SUBMISIONS

The aim of Critical Legal Thinking (CLT) is to provide a platform for critical legal scholars and allied thinkers to publish theoretically informed comment and analysis on current events.

Since CLT’s launch over a decade ago, we have received millions of views from across the world.  Many of our articles have been cited in academic journals, books, other blogs, as well as mainstream media; and are included in university course reading lists around the world.

We invite authors to submit contributions/articles in accordance with the following guidelines:

1. Articles should be around 2000 words or less.

2. In exceptional circumstances, CLT  editors will consider longer pieces as part of our Long Read section. “Exceptional circumstances” are where extraordinarily good or outstanding material best suits the longer format in a clear and obvious way.

3. Articles should be written in a manner that is as accessible as possible to non-specialists, which means, amongst other things, explaining terms of art when appropriate.

4. Articles should be of political, legal, social, cultural, or (critical) theoretical interest, and if possible, intersect these domains.

5. Articles should be theoretically informed and critical. We minimally understand critique as the challenging of orthodoxy, ideology and systemic injustice.

6. Articles should aim high in terms of quality of (English) language, style, and content.

7. Book review articles should be unorthodox, i.e. not what you would typically find in an academic journal. Mere summaries or explanations will not suffice. We expect broader, imaginative, sideways and/or personal engagements that reveal critical positions beyond the original text.

8. Submissions to Key Concepts should explain a concept’s background, meaning, and significance as well as its critical application to juridical concerns broadly understood. See the call for contributions.

9. Articles should include hyperlinks to relevant material where appropriate.

10. Footnotes should be restricted to a minimum, unlike an academic journal. The article should be persuasive because a strong argument has been developed, not merely because of who has been cited or the number of citations.

11. We don’t mind UK, US and other standard spelling variants, consistently used.

12. We do not directly advertise books unless the books are published open access. However authors may plug their book(s) by referencing it/them in the context of an argument of a bona fide blog post judged in terms of the guidelines on this submissions page. Alternatively, an author may simply have mention of the book as part of their bio at the end of the blog post.

13. We will advertise relevant announcements, e.g. conferences, workshops, calls for papers, etc. Conferences and the like should include some aspect of interest to critical legal scholars. We will only advertise calls for papers/contributions to edited collections intended for open access publication.

Additional Information

All articles are published subject to a creative commons licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This means that submissions to this site may be freely republished by others for non-commercial purposes and with due attribution. More details are available here.

Articles that ignore any of the guidelines above are not automatically rejected, but are more likely to be rejected.

If you have not heard from us within 14 days, please assume that we have decided not to pursue publication.

Due to time constraints, we cannot commit to offering feedback.

Please use the submission form below. Required fields are marked *