Instructions to Authors

The Yearbook of International Environmental Law was established in 1990 and since then has become a renowned publication. YIEL has become a vital source of information and analysis in the crucial and rapidly evolving field that is environmental law. YIEL provides an authoritative and comprehensive review of internationally significant environmental legal developments, gathering national and international experts that report on a year-by-year basis, as well as providing papers discussing relevant topics on an annual theme within international environmental law.

What YIEL publishes

The Yearbook of International Environmental Law is committed to publishing high-quality academic scholarship pertaining to internationally significant environmental legal developments. From 2024, the journal publishes throughout the year rather than on an annual basis and consider submissions of research articles, annual reports, and book reviews. Research articles and reviews within each volume pertain to a broad annual theme.

Submission Guidelines

Please read these instructions carefully and follow them closely to ensure that the review and publication of your paper is as efficient and quick as possible. The editors reserve the right to return manuscripts that are not in accordance with these instructions.

Language Editing Pre-Submission

If your first language is not English, we would encourage you to carry out language editing before submitting your draft to ensure that the academic content of your paper is fully understood by journal editors and reviewers. Language editing does not guarantee that your manuscript will be accepted for publication.

Editorial Procedure for Articles

Manuscripts should be between 6,000 – 12,000 words in length, including abstracts and footnotes. In exceptional circumstances, the Yearbook will extend this limit for articles that make an important contribution to the field.

Articles should be submitted online through the ScholarOne system. The main document should be uploaded, with a title page document uploaded separately containing the name of the author(s) under the title, with an asterisked footnote giving the present affiliation and position of the author(s) and email addressed. Articles are only accepted for publication after a double anonymised refereeing process.

Any editorial or submission queries may be sent to our Assistant Editor, Stacy Belden ([email protected]) who can provide further information on the review process.

Editorial Procedure for Book Reviews

Please submit proposals to apply to review a book for YIEL to the Book Review Editor, Krittika Singh ([email protected]). Publishers or authors wishing for a review to be included in the journal should also contact the Book Review Editor for consideration. There is no inspection proof for book reviews.

Editorial Procedure for Year in Review Reports

If you are interested in contributing to YIEL as a Year in Review reporter, a list of vacant reports can be found. Please send your CV to Assistant Editor Stacy Belden ([email protected]) if you would like to be considered as a reporter.

By becoming a report contributor, you commit to submit by 1 March of each year your contribution reporting the legal and policy developments that occurred throughout the precedent year in relation to the topic attributed to you. This is a final deadline as the editing process is taking place within a very short timeframe.

If you plan on resigning prior to the next YIEL volume, please inform the YIEL Assistant Editor ([email protected]) by the month of November of the year of reporting. Otherwise it will be assumed that you will continue as a contributor for the next year.

In April and May, the Assistant Editor will proceed to format and first edit your report. The Assistant Editor will send the reports for a final substantive edit to the Associate Editors before submitting them to the publisher by end of June.

In case of a request for amendment to your report, you will be notified in April or May. If substantial changes are to be made to your report, you will be asked to agree on them. There will be no opportunity for proofreading the reports.

Manuscript Format and Structure

• The first page of the manuscript must give: title of paper, contributor names, the full address (including email) of the author designated to receive proofs/correspondence, and total word count. The name of the author(s) should appear at the beginning immediately under the title, with an asterisked footnote giving the present position of the author(s) and an address (including email) for contact by readers, together with any desired acknowledgements.
• Crossref Funding Data Registry. In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources in the manuscript. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative. Details of all funding sources for the work in question can be given in this footnote. Acknowledgements and details of non-financial support must be included at the end of the text. Personal acknowledgements should precede those of institutions or agencies.
• Headings should be to journal style. Compound words should be hyphenated.
• Footnotes, indicated by superscript figures in the text, should be used for listing references. Footnotes should be numbered consecutively. Footnotes should be kept brief as possible and used primarily for reference purposes.
• Authors are responsible for checking the accuracy of all footnotes and references.
• Tables should be typed with double spacing, but minimizing redundant space, and each should be placed on a separate sheet. Each table should be numbered in sequence using Arabic numerals. Tables should also have a title above and an explanatory footnote below, if required.
• Non-standard abbreviations should be defined at the first occurrence and introduced only where multiple use is made. Authors should not use abbreviations in headings. Please find the standard list of abbreviations for YIEL.
• A copy of our style guidelines is available.

Figure accessibility and alt text

Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.  

Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs. 

Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article. 

Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text. 

Supplementary Data

Supporting material that is not essential for inclusion in the full text of the manuscript, but would nevertheless benefit the reader, can be made available by the publisher as, linked to the manuscript. The material should not be essential to understanding the conclusions of the paper, but should contain data that is additional or complementary and directly relevant to the article content. Such information might include more detailed methods, extended data sets/data analysis, or additional figures.

It is standard practice for appendices to be made available as supplementary data. All text and figures must be provided in suitable electronic formats. All material to be considered as supplementary data must be submitted at the same time as the main manuscript for peer review. It cannot be altered or replaced after the paper has been accepted for publication and will not be edited. Please indicate clearly all material intended as supplementary data upon submission and name the files—for example, ‘Supplementary Figure 1,’ ‘Supplementary Data,’ and so on. Also ensure that the supplementary data is referred to in the main manuscript where necessary—for example, as ‘(see Supplementary data)’ or ‘(see Supplementary Figure 1).’

