative Research in Law & Political Economy Research Paper 19/2010. <https:// digitalcommons.osgoode.yorku.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1086&context=clpe> accessed 12 August 2021.

Unpublished Thesis

Cite in the same way as OSCOLA.

Format: Author, ‘Title of Work’ (Thesis Type, Year).

E.g., Robert Yaw Afram, ‘Gender and the Ghana Armed Forces: An Examination of Women Integration and Operational Effectiveness’ (Mphil Thesis, University of Development Studies 2011).

Internet sources such as websites and blogs

Cite in the same way as OSCOLA.

Format: Name of Author, ‘Title of Work’ (Source, Date of Publication) <link> access date.

E.g., Hassan Isilow, ‘Botswana Seeks 6-Month Long COVID-19 State of Emergency’ (AA, 8 April 2020) <https://www.aa.com.tr/en/africa/botswana-seeks-6-month-long-covid-19-state-of-emergency/1797908> accessed 13 August 2021.

Commonly Cited International Legal Instruments

The following is a list of commonly cited international legal instruments in the Journal. They should be cited as stated in the list below.

  1. Universal Declaration of Human Rights (adopted 10 December 1948) UNGA Res 217 A(III).
  2. International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 23 March 1976) 999 UNTS 171.
  3. International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (adopted 16 December 1966, entered into force 3 January 1976) 993 UNTS 3.
  4. The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (adopted 10 December 1982, entered into force, 16 November 1994) 1833 UNTS 3.
  5. Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (adopted 18 December 1979, entered into force 3 September 1981) 1249 UNTS 13.
  6. African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (adopted 27 June 1981, entered into force 21 October 1986) (1982) 21 ILM 58.
  7. Convention on the Rights of the Child (adopted 20 November 1989, entered into force 2 September 1990) 1577 UNTS 3.
  8. American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man, OAS Res XXX adopted by the Ninth International Conference of American States (1948) reprinted in Basic Documents Pertaining to Human Rights in the Inter-American System OEA/Ser L V/II.82 Doc 6 Rev 1 at 17 (1992).
  9. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (adopted 13 December 2006, entered into force 3 May 2008) 2515 UNTS 3.

International law sources should be cited strictly in accordance with the OSCOLA 2006 Guide for International Law Sources.

Miscellaneous

Sources not mentioned here should be cited exactly as stated in the OSCOLA Guides for both domestic and international law sources. Where primary legal authorities cannot be cited using OSCOLA, they should be cited in the way in which they are cited in their respective jurisdictions.

QUOTATIONS

  1. Use single smart quotation marks, (‘’) and not (' ').
  2. Double quotation marks should only be used when a quote is in a quote.
  3. Where emphasis is added, the term ‘emphasis added’ or similar variants should be placed in the footnotes.
  4. Punctuation at the end of quotations should be inserted after the closing quotation mark unless the punctuation is an integral part of the quotation or the quotation is a complete sentence.  
  5. Quotes of more than 40 words should be indented as a block of text without quotation marks, and a reduced font size of 11 should be used for indented quotes. E.g.,

Legal centralism is a myth, an ideal, a claim, an illusion. Nevertheless, the ideology of legal centralism has had such a powerful hold on the imagination of lawyers and social scientists that its picture of the legal world has been able successfully to masquerade as fact and has formed the foundation stone of social and legal theory.8

8 John Griffiths, ‘What is Legal Pluralism’ (1986) 24 (1) J Legal Pluralism 1, 4.

SUBSEQUENT CITATIONS

Generally, follow the OSCOLA requirements subject to the modifications in this section.

  1. When referring to immediately preceding footnotes, use ‘Ibid’ and not ‘ibid’.

For other subsequent citations (cross-references), cite as follows:

Statutes and other subsidiary legislation: Use the Act number if the statute is Ghanaian. Otherwise, other acceptable short forms of the statute are acceptable.

Cases: Use the first name of the party followed by the footnote number in which the citation first appeared in the form: (n initial footnote number) pinpoint. E.g., Asare v Attorney-General [2003-2004] SCGLR 823 at footnote 1 becomes at footnote 5 Asare (n 1) 825. Where the case is a criminal case, use the name of the accused if the first party is the ‘Republic’ or the ‘Crown’ or similar renditions.

Secondary sources: Use the author's surname (s) followed by the footnote number in which the citation first appeared in the form: (n initial footnote number) pinpoint. For instance, Footnote 1 with the reference Louis B Sohn, ‘The New International Law: Protection of the Rights of Individuals Rather than States’ (1982) 32 American University Law Review 11, 12 becomes at footnote 5 Sohn (n 1) 13.

Where a single author has more than one work cited in the submission, a short description should be inserted after the surname to clarify which specific work is being referred to in the manuscript.

For instance, if an author, Christine Dowuona-Hammond, has two publications cited as follows:

  1. Christine Dowuona-Hammond, ‘Consumer Law and Policy in Ghana’ (2018) 41(4) Journal of Consumer Policy 333.
  2. Christine Dowuona-Hammond, The Law of Contract in Ghana (Frontiers Publishing & Printing 2011).

 

Cross references would look like this:

Dowuona-Hammond, ‘Consumer Law and Policy in Ghana’ (n 1).

Dowuona-Hammond, The Law of Contract in Ghana (n 2).