Guide for Authors

Submission of manuscripts. The editorial team invites authors to send in their manuscripts for publication in the Central European Journal of Comparative Law  to the following e-mail address: reka.pusztahelyi@centraleuropeanacademy.hu. These must be written in English and submitted in the Word format (doc/docx). The Journal neither collects ASCs (article submission charges) nor APCs (article processing charges). The authors incur no fee for the submission or processing of their work. The Journal publishes articles containing 40,000 to 60,000 characters, including spaces, footnotes, tables, captions, and references because of the requirement of brevity. On an ad hoc basis, it publishes book reviews and notes on case law.

Publication frequency. The Journal is published twice a year. A year's two issues constitute a volume. The first issue of each volume is published in June of the current year at the latest. The second issue of each volume is published in December of the current year at the latest. The editorial team asks the authors to submit their manuscript to the first issue of the given volume by 28 February at the latest, to the second issue of the given volume by 30 September at the latest.

Author information. The editorial team invites the authors to attach the following necessary information as a separate document: name and academic degree(s)/title(s) of the author, institutional affiliation (as the author wants it to appear in the Journal) and her/his position (e.g. full-time professor, associate professor, assistant professor, etc.), e-mail address, ORCID number, abstract (250-300 words), and five to seven keywords.

Ethics in publishing. The Journal endorses and follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE: https://publicationethics.org). For detailed information on the requirements of ethics, see the ‘Code of Ethics.’

Peer-review. The manuscript must not contain information pertaining to the author(s). Every manuscript undergoes a pre-check regarding its general suitability. Those that make it into the following round of evaluation are sent for the process of anonymous peer review. The editorial board appoints two peer reviewers (experts) from the members of the editorial board and external reviewers. The reviewers are chosen on the basis of their expertise on the given topic. Since the peer-review is anonymous, the reviewer provides opinions on anonymised manuscripts. The author must acknowledge only the content of the peer review. The editorial board brings to the peers’ attention that the final decision of publication falls within the competence of the editorial board, and it does not pay remunerations for the peer review, but issues certificates of participation in the peer review on request. For more information on peer-reviewing, see the ‘Code of Ethics.’

If necessary, the linguistic proofreader may correct some paragraphs of the manuscript or make recommendations for the revision of the text. Hence, the linguistic proofreader does not correct large portions of the text. If the linguistic proofreader does not pass the manuscript for publication for the third time, this results in its final rejection.

Declaration of exclusivity. The editorial team invites the authors, when they submit their manuscripts, to make a declaration that they have not recommended their manuscripts for publication to other publishers and which have not been published previously. The Journal does not publish any manuscript that does not meet this requirement.

Formal requirements

With regard to manuscript formatting please download our sample document for manuscripts here.

    1. Manuscript text must be in Times New Roman, font size 12, single-spaced, and justified. This applies to abstract and keywords as well. Footnotes must adhere to the same, except in case of the font size, which must be 10.
    2. Quotes longer than 40 words must be highlighted by using margins or smaller font size. Please use double quotation marks for double citations and single quotation marks for single citations, specific words, and phrases.
    3. Please use short titles, subtitles, and headings.
    4. Please use footnotes, not endnotes. These must be ordered using Arabic numerals. If necessary, please mark the origin of the text next to the title with an asterisk. Please also indicate the acknowledgements for persons and scholarships next to the title. Please mark this note at the bottom of the first page.
    5. A reference list (bibliography) is required at the end, on a separate page.
    6. Please use Arabic numerals because of the unification of chapters and subheadings (1., 1.1., 1.1.1). 
    7. Regarding citations, footnotes, and the reference list, please use the (adapted) Harvard Referencing Style Guide.
    8. Please use the DOI-numbers of the cited works in the reference list after the requested forms of citations detailed in the Harvard Referencing Style Guide.
    9. Please do not use colourful tables, charts, and pictures in your manuscript.
    10. Given that each country names and numbers its legal sources (laws, judgments and orders) differently, authors may indicate these sources in their manuscript at their own discretion, with the additional requirements of clarity and consistency. 

 

Harvard Reference Style Guide:

Authors shall use footnote references (I.) and a reference list (II.). (Note: Examples below are written boldly for the sake of clarity, but the references of the manuscript shall not be written with bold letters.)

 

I. Footnote references must be included following the use of a quote or paraphrase taken from another piece of work. Footnote references are abbreviated forms of the sources in the reference list. In footnote references authors shall use the abbreviated form even for the first time of citing a source. Footnote references refer to a quote or paraphrase. They are much shorter than full references. The full reference of footnote citations appears in the reference list. Footnote citations contain the author(s)’s or editor(s)’s surname, year of publication and page number(s). Note: p. refers to a single page, pp. refers to a range of pages.

