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New Journal of European Criminal Law

New Journal of European Criminal Law

Published in Association with European Criminal Law Academic Network
Published in Association with European Criminal Bar Association
Other Titles in:
Criminal Law

eISSN: 2399293X | ISSN: 20322844 | Current volume: 14 | Current issue: 4 Frequency: Quarterly
The New Journal of European Criminal law is the leading international journal on European Criminal Law. It aims at analysing, discussing, defining, developing and improving criminal law in Europe and in particular criminal law as it is drawn up by the European Union and the Council of Europe.

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).


European criminal law is an established and recognised legal discipline. It is not confined to the European Union, but it extends to all forty seven States of the Council of Europe. Institutionally speaking European criminal law is driven by both the EU and the Council of Europe under the supervision and influence of the Court of Justice of the European Communities so far as the EU is concerned and by the European Court of Human Rights as regards the Council of Europe.

Although European criminal law is a recognised body of law, it constitutes by no means a perfect or even a mature system and it requires analysis and discussion, so that it may develop and improve. Analysis and discussion cannot be the exclusive preserve of the legislative and judicial bodies; others must contribute to ensure balanced solutions.

Nor is European criminal law confined to what is traditionally considered as criminal law at EU and national level. It covers any field to which the Engel criteria apply and so extends to administrative law where it applies instruments which by object or effect are punitive in nature. It thus contemplates sanctions in the foreign policy field (smart sanctions), environmental law and competition law, for instance.

As regards competition law the New Journal of European Criminal Law is especially interested the criminalisation of competition law and of hard core cartels in particular. It is thought to be the first ever legal journal to treat the criminal and competition law disciplines at their interface.

The New Journal of European Criminal Law has two patrons: the European Criminal Bar Association (ECBA) and the European Criminal Law Academic Network (ECLAN). It serves as a forum for both legal practitioners and academics interested in issues related to European Criminal Law. Its editorial board comprises as wide a cross-section of the legal profession as possible. The New Journal of European Criminal Law solicits articles from all those involved in criminal law in its European dimension. It seeks a large variety of articles, ranging from with short case notes with little or no comment, to opinionated comments on developments, to long in-depth critiques of judgements and legislative measures with proposals for reform or change.

To ensure originality, the New Journal of European Criminal Law has a double blind peer review system which is applied to long in-depth articles. This is necessary to maintain the position of the New Journal of European Criminal Law as the pre-eminent journal in its field and to guarantee the continued quality of its contents. For the same reason an Advisory Committee, composed of several authorities on the subject of European Criminal Law, supervises the Journal and its future development.

Each issue comprises an editorial, (generally written by the editor in chief on a matter of topical interest but sometimes by a guest editor), in-depth articles submitted to peer review, focused analysis & opinions, case law notes (especially on ECHR case law), legislative updates and book reviews.

