To submit an article online, and to check the status of your submission, you need to have an account with Amsterdam Law Forum
Don't have an account? Register Here.
Start SubmissionAmsterdam Law Forum is the online journal from the faculty of law of VU University. It serves as a platform for academic work, opinions and has a literary review. The Editorial Board, which is fully comprised of international and Dutch law students, is responsible for the journal to be published four times a year. We are delighted that you chose to write for our journal. For submission you have to follow these simple steps:
Please use Firefox or Chrome as your browser, as some IE versions experience problems when logging in.
Style sheet
1. Lay-out
You are kindly requested to format your article according to the following rules of style.
2. Abstract
If you are writing a scientific contribution, please make sure that the abstract is formatted according to the following rules.
The word 'Abstract' should be placed above the abstract, centered, neither in bold nor italics.
3. Specific points of style
4. Abbreviations
Abbreviations that are in common use (UN, EC, EU, US, NATO) need not be given in full on first use. Other abbreviations should be spelled out on first use with the abbreviation given immediately following in parentheses, e.g. World Health Organization (WHO). However, do not use an abbreviation if the name in question is only mentioned a few times – always give it in full.
Acronyms and lettered abbreviations will be rendered with no stops.
Terms such as ‘article’, ‘resolution’, ‘paragraph’, and ‘declaration’ should not be abbreviated (unless they are given in footnotes, see below). Paragraph numbers of articles should be given in parentheses, e.g. ‘Article 5(6b)’; ‘Article XII(1)’.
5. Bullets and Numbering
All bullets should be black dots. For indented bullets, use horizontal dashes.
- and this
Use common Arab numbers, and no roman numbers. For indented numbers, use Latin letters
6. Numbers and Dates
Numerals will be written out up to and including ten; 11 and above will be given in figures.
Number spans are elided to the shortest pronounceable form, so 375–6, not 375–76 or 375–376 (but 317–18).
Use the form day–month–year, e.g. 2 November 2002.
Decades: always use ‘1960s’, not ‘sixties’ or ‘60s’. Centuries are spelt out.
7. Capitalisation
Avoid capitalisation as much as possible – when they are used generically do not capitalize such words or phrases as ‘state’, ‘state parties’, ‘members’, ‘contracting parties’, ‘treaty’, and so on.
Courts, tribunal chambers and personnel: capitalise specific chambers, such as ‘Appeals Chamber’, ‘Trial Chamber I’, a generic term such as ‘trial chamber’ should not be capitalized. Where the formal functions of the Office of the Prosecutor are being discussed, then ‘Prosecutor’ should be capitalised, but it should not be when the term is used generically. Similarly, ‘defence’, ‘defendant’, ‘accused’, ‘applicant’, ‘respondent’, ‘judge’, and so on should not be capitalised. When a reference is made to the contracting parties of GATT as a body, leave capitalisation the way the author has indicated.
Spelling, miscellaneous
Please note that the following should be used:
‐ First World War, Second World War, not World War I, World War II
‐ ‘jus’, not ‘ius’ (except where the latter is given in a quotation)
‐ ‐ise endings
- 'our' spelling, e.g. 'neighbour'
‐ third world (noun), third‐world (adjective) G7, etc.
‐ fora
‐ co‐operation, co‐ordination etc.
‐ 2 bis, ter etc.
8. Citations
Citations should always be in the form of footnotes. Never use in-text references. A bibliography at the end of the text is not required.
Authors are kindly asked to follow the OSCOLA referencing system. A comprehensive guideline can be found on https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/sites/files/oxlaw/oscola_4th_edn_hart_2012.pdf
As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.