Submissions

Author Guidelines

ASLJ HOUSE STYLE / AUTHOR’S GUIDELINES: 

These guidelines relate to manuscript format and layout, including types of documents published, format, standards, etc.

Articles should be submitted in the house style of ASLJ. General rules and guidelines appear below.  To the extent that the guidelines are not complete, authors may contact ASLJ.

1. An article should be between 4,000 and 6,000 words, and may not be accepted if it exceeds this length. Case notes should not exceed 4,000 words.

1. An abstract of approximately 250—300 words must accompany the article.
2. 10 keywords must be indicated.

2. All submissions should be anonymised. If accepted for publication, all submissions are headed by (a) the title (b) the author’s name and (c) the author’s current position on three separate lines, as follows: Please note that the author(s) full affiliation is required, including plus the geographic location: the Unit (where applicable), Department/School, University, City and Country  

Monitoring the implementation of socio-economic rights in South Africa: Some lessons from the international community

NOMTHANDAZO NTLAMA

Lecturer, Department of Public Law, University of the Western Cape, Bellville, South Africa

Note: academic qualifications are not stated.

2.1 NB: ORCiDs of the author(s) need to be included. These will assist to correctly identify authors who may share the same / similar names. Please follow the link to register for your own ORCiD if you have not done so already.

2.2 JOINT AUTHORS: 

• At the end of each article the contribution of each author and collaborator needs to be stated, e.g. Author A did the data analysis and wrote the manuscript. Author B did the fieldwork and interpretation of the findings. Author C did the revision and approval of the final version of the manuscript. 

3. Subheadings are in bold capitals and numbered, thus:

1 INTRODUCTION

4. Second-tier subheadings are in bold lower-case and numbered as follows:

1.2 Theories of state sovereignty

5. Third-tier and further subheadings are in lower-case italics and numbered as follows:

1.2.1 The normative debate

6. The first line of each new paragraph (except the first new paragraph following any subheading) is indented.
7. Quotations are placed in double quotation marks.  Quotations within quotations are in single quotation marks.
8. Italics(NOT underlining) are used for emphasis and for foreign words in the text.  “Foreign words” refers to words or phrases NOT listed in a standard English dictionary (a free version of the Oxford Dictionary is available online at http://www.askoxford.com/?view=uk). A phrase such as “ad hoc”, which is listed in the dictionary, is therefore not italicised.
9. Abbreviations of words (for example, “s” instead of “section”) are used in footnotes, but NOT in the text. Abbreviations of terms are given in brackets the first time the term is used (either in the text or in a footnote); thereafter the abbreviation should be used. For example:

The Promotion of Access to Information Act 2 of 2000 (“PAIA”).

10. Extended quotations of more than three lines are reproduced as separate paragraphs and indented.

References and citations

11. As a rule, lower case is used for title of books, chapters and articles except for proper names, titles and other words that are normally capitalised.
12. Titles of statutes are NOT in italics (e.g. Labour Relations Act 66 of 1995).
13. In a first reference to books, they are cited as follows:  author’s surname and initial, title of book (in italics); edition, place of publication, publisher and year of publication (in brackets). For example:

Brown C Principles of private international law: An introduction 7th ed Oxford: Oxford University Press (2008) at 228.

If there are more authors than one, or one or more editors, the same style is followed with the necessary adjustments:

Brown C & Green B Principles of private international law: An introduction 8th ed  (2011)

Wilmhurst E & Breau S (eds) Perspectives on the ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law  (2007)

14. Chapters in books: Titles of chapters should be in quotation marks. For example:

McQuoid-Mason D “The role of human rights Institutions in South Africa” in Hossain K, Besselink L, Selassie H & Völker E (eds) Human Rights Commissions and Ombudsman Offices (2000) 618.

15. Articles are cited as follows: author’s surname and initial, title of article (in double quotation marks), year of publication (in brackets), volume and issue number (where applicable), title of journal (in italics) and page on which the article begins – for example:

Zarate J “The emergence of the new dogs of war: private international security companies, international law, and the new world disorder” (1998) 34 Stanford Journal of International Law 75 at 77.

16. Cases are cited with the parties’ names in italics – e.g. Mjondolo Movement SA & another v Premier of KwaZulu-Natal & others 2010 (2) BCLR 99 (CC).
17. Electronic sources: citations should include the date when the source was last visited – for example:

Harvey D “Neoliberalism as Creative Destruction” (2007) 2 (4) Interfacehs at http://www.interfacehs.sp.senac.br/images/artigos/79_pdf.pdf (accessed 17 April 2011).

18. Footnotes(NOT endnotes) are used in the text for references to publications or authorities cited.  Footnotes should be numbered consecutively and inserted using the automatic “Insert footnote” function in MS Word (or equivalent in other word-processing programmes). Add a full stop at the end of each footnote.
19. If a book or article is cited more than once, the second and subsequent citations should give only the surname of the author(s) and year of publication. If more than one publication by the same author from the same year is cited, an abbreviated version of the title may be used to distinguish them:

See Zarate (1998) at 77

See Zarate “The emergence of the new dogs of war” (1998) at 77

20. A full bibliography / list of references must be included at the end of the article. 

The sources cited should be presented alphabetised according to author, under the following categories (as may be relevant):

Books 

Chapters in books

Journal Articles

Legislation

Treaties and Conventions

Case law

Reports 

Internet sources

Theses

The format of the references should be the same as indicated for the footnotes above, with the exception of books, where the details of publisher and place of publication has to be added. No full stops should be added at the end of each source.

Brown C Principles of private international law: An introduction 7th ed Oxford: Oxford University Press (2008)

Brown C & Green B Principles of private international law: An instroduction 8th ed Oxford: Oxford University Press (2011)

McQuoid-Mason D “The role of human rights Institutions in South Africa” in Hossain K, Besselink L, Selassie H & Völker E (eds) Human Rights Commissions and Ombudsman Offices The Hague: Kluwer (2000)

In conclusion

21. United States English is not used. All articles should be spell-checked using “English (South Africa)” or “English (United Kingdom)” as dictionary language.
22. For practical reasons, all articles should be submitted in MS Word or in a word-processing programme (such as OpenOffice) that is compatible with MS Word.