Q. How should I cite international law cases and legislation? (OSCOLA)

See OSCOLA s 2.8 Cases and legislation from other jurisdictions for full details. You can also consult the OSCOLA Citing International Law Sources guide.

The main advice from OSCOLA is to cite cases and legislation from other jurisdictions as they are cited in their own jurisdictions, but with minimal punctuation, i.e. without any full stops in abbreviations. Give the jurisdiction if it is helpful to identify where the case or legislation originated. Note that citations from other jurisdictions may include details (such as dates) in slightly different places to each other in the citation (see examples at OSCOLA s 2.8).

Cases:

Always begin the citation with the Case name in italics. Follow with information such as law report series or court, date, jurisdiction (where applicable). You can also include details such as case numbers or court / case details if it is helpful to do so. Remember there is no set pattern for the remainder of the case citations after the case name has been provided - be guided by the cases you are using as to the important details to include in citations.

Here we look at the following example of a case from Lebanon: Decision on Interlocutory Appeal Concerning Personal Jurisdiction in Contempt Proceedings (stl-tsl.org). The case name is obvious. The case number has been added in the citation below as it is helpful in identifying the case and is mentioned in every citation and document for the case. It has been added in plain text in keeping with other citations in OSCOLA. As there was no mention of Lebanon, and we should mention the jurisdiction – there is no guarantee someone would understand that the letters STL stand for Special Tribunal for Lebanon - the latter has been added in full towards the end of the citation.

New TV SAL and Karma Mohamed Tahsin Al Khayat Case No STL-14-05/PT/AP/AR126.1 (Decision on Interlocutory Appeal Concerning Personal Jurisdiction in Contempt Proceedings, Appeals Panel, Special Tribunal for Lebanon, 2 October 2014)

Legislation: 

Here we look at the following example of an Australian statute (act):  Biosecurity Amendment (Traveller Declarations and Other Measures) Act 2020 (legislation.gov.au) The title and date are obvious. However, if only the title and date are included in the citation it would not be immediately obvious this act is from within the Australian jurisdiction. Therefore, to distinguish from other legislation which may be used in academic work, the jurisdiction should be added to the end of the citation:

Biosecurity Amendment (Traveller Declarations and Other Measures) Act 2020 (Australia).