  • In case of citing a source with one author, this takes the form: Mitchell, 2017, p. 189.
  • In case of citing a source with two or three authors, state all surnames like so: Field and Solie, 2007, p. 254.
  • In case of citing a source with four or more authors, the first author’s surname should be stated followed by ‘et al’: Donatelli et al., 2010, p. 65.
  • If referencing multiple works from one author released in the same year, the works are allocated a letter (a, b, c etc) after the year. This allocation is done in the reference list so is done alphabetically according to the author's surname and source title: Mitchell, 2017b, p. 189.
  • In case of citing different editions of the same work, include the author(s)’s name only once followed by all the appropriate dates separated by semicolons: Mitchell, 2010; 2017.
  • In case of citing a reference with no date, simply state ‘no date’ in place of the year: Mitchell, no date, p. 189.
  • In case of citing a secondary source, state the reference you used first followed by ‘cited in’ and the original author: Smith, 2000, cited in Mitchell, 2017, p. 189.

 

II. A reference list is a complete list of all the sources used when creating a piece of work. This list includes information about the sources like the author, date of publication, title of the source and more. A Harvard reference list shall…

  • be on a separate page at the end of the document;
  • be organised alphabetically by author, unless there is no author then it is ordered by the source title, excluding articles such as a, an or the;
    • [Note: If there are multiple works by the same author these are ordered by date, if the works are in the same year they are ordered alphabetically by the title and are allocated a letter (a,b,c etc) after the date.]
  • be double spaced: there should be a full, blank line of space between each line of text;
  • contain full references for all footnote references used.

The different sources shall be cited in the following ways:

  • In case of citing a book, the format is as follows: Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year published) Title (italicised). Edition. Place of publication: publisher. For example: Brown, S. (2007) The Regulation of Consumer Credit: A Transatlantic Analysis. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing; https://doi.org/10.4337/9781784712495.
  • In case of citing an edited book, the format is as follows: Editor surname(s), initial(s). (ed(s).) (Year). Title of book. Edition. Place of publication: publishers. For example: Alabrese, M., Brunori, M., Rolandi, S., Saba, A. (eds.) (2017) Agricultural Law, 1st edn. New York City: Springer International Publishing; https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64756-2.
  • In case of citing a chapter in an edited book, the format is as follows: Author surname(s), initial(s) (Year) ‘Title of chapter’ in editor(s) surname, initial(s) (ed(s).) Title of book. Edition. Place of publication: publisher, page numbers. For example: Alabrese, M. (2017) Agricultural Law from a Global Perspective: An Introduction’ in Alabrese, M., Brunori, M., Rolandi, S., Saba, A. (eds.) Agricultural Law, 1st edn. New York City: Springer International Publishing, pp. 1–12; https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64756-2_1.
  • In case of citing a journal article, the format is as follows: Author name(s), initial(s) (Year published) ‘Title of article’, Title, Volume(Issue/Season/Number etc.), page numbers. For example: Jacobs, S.B. (2019) The Statutory Separation of Powers’, The Yale Law Journal, 129(2), pp. 378–444. [Note: If the journal does not use numeration for volumes, please use the following format after the title of the journal: Year/Issue, page numbers. For example: 2019/2, pp. 107–121.]
  • In case of citing an online journal or newspaper article, the format is as follows: Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year) ‘Title of article’, Title of journal, Volume(Issue/Season) [online]. Available at: URL or DOI (Accessed: day month year). For example: Szilágyi, J.E. (2019) ‘Systematization and some current issues of water law and water regulation in the framework of the European Union’, Journal of Agricultural and Environmental Law, 14(26), pp. 255–275 [Online]. Available at:  https://doi.org/10.21029/JAEL.2019.26.255 (Accessed: 11 March 2022).
  • In case of citing a website, the format is as follows: Author surname(s), initial(s). (Year of publishing) Title of page/site [Online]. Available at: URL (Accessed: day month year). For example: Mitchell, J.A. (2017) How and when to reference [Online]. Available at: https://www.howandwhentoreference.com/ (Accessed: 27 May 2017).

 

 

List of abbreviations:

Please use the following abbreviations in your manuscripts:

  • art. – article
  • et al. – and others
  • etc. – and so on
  • vol. / vols. – volume / volumes
  • c. – approximately
  • ms. – manuscript
  • edn. – edition
  • ed. / eds. – editor / editors
  • p. / pp. – page / pages
  • para. / paras. – paragraph / paragraphs
  • e.g. – for example
  • pt. / pts. – part / parts
  • cf. – compare
  • ibid. – at the same place
  • ip. – in press