Submissions

 PULP Style Guidelines

Aims and scope

The AJCLJ aims to contribute towards strengthening African scholarship and voices on climate change law and justice. Africa faces significant challenges from climate change despite its minimal contribution to the phenomenon. Key vulnerable sectors include water resources, food security, biodiversity, and human health. Legal responses at international, regional, and national levels are emerging, with African states actively formulating domestic laws for adaptation and mitigation. Balancing development with climate action raises concerns around fairness and equity, with a growing focus on litigation related to climate change and human rights. The AJCLJ aims to address the scarcity of journals focusing on climate law and justice in Africa, thus providing a platform for research and analysis to enhance African scholarship on climate change issues.

Instructions for authors

The submission must be original.

The submission must indicate that it has not already been published or submitted elsewhere.

Articles that do not conform to the Journal’s style guidelines will be rejected

Manuscripts will not be considered if the English is below standard. In case of doubt about the correct use of the English language, authors are advised to have their text checked by a native English speaker before submission.

All authors are obliged to provide retractions or corrections of mistakes when so required by the publisher or editors.

The AJCLJ utilises plagiarism detection software. Therefore, ensure that submissions do not infringe other persons’ intellectual property rights.

Papers should average between 5 000 and 10 000 words (including footnotes) in length. Shorter pieces such as case note or book reviews are also welcome

The manuscript should be in Arial, 12 point (footnotes 10 point), 1½ spacing.

Authors of contributions are to supply their university degrees, academic qualifications (with institutions where obtained) and professional or academic status.

Authors need to provide their ORCID identifier. ORCID provides a persistent digital identifier that distinguishes them from every other researcher and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between them and their professional activities ensuring that their work is recognised. If authors do not have such an ID, they can register at the website https://orcid.org/register.

Authors should supply an abstract of between 250 and 300 words, and at least four keywords.

 Footnotes must be numbered consecutively. Footnote numbers should be in superscript without any surrounding brackets.

The manuscript will be submitted to a referee for evaluation. The editors reserve the right to change manuscripts to make them in conformity with the house style, to improve accuracy, to eliminate mistakes and ambiguity, and to bring the manuscript in line with the tenets of plain legal language.

General style to be followed by authors

First reference to books: eg UO Umozurike The African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (1997) 21.

First reference to journal articles: eg C Anyangwe ‘Obligations of states parties to the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights’ (1998) 10 African Journal of International and Comparative Law 625.

Subsequent references to footnote in which first reference was made: eg Patel & Walters (n 34) 243.

Use UK English.

 Proper nouns used in the body of the article are written out in full the first time they are used, but abbreviated the next time, eg the United Nations (UN).

 Words such as ‘article’ and ‘section’ are written out in full in the text.

Where possible, abbreviations should be used in footnotes, eg ch; para; paras; art; arts; sec; secs. No full stops should be used. Words in a foreign language should be italicised. Numbering should be done as follows:

1
2
3.1
3.2.1

Do NOT use automatic page numbering in headings.

Smart single quotes should be used; if something is quoted within a quotation, double quotation marks should be used for that section.

Quotations longer than 30 words should be indented and in 10 point, in which case no quotation marks are necessary.

The names of authors should be written as follows: FH Anant.

Where more than one author are involved, use ‘&’: eg FH Anant & SCH Mahlangu.

Dates should be written as follows (in text and footnotes): 28 November 2001.

Numbers up to ten are written out in full; from 11 use numerals.

Capitals are not used for generic terms ‘constitution’, but when a specific country’s constitution is referred to, capitals are used (‘Constitution’).

Official titles are capitalised: eg ‘the President of the Constitutional Court’.

Refer to PULP guidelines for additional aspects of house style.

Copyright and licensing: 

The copyright of articles is retained by the author/s who also retain publishing rights.

Author fees

No fees or charges are required for manuscript processing and/or publishing materials in the journal.

Process for indentification of and dealing with allegations of research misconduct

The AJCLJ has a strict policy of screening manuscripts for plagiarism. The AJCLJ uses the Turnitin software to detect plagiarism prior to considering a submitted manuscript for review. Manuscripts displaying plagiarism may be rejected on this ground alone. Authors not adhering to the Journal's policy that verbatim quotes must be clearly indicated as such may be requested to revise their articles in light of this requirement.

Authors should observe high standards with respect to publication ethics as set out in the guidelines adopted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines). Any cases of ethical misconduct will be treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with these guidelines.

Publication ethics

In the event that the AJCLJ publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct, the publisher or editor will investigate and act upon such allegations.

When information comes to the attention of the publisher or editors of the AJCLJ that requires the retraction or correction of a published article, the matter must be investigated and acted upon appropriately.  The AJCLJ is committed to publishing corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies when so required, in the issue immediately following, in line with COPE guidelines.

Publishing schedule

Annually  

Direct marketing

Any direct marketing activities, including solicitation of manuscripts that are conducted on behalf of the journal, will be appropriate, well targeted, and unobtrusive.

Information provided about the publisher or journal is truthful and not misleading for readers or authors.

Use of AI by authors

All authors are fully responsible for the originality, validity, and integrity of the content of their manuscript. Authors submitting manuscripts to the African Journal of Climate Law and Justice have to confirm that the manuscript is their original work and that the work of others has been appropriately attributed.

As such, AI-generated substantive content will not be considered for publication. Any submission found to include AI-generated substantive content will be declined, or retracted if already published. Concealing the use of AI tools is unethical and violates the principles of transparency and honesty in research.

AI tools may however be used to guide the author to adopt a particular method, or to assist the author in conducting research, for example to find relevant sources. Such use and the extent thereof must be declared at the time of submission in the cover letter and detailed in the methods, as set out in the manuscript. The declaration of such use should include the name, version, and manufacturer of the tool used, and the date on which it was accessed, for example: Chat GTP 3.5, Version 28 August 2023, Open AI, accessed 1 January 2024. The ‘prompt’ or plain-language instruction entered in the tool should also be provided, where relevant, either in the methods section of the manuscript or as supplementary material to the manuscript.

However, AI and large language models may be used to revise and edit original writing. On the one hand, the use of AI tools to conduct a general edit, to translate and to summarise papers or large sections of writing is permitted, but needs to be disclosed. On the other hand, the use of commonly used AI tools to conduct spelling and grammar checks, is permitted but does not need to be disclosed. However, authors should exercise discretion when using these tools. It is important to carefully scrutinise the suggestions provided by AI tools to avoid the misinterpretation of the context or terminology.

The table summarises these stipulations as they apply to authors:

For reviewers

Reviewers are responsible for evaluating manuscripts of articles, fairly and objectively, with a focus on quality and originality.

Reviewers should not rely on AI-based tools to write decision letters on their behalf without proper human oversight. Experience and knowledge are crucial in this process, supported by various tools such as plagiarism detection programmes, statistical analysis software, and academic search engines, many of which are provided by AI applications. Reviewers should carefully check for incorrect terminology that may have been suggested by spelling and editing tools.

Reviewers using AI applications and content must adhere to ethical standards and best practices and document their use of AI tools in the review reports. Hiding the use of AI tools is unethical and undermines transparency in peer review.

Reviewers must consider the impact and implications of AI-generated content in publication. They need to be aware of the tools and resources that facilitate the detection of AI-generated or modified content. Reviewers are called upon to identify misinformation as this can have adverse consequences.

All submitted manuscripts and correspondence by reviewers with the Journals’ editors should be treated as confidential and not shared in any way.

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