Founding Editor
Co-Editor in Chiefs
Paul de Hert Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Brussels, Belgium
Holger Matt Wolfgang Goethe University, Frankfurt/Main, Germany
Valsamis Mitsilegas University of Liverpool, UK
Anne Weyembergh Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Advisory Board
Sir Francis Jacobs QC King's College London, UK
Robert Roth University of Geneva, Switzerland
Ulrich Sieber Max-Planck-Institut, Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
John Spencer QC University of Cambridge, UK
John Vervaele University of Utrecht, Netherlands
Associated Editors
Athina Sachoulidou School of Law of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece
Niovi Vavoula Queen Mary University, London, UK
Irene Wieczorek University of Durham, UK
Associated Editors (Case Law Analysis Section)
Vania Costa Ramos Carlos Pinto de Abreu e Associados, Sociedade de Advogados, Portugal
Associated Editors (ECHR Update Section)
Ben Wild Colchester, UK
Language Editors
Karetsos Christos City University London, UK
Niall Coghlan European University Institute, Italy
Andrew Pitt Queen Mary University of London, UK
Gavin Robinson University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Amy Weatherburn Vrije Universiteit Brussels, Belgium
Daniel Webber  
Edmund Wylde Pump Court Chambers, UK
Editorial Board Member
Heiko Ahlbrecht Wessing & Partner Rechtsanwälte mbB, Düsseldorf, Germany
Stephan Andreas University of East Anglia, UK
Ulrich Bauschulte Cologne, Germany
Nicolas Boulay Paris, France
Stefan Braum University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Pedro Caeiro University of Coimbra, Portugal
Gerard Conway Brunel University London, UK
Serge de Biolley Université Libre de Bruxelles, Belgium
Astolfo di Amato Astolfo Di Amato & Associati, Roma, Italy
Stefano Filletti Filletti & Filletti Advocates, Malta
George Gebbie Connarty Advocates, Glasgow, UK
Dimitrios Giannoulopoulos Brunel University London, UK
Jaan Ginter University of Tartu, Estonia
Sabine Gless University of Basel, Switzerland
Christopher Harding Aberystwyth University, UK
Kai Hart-Hoenig Rechtsanwalt, Germany
Marc Henzelin Lalive Lawyers & Partners, Geneva, Switzerland
Louise Hodges Kingsley Napley LLP, London, UK
Han Jahae Jahae Advocaten, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Robert Kert Vienna University of Economics and Business, Austria
Roberto Kostoris University of Padova, Italy
Richard Lang University of Brighton, UK
Adam Lazowski University of Westminster, London, UK
Katalin Ligeti University of Luxembourg, Luxembourg
Stefano Manacorda Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli, Italy
Mihai Mares Mares Danilescu Mares, Bucharest, Romania
Samuli Miettinen University of Helsinki, Finland
Jonathan Mitchell Barrister, London, UK
Caroline Morgan European Commission, UK
Anna Oehmichen Knierim & Krug, Mainz
Rosaria Sicurella University of Catania, Italy
Kristine Strada-Rosenberga University of Latvia, Latvia
Katja Sugman University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Annika Suominen University of Bergen, Norway
Gintaras Svedas University of Vilnius, Lithuania
Alex Tinsley Church Court Chambers, London, UK
Jorn Vestergaard University of Copenhagen, Denmark
Peter Whelan University of Leeds, UK
Christoffer Wong Lund University, Sweden

Manuscript Submission Guidelines: New Journal of European Criminal Law

This journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Only manuscripts of sufficient quality that meet the aims and scope of New Journal of European Criminal Law will be reviewed.

There are no fees payable to submit or publish in this Journal. Open Access options are available - see section 3.3 below.

As part of the submission process you will be required to warrant that you are submitting your original work, that you have the rights in the work, and that you have obtained and can supply all necessary permissions for the reproduction of any copyright works not owned by you, that you are submitting the work for first publication in the Journal and that it is not being considered for publication elsewhere and has not already been published elsewhere. Please see our guidelines on prior publication and note that
New Journal of European Criminal Law may accept submissions of papers that have been posted on pre-print servers; please alert the Editorial Office when submitting (contact details are at the end of these guidelines) and include the DOI for the preprint in the designated field in the manuscript submission system. Authors should not post an updated version of their paper on the preprint server while it is being peer reviewed for possible publication in the journal. If the article is accepted for publication, the author may re-use their work according to the journal's author archiving policy.
If your paper is accepted, you must include a link on your preprint to the final version of your paper.

  1. What do we publish?
    1.1 Aims & Scope
    1.2 Article types
    1.3 Writing your paper
  2. Editorial policies
    2.1 Peer review policy
    2.2 Authorship
    2.3 Acknowledgements
    2.4 Funding
    2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests
    2.6 Research Data
  3. Publishing policies
    3.1 Publication ethics
    3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement
    3.3 Open access and author archiving
  4. Preparing your manuscript
    4.1 Formatting
    4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics
    4.3 Supplemental material
    4.4 Reference style
    4.5 Lanuage standard
    4.6 English language editing services
  5. Submitting your manuscript
    5.1 Information required for completing your submission
    5.2 Permissions
    5.3 ORCID
  6. On acceptance and publication
    6.1 Sage Production
    6.2 Online First publication
    6.3 Access to your published article
    6.4 Promoting your article
  7. Further information

1. What do we publish?

1.1 Aims & Scope

Before submitting your manuscript to New Journal of European Criminal Law, please ensure you have read the Aims & Scope.

