European Journal of Legal Studies: Call for Articles, New Voices and Book Reviews (Rolling Submissions, No Publication Fee)

The European Journal of Legal Studies (EJLS) was founded in 2007 and is based at the Department of Law of the European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. It is an open access journal run by postgraduate researchers at the EUI Law Department, guided by a Departmental Advisory Board of EUI Law Department faculty. Its most recent issue, Issue 18(1), was published on 23 September 2026.

The journal's About page lists it in the Emerging Sources Citation Index (Web of Science Core Collection), ERIH Plus, the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ) and HeinOnline, among others.

The EJLS is particularly interested in contextual and/or interdisciplinary approaches to legal scholarship, but also welcomes well-written doctrinal pieces. Every article must fall within one or more of these fields:

• European law
• International law
• Comparative law
• Legal theory

The journal does not publish articles dealing mainly or entirely with a single national jurisdiction, or report-style descriptive pieces.

• General Articles: 9,000 to 12,000 words.
• New Voices Articles: 4,000 to 5,000 words, written by early-career scholars. These may be based on the core arguments of a conference paper or key findings of a doctoral thesis.
• Book Reviews: 1,500 to 3,000 words. Contact the Editor-in-Chief at EJLS@eui.eu before writing a review to confirm the book is within scope.
• Book Symposiums and Special Sections: send suggestions to the Editor-in-Chief at EJLS@eui.eu.

Word limits include footnotes but not abstracts, annexes or tables of contents.

The submissions page places no nationality or affiliation restriction on General Articles, so authors from India may submit. The journal particularly welcomes early-career researchers.

New Voices is reserved for early-career scholars: LLM, JD, PhD (or equivalent, such as JSD) students, and those who defended their doctoral thesis within the last five years. Authors not currently affiliated with an academic institution must be within five years of graduating from their highest degree, and must explain how they meet this definition when they submit.

The EJLS is wholly open access and does not charge publication fees. Its content is generally published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Licence (CC-BY-4.0).

Review is double-blind, so submissions must be anonymised, and the journal does not accept suggested reviewers. It aims to complete desk review within one week and peer review within four weeks, with up to three rounds of review. Accepted articles may appear through the Online First programme before the next regular issue.

• Referencing in line with OSCOLA and the EJLS Style Guide.
• A table of contents, an abstract of 150 to 200 words in English, and clear headings (I., 1., A.).
• A clearly formulated legal research question, engagement with existing literature and a stated gap the article fills.
• Original work not under review or published elsewhere. Working papers are accepted for General Articles subject to the journal's conditions, and prior publication in another language must be disclosed.
• AI tools may be used for language and style. Using AI to generate substantive ideas, arguments or analysis is prohibited, and any AI use that informs the substance of an argument must be disclosed in a footnote together with the prompt used.

Submissions are accepted on a rolling basis, with no closing date. The corresponding author emails the article in Word format to submissions.ejls@eui.eu with:

• An anonymised version of the article.
• A separate title page giving each author's name and affiliation, email address, ORCID iD and social media handles.
• A cover email stating any conflicts of interest, whether the work was previously published as a working paper, thesis or conference paper, or in another language, and, for New Voices, how each author qualifies as an early-career scholar.

Submissions sent by anyone other than an author, including translation and editing services, are not accepted. The journal recommends sending from an institutional email address so the submission does not land in spam.

Every year since 2017 the EJLS has recognised the best New Voices contribution. The prize is awarded once per academic year, and any article published in the New Voices section is eligible.