About the Journal

Online ISSN: 2048-481X

Focus and Scope

Amicus Curiae (‘Friend of the Court’) is intended to serve as a lively and informative publication for raising and exploring important legal issues. Many practitioners, academics, members of the judiciary and others involved with the legal process have made time in their busy lives to contribute to the journal. Influential and informative articles on many legal issues have appeared in Amicus Curiae and retained significance with the passage of time. Two of the greatest strengths of Amicus Curiae are the quality of its contributors and the breadth of coverage. The scope, reflecting the prestigious international reputation of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, includes: UK, European, Foreign, International and Comparative Law.

Amicus Curiae is published online three times a year by the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies.

Peer Review Process

All articles are externally peer-reviewed under an open peer review model. Double blind external peer review may be requested by the author(s). The Editor of the journal makes all final decisions on articles.

Competing interests that could impact the impartiality of the review should be declared and reviewers should only accept work they are qualified to review. The review process is confidential, therefore, information obtained during the peer review process should not be shared with others outside the process.

Open Access Policy

Amicus Curiae is an open access journal; articles are both free and unrestricted to read. There are no Article Processing Charges (APCs).

The journal is open access and free of charge. Providing immediate and full open access to all of its contents, including an archive of past issues from 1997 onwards, is a policy given additional emphasis in the New Series (commencing autumn 2019) and is based on the principle that making research freely available to the public encourages a greater exchange of knowledge and mutual understanding. It also demonstrates the firm commitment of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies to furthering open access as a member of the worldwide Free Access to Law Movement (FALM). FALM is an international voluntary association of over 50 member institutes and organizations around the world which subscribe to the Declaration on Free Access to Law and collaborate in the free provision of legal information and on global policy issues. Member organizations based in many important jurisdiction and regions around the world are also listed on the members page. The Declaration stresses that public legal information from all countries and international institutions is part of the common heritage of humanity, that maximizing access to this information promotes justice and the rule of law, and that public legal information is digital common property and should be accessible to all on a non-profit basis and free of charge.

Licensing

All articles published in Amicus Curiae are published under a CC-BY (Creative Commons Attribution) licence, and are made immediately available open access.

CC-BY licence means you can share and adapt articles. If you do this you must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the licence, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

This journal permits and encourages authors to post items submitted to the journal on personal websites or institutional repositories or academic pre-prints both prior to and after publication, while providing bibliographic details that credit, if applicable, its publication in this journal.

Please note that UKRI-funded authors are required to acknowledge support received from UKRI in their article. Please add this at the end of your article under the heading ‘Funding’. UKRI-funded authors must also include a Data Access Statement with your article to inform readers where underlying research materials associated with a paper are available and how these can be accessed (see Annex 1 of UKRI’s Open Access Policy here for more guidance on the requirement for in-scope articles).

Abstracting & Indexing

Articles published in Amicus Curiae are indexed in the following outlets:

  • HeinOnline
  • Google Scholar
  • SAS-Space Repository

Archiving

  • PKP Preservation Network (PN)

Publication Ethics

The journal team strive to uphold publication and research ethics across its processes in line with COPE publication ethics.

Research and Publication Misconduct 

The editorial and production team take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of articles where research and/or publication misconduct has occurred. In the event that the editorial and production team are made aware of such misconduct, it will be investigated with care and attention and the appropriate actions taken.

Authorship and Contributions

All authors and co-authors should give consent to have the article published. In the event that authorship of an article changes, all authors will need to give their written approval.

Conflict of Interest

Authors are required to declare any conflict of interests. Examples of conflicts of interest may include funding received to conduct the research, employment at a related company and holding stocks or shares in a related company.
If you do not have a conflict of interest, authors should write a statement in the article to declare this.

Post-publication Corrections and Retractions

Minor errors will not be corrected after publication. Only errors of fact or if the interpretation of the argument presented is impacted may agree we agree to the publication of a correction note with the article.

 

Disclaimer

The Society for Advanced Legal Studies and the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies do not accept responsibility for the accuracy of contributions or statements appearing in this publication. The views expressed by the authors of contributions should not be regarded as the official view of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies or the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, except where explicitly stated.

Journal History

Amicus Curiae is the official journal of both the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London, and its Society for Advanced Legal Studies. Amicus Curiae aims to promote scholarship and research that involves academics, the legal profession and those involved in the administration of law. The print journal began publication in 1997, was relaunched as a New Series in 2019 and is published three times a year by the Society for Advanced Legal Studies at the IALS.