1.2 Article Types

Full papers should not exceed 12,000 words including footnotes, but excluding the abstract. Shorter articles, including comments and case notes should not exceed 6,000 words including footnotes, but excluding the abstract. All contributions must be in English and use the UK written standard. Do not use abbreviated forms of verbs. Dates are to be expressed as day/month/ year: 1 January 2010.

1.3 Writing your paper

The Sage Author Gateway has some general advice and on how to get published, plus links to further resources. Sage Author Services also offers authors a variety of ways to improve and enhance their article including English language editing, plagiarism detection, and video abstract and infographic preparation.

1.3.1 Make your article discoverable

When writing up your paper, think about how you can make it discoverable. The title, keywords and abstract are key to ensuring readers find your article through search engines such as Google. For information and guidance on how best to title your article, write your abstract and select your keywords, have a look at this page on the Gateway: How to Help Readers Find Your Article Online.

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2. Editorial policies

2.1 Peer review policy

Sage does not permit the use of author-suggested (recommended) reviewers at any stage of the submission process, be that through the web-based submission system or other communication. Reviewers should be experts in their fields and should be able to provide an objective assessment of the manuscript. Our policy is that reviewers should not be assigned to a paper if:

•  The reviewer is based at the same institution as any of the co-authors

•  The reviewer is based at the funding body of the paper

•  The author has recommended the reviewer

•  The reviewer has provided a personal (e.g. Gmail/Yahoo/Hotmail) email account and an institutional email account cannot be found after performing a basic Google search (name, department and institution). 

2.2 Authorship

All parties who have made a substantive contribution to the article should be listed as authors. Principal authorship, authorship order, and other publication credits should be based on the relative scientific or professional contributions of the individuals involved, regardless of their status. A student is usually listed as principal author on any multiple-authored publication that substantially derives from the student’s dissertation or thesis.

Please note that AI chatbots, for example ChatGPT, should not be listed as authors. For more information see the policy on Use of ChatGPT and generative AI tools.

2.3 Acknowledgements

All contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship should be listed in an Acknowledgements section. Examples of those who might be acknowledged include a person who provided purely technical help, or a department chair who provided only general support.

2.3.1 Third party submissions

Where an individual who is not listed as an author submits a manuscript on behalf of the author(s), a statement must be included in the Acknowledgements section of the manuscript and in the accompanying cover letter. The statements must:

  • Disclose this type of editorial assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input
  • Identify any entities that paid for this assistance
  • Confirm that the listed authors have authorized the submission of their manuscript via third party and approved any statements or declarations, e.g. conflicting interests, funding, etc.

Where appropriate, Sage reserves the right to deny consideration to manuscripts submitted by a third party rather than by the authors themselves.

2.3.2 Writing assistance

Individuals who provided writing assistance, e.g. from a specialist communications company, do not qualify as authors and so should be included in the Acknowledgements section. Authors must disclose any writing assistance – including the individual’s name, company and level of input – and identify the entity that paid for this assistance”).

It is not necessary to disclose use of language polishing services.

Please supply any personal acknowledgements separately to the main text to facilitate anonymous peer review.

2.4 Funding

New Journal of European Criminal Law requires all authors to acknowledge their funding in a consistent fashion under a separate heading.  Please visit the Funding Acknowledgements page on the Sage Journal Author Gateway to confirm the format of the acknowledgment text in the event of funding, or state that: This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors. 

