Author Guidelines

Ius Comparatum: Journal of Law Studies (ICJLS) welcomes original manuscripts in comparative legal studies. Before submitting, authors should read these guidelines together with the journal's Focus and Scope, Publication Ethics, Plagiarism Policy, and Generative AI Policy. Authors must use the journal's official Manuscript Template and are asked to delete any unused instructional text before submission.

1. Types of Manuscripts Accepted

The journal's official template covers the Original Research Article, a doctrinal, empirical, socio-legal, or critical legal studies analysis that compares legal norms, institutions, or practices across at least two jurisdictions, legal traditions, or cultures, consistent with the journal's Focus and Scope. Beyond this primary type, ICJLS may also consider a Review Article, a Case Note or Case Commentary, and an invited Book Review, though the template and formatting requirements for these three have not yet been confirmed by the editorial board. Authors intending to submit one of these should contact the editorial office in advance.

2. General Requirements

  • Manuscripts must be written in formal English.
  • Manuscripts must be original, unpublished, and not under review elsewhere, consistent with the journal's Plagiarism Policy.
  • The manuscript must engage in comparison across at least two jurisdictions, legal systems, or legal-cultural contexts, using a normative, empirical, socio-legal, critical legal studies, post-modern, or other comparative approach.
  • Length: 6,000 to 8,000 words including the bibliography, or no more than 20 pages.
  • Formatting: Book Antiqua font throughout; 2.5 cm margins; single spacing for the title block and abstract; 1.15 spacing for the body text.
  • Any use of generative AI tools in preparing the manuscript must be disclosed in accordance with the journal's Generative AI Policy.

3. Manuscript Structure

  1. Title. No more than 15 words, capitalized at the beginning of each word except conjunctions, bold, centered, 14 pt.
  2. Author(s), Affiliation(s), and Corresponding Email. Full name and institutional affiliation for each author, and the corresponding author's email address. Author identity is removed from the manuscript file itself to support double-blind review.
  3. Abstract. No more than 250 words, 10 pt font, single spacing. Must state the research purpose, main issues, method, findings, and conclusion, and must make clear the novelty of the research and how it differs from prior studies.
  4. Keywords. Three to five keywords.
  5. Introduction. Must describe adequate background and significance, a brief survey of previous studies related to the title and their limitations, the scientific merit or novelty of the paper, the objectives of the study, and the structure of the article or research question.
  6. Method. Must describe the method, nature, and type of research, the approach used, and data collection techniques, and must include a comparative approach. Normative, empirical, socio-legal studies, critical legal studies, post-modern, and other approaches are accepted.
  7. Result and Discussion. The core analytical section. Findings should be summarized clearly and concisely rather than presented as raw data, and should highlight how they differ from prior publications by other researchers. Tables and figures are presented centered and cited in the text; figures must have a resolution of at least 300 DPI, and tables should use an open model without vertical lines.
  8. Conclusion. Must answer the research objective and state the study's contribution, not merely repeat the discussion or abstract.
  9. References. A minimum of 30 references is required, at least 80 percent consisting of books or scientific articles, with a preference for sources published in the last five years.
  10. Author(s) Biography. A short descriptive biography of each author, no more than 150 words per author.

4. Citation Style

Citations must use a footnote model, in Chicago Manual of Style (full note) format, generated automatically using reference management software such as Mendeley or Zotero. Laws and regulations may be written separately and manually if an author has difficulty formatting them through Mendeley or Zotero. Footnotes are not limited to citing sources; authors are encouraged to use them also for supporting notes, arguments, or brief remarks. Plagiarism and excessive reliance on internet media as sources are strictly avoided.

5. Submission Process

Manuscripts are submitted through the journal's online system, supported by the Open Journal System (OJS). To facilitate authors, the journal also temporarily accepts submissions by email at icjls@upnvj.ac.id. Every submission passes through editorial assessment, similarity screening with Turnitin, and double-blind peer review, as described in the journal's Peer Reviewer Process.

6. Ethics and Originality

Authors must comply with the journal's Publication Ethics and Plagiarism Policy. Before publication, authors are required to sign an Author Statement of Originality, as described in the journal's Copyright Policy.

7. Copyright and Licensing

ICJLS holds the copyright of published articles, which are distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0). Full terms are available in the journal's Copyright Policy.

8. Author Fee

Details of any submission, processing, or publication fee are stated on the journal's Author Fee page.

Contact

Questions about manuscript preparation or the submission process should be directed to:

Editor-in-Chief, Ius Comparatum: Journal of Law Studies
Faculty of Law, Universitas Pembangunan Nasional "Veteran" Jakarta
Jl. RS. Fatmawati, Pondok Labu, Jakarta Selatan 12450
Email: icjls@upnvj.ac.id