Permission to Reproduce Figures and Extracts

Permission to reproduce copyright material, for print and online publication in perpetuity, must be cleared and, if necessary, paid for by the author—this includes applications and payments to DACS, ARS, and similar licensing agencies where appropriate. Evidence in writing that such permissions have been secured from the rights holder must be made available to the editors. It is also the author’s responsibility to include acknowledgements as stipulated by the particular institutions. Please note that obtaining copyright permission could take some time. Oxford Journals can offer information and documentation to assist authors in securing print and online permissions—please see the Guidelines for Authors section. Should you require copies of these guidelines, please contact the editorial office of the journal in question or the Oxford Journals Rights department at [email protected].

Third-Party Content in Open Access papers

If you will be publishing your paper under an Open Access licence but it contains material for which you do not have Open Access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material:

Title of content ; author, original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rights holder]. This image/content is not covered by the terms of the Creative Commons licence of this publication. For permission to reuse, please contact the rights holder.

For a copyright prose work, it is recommended that permission is obtained for the use of extracts longer than 400 words; a series of extracts totalling more than 800 words, of which any one extract is more than 300 words; or an extract or series of extracts comprising one-quarter of the work or more. For poetry: an extract of more than 40 lines; series of extracts totalling more than 40 lines; an extract comprising one-quarter or more of a complete poem.

Copyright and Licence

Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts and Year in Review reports at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online licence to publish form.

Please note that by submitting an article or report for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. You agree to notify OUP immediately if your details change.

It is a condition of publication for all Oxford Journals that authors grant an exclusive licence to Oxford University Press using our online licence system.

As part of the terms of the licence agreement, authors may use their own material in other publications written or edited by themselves, provided that the journal is acknowledged as the original place of publication and Oxford University Press is acknowleged as the publisher. As the author(s), copyright of the article remains yours (or your employer’s if your employer claims copyright in your work). See this page for full details of Oxford Journals’ copyright policy and the rights retained by you/your institution under the terms of the licence.

Work submitted for publication must be original, previously unpublished, and not under consideration for publication elsewhere. If previously published figures, tables, or parts of text are to be included, the copyright-holder’s permission must have been obtained prior to submission. More information on how to obtain permissions.

Open Access Option for Authors

Yearbook of International and Environmental Law offers the option of publishing under either a standard licence or an open access licence. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.

Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access licence in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access licence.

Details of the open access licences and open access charges.

OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.

Proofs

Authors of articles are sent page proofs by e-mail. These should be checked immediately, and corrections, as well as answers to any queries, should be returned to the publishers as an annotated PDF via e-mail or fax within three working days (further details are supplied with the proof). It is the author’s responsibility to check proofs thoroughly.

Advance Access

Advance Access articles are published online soon after they have been accepted for publication. Appearance in Advance Access (in either of the models below) constitutes official publication, and the Advance Access version can be cited by a unique DOI (Digital Object Identifier). When an article appears in an issue, it is removed from the Advance Access page.

Articles posted for Advance Access have been copyedited and typeset and any corrections included. This is before they are paginated for inclusion in a specific issue of the journal. Once an article appears in an issue, both versions of the paper continue to be accessible and citable.

Material Disclaimer

The opinions expressed in YIEL are those of the authors and contributors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editors, the editorial board, Oxford University Press, or the organization to which the authors are affiliated.

Pre Publication Policy

YIEL does not accept papers that have been previously published elsewhere with the exception of working papers series. YIEL's policy regarding working paper series is:

Pre-publication in working paper series is allowed where submission to the working paper series is prior to acceptance by the Journal.

• The working paper version may remain online after publication in the Journal.
• The working paper version should NOT be updated after acceptance by YIEL.
• Authors are requested to append the appropriate citation to the working paper version on acceptance by YIEL (if the working paper series allows this).

Author Toll Free Link and Discounts

All corresponding authors will be provided with a free access link to their article upon publication.  The link will be sent via email to the article’s corresponding author who is free to share the link with any co-authors.  Please see OUP’s Author Self-Archiving policy for more information regarding how this link may be publicly shared depending on the type of license under which the article has published.  

Year in Review authors will receive an online subscription to the Yearbook.

Availability of Data and Materials

Where ethically feasible, YIEL strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. For information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, please see Choosing where to archive your data.

Data Citation

YIEL supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and requires that all publicly available datasets be fully referenced in the reference list with an accession number or unique identifier such as a digital object identifier (DOI). Data citations should include the minimum information recommended by DataCite:

• [dataset]* Authors, Year, Title, Publisher (repository or archive name), Identifier

*The inclusion of the [dataset] tag at the beginning of the citation helps us to correctly identify and tag the citation. This tag will be removed from the citation published in the reference list.

Preprint Policy

Authors retain the right to make an Author’s Original Version (preprint) available through various channels, and this does not prevent submission to the journal. For further information see our Online Licensing, Copyright and Permissions policies. If accepted, the authors are required to update the status of any preprint, including your published paper’s DOI, as described on our Author Self-Archiving policy page.