2.5 Declaration of conflicting interests

New Journal of European Criminal Law encourages authors to include a declaration of any conflicting interests and recommends you review the good practice guidelines on the Sage Journal Author Gateway.

2.6 Research Data

The journal is committed to facilitating openness, transparency and reproducibility of research, and has the following research data sharing policy. For more information, including FAQs please visit the Sage Research Data policy pages.

Subject to appropriate ethical and legal considerations, authors are encouraged to:

  • share your research data in a relevant public data repository
  • include a data availability statement linking to your data. If it is not possible to share your data, we encourage you to consider using the statement to explain why it cannot be shared.
  • cite this data in your research

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3. Publishing Policies

3.1 Publication ethics

Sage is committed to upholding the integrity of the academic record. We encourage authors to refer to the Committee on Publication Ethics’ International Standards for Authors and view the Publication Ethics page on the Sage Author Gateway.

3.1.1 Plagiarism

New Journal of European Criminal Law and Sage take issues of copyright infringement, plagiarism or other breaches of best practice in publication very seriously. We seek to protect the rights of our authors and we always investigate claims of plagiarism or misuse of published articles. Equally, we seek to protect the reputation of the journal against malpractice. Submitted articles may be checked with duplication-checking software. Where an article, for example, is found to have plagiarised other work or included third-party copyright material without permission or with insufficient acknowledgement, or where the authorship of the article is contested, we reserve the right to take action including, but not limited to: publishing an erratum or corrigendum (correction); retracting the article; taking up the matter with the head of department or dean of the author's institution and/or relevant academic bodies or societies; or taking appropriate legal action.

3.1.2 Prior publication

If material has been previously published it is not generally acceptable for publication in a Sage journal. However, there are certain circumstances where previously published material can be considered for publication. Please refer to the guidance on the Sage Author Gateway or if in doubt, contact the Editor at the address given below.

3.2 Contributor's publishing agreement

Before publication, Sage requires the author as the rights holder to sign a Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement. Sage’s Journal Contributor’s Publishing Agreement is an exclusive licence agreement which means that the author retains copyright in the work but grants Sage the sole and exclusive right and licence to publish for the full legal term of copyright. Exceptions may exist where an assignment of copyright is required or preferred by a proprietor other than Sage. In this case copyright in the work will be assigned from the author to the society. For more information please visit the Sage Author Gateway.

3.3 Open access and author archiving

New Journal of European Criminal Law offers optional open access publishing via the Sage Choice programme and Open Access agreements, where authors can publish open access either discounted or free of charge depending on the agreement with Sage. Find out if your institution is participating by visiting Open Access Agreements at Sage. For more information on Open Access publishing options at Sage please visit Sage Open Access. For information on funding body compliance, and depositing your article in repositories, please visit Sage’s Author Archiving and Re-Use Guidelines and Publishing Policies.

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4. Preparing your manuscript for submission

4.1 Formatting

The preferred format for your manuscript is Word. LaTeX files are also accepted. Word and (La)Tex templates are available on the Manuscript Submission Guidelines page of our Author Gateway.

4.2 Artwork, figures and other graphics

For guidance on the preparation of illustrations, pictures and graphs in electronic format, please visit Sage’s Manuscript Submission Guidelines.  

Figures supplied in colour will appear in colour online regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced in colour in the printed version. For specifically requested colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Sage after receipt of your accepted article.

4.3 Supplemental material

This journal is able to host additional materials online (e.g. datasets, podcasts, videos, images etc) alongside the full-text of the article. For more information please refer to our guidelines on submitting supplementary files.

4.4 Reference style

New Journal of European Criminal Law adheres to the OSCALA reference style. View the OSCALA guidelines to ensure your manuscript conforms to this reference style.

4.5 Language standard

All contributions must be in good English and use the UK written standard. It is the responsibility of each author to ensure compliance with this standard.

4.6 English language editing services

Authors seeking assistance with English language editing, translation, or figure and manuscript formatting to fit the journal’s specifications should consider using Sage Language Services. Visit Sage Language Services on our Journal Author Gateway for further information. In some cases editing by a lawyer-linguist may be necessary. The NJECL editorial staff can advise on this.

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5. Submitting your manuscript

New Journal of European Criminal Law is hosted on Sage Track, a web based online submission and peer review system powered by ScholarOne™ Manuscripts. Visit https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/nje to login and submit your article online.

IMPORTANT: Please check whether you already have an account in the system before trying to create a new one. If you have reviewed or authored for the journal in the past year it is likely that you will have had an account created.  For further guidance on submitting your manuscript online please visit ScholarOne Online Help.

All papers must be submitted via the online system. If you would like to discuss your paper prior to submission, please contact the Editorial Secretary: Dr Irene Wieczorek, irene.wieczorek@vub.ac.be

5.1 Information required for completing your submission

You will be asked to provide contact details and academic affiliations for all co-authors via the submission system and identify who is to be the corresponding author. These details must match what appears on your manuscript. The affiliation listed in the manuscript should be the institution where the research was conducted. If an author has moved to a new institution since completing the research, the new affiliation can be included in a manuscript note at the end of the paper. At this stage please ensure you have included all the required statements and declarations and uploaded any additional supplementary files (including reporting guidelines where relevant).

5.2 Permissions

Please also ensure that you have obtained any necessary permission from copyright holders for reproducing any illustrations, tables, figures or lengthy quotations previously published elsewhere. For further information including guidance on fair dealing for criticism and review, please see the Copyright and Permissions page on the Sage Author Gateway.

5.3 ORCID

As part of our commitment to ensuring an ethical, transparent and fair peer review process Sage is a supporting member of ORCID, the Open Researcher and Contributor ID. ORCID provides a unique and persistent digital identifier that distinguishes researchers from every other researcher, even those who share the same name, and, through integration in key research workflows such as manuscript and grant submission, supports automated linkages between researchers and their professional activities, ensuring that their work is recognized. 

The collection of ORCID IDs from corresponding authors is now part of the submission process of this journal. If you already have an ORCID ID you will be asked to associate that to your submission during the online submission process. We also strongly encourage all co-authors to link their ORCID ID to their accounts in our online peer review platforms. It takes seconds to do: click the link when prompted, sign into your ORCID account and our systems are automatically updated. Your ORCID ID will become part of your accepted publication’s metadata, making your work attributable to you and only you. Your ORCID ID is published with your article so that fellow researchers reading your work can link to your ORCID profile and from there link to your other publications.

If you do not already have an ORCID ID please follow this link to create one or visit our ORCID homepage to learn more.

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6. On acceptance and publication

6.1 Sage Production

Your Sage Production Editor will keep you informed as to your article’s progress throughout the production process. Proofs will be sent by PDF to the corresponding author via our editing portal Sage Edit or by email, and corrections should be made directly or notified to us promptly. Authors are reminded to check their proofs carefully to confirm that all author information, including names, affiliations, sequence and contact details are correct, and that Funding and Conflict of Interest statements, if any, are accurate.

6.2 Online First publication

Online First allows final articles (completed and approved articles awaiting assignment to a future issue) to be published online prior to their inclusion in a journal issue, which significantly reduces the lead time between submission and publication. Visit the Sage Journals help page for more details, including how to cite Online First articles.

6.3 Access to your published article

Sage provides authors with online access to their final article.

6.4 Promoting your article

Publication is not the end of the process! You can help disseminate your paper and ensure it is as widely read and cited as possible. The Sage Author Gateway has numerous resources to help you promote your work. Visit the Promote Your Article page on the Gateway for tips and advice.  

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7. Further information

Any correspondence, queries or additional requests for information on the manuscript submission process should be sent to the New Journal of European Criminal Law editorial office as follows:

Associated Editor: Irene Wieczorek (irene.wieczorek@vub.be)

Associated Editor: Niovi Vavoula (n.vavoula@qmul.ac.uk)

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