About the journal
A new journal for criminal law and criminal justice
A journal for criminal law as doctrine, as social practice, and as a site of public judgment.
Acta Juris Criminalis is being founded on the conviction that criminal law deserves both close doctrinal attention and serious engagement with its social and institutional life. The journal will publish work that knows the law in detail while refusing to treat legal doctrine as self-explanatory.
Its pages will be open to criminal law theory, comparative and international criminal law, evidence and procedure, sentencing and punishment, and empirical work that speaks to legal questions. The first volume is in preparation; no issue has yet been published.
The journal is a Standard Law Academic journal and is editorially independent.
Aims & scope
The journal will publish original scholarship on criminal law and criminal justice, with a preference for work that is doctrinally rigorous, theoretically ambitious, or alert to the social and institutional consequences of legal doctrine.
The journal’s scope is deliberately broad. It includes criminal law doctrine—the close analysis of offences, responsibility, punishment, and legal concepts—and social-science approaches to criminal law, including empirical, criminological, and socio-legal inquiry. It also covers comparative and international criminal law, criminal justice, evidence and procedure, and work that crosses disciplinary boundaries.
The journal does not prescribe a single method. It will publish doctrinal, theoretical, comparative, empirical, and interdisciplinary work. What matters is a clear argument, serious engagement with the relevant law and literature, and a contribution that is accessible to an international readership.
What we plan to publish
- Research articles
- Review articles and review essays
- Shorter scholarly interventions
- Book reviews
- Proposals for special issues
- Work across doctrinal and social-science methods
Open access
The journal will publish open access, online, with no article processing charge (APC) at present. Any change to this position will be published clearly on this site.
What we look for
Every submission should make a clear argument, situate it in the existing literature, and explain why it matters. The journal will expect authors to take doctrine seriously, engage with jurisdictions other than their own where relevant, and write in a way that is accessible to readers outside their immediate field.
Criminal law in context
Doctrine is the centre of the journal, not its boundary.
Criminal law is a technical achievement and a social institution at once. The journal is interested in both dimensions. It will publish close analysis of concepts, rules, and cases, and it will also publish work that asks how those concepts and rules operate in practice, how they have developed historically, and how they compare across legal systems.
The journal is particularly interested in work that explains why a doctrinal choice matters: for the parties, for the coherence of the system, for the distribution of risk and advantage, or for the way criminal law understands responsibility and the person. Comparative and historical work is welcome where it does argumentative work rather than serving as decoration.
A note on method
The journal does not require authors to adopt a particular theoretical stance. It asks only that the method be explicit, the materials be identified, and the limits of the argument be acknowledged.
Editorial formation
The editorial board is being formed; names will appear here as each appointment is confirmed.
Editorial appointments will be published only after they are confirmed and consented to. The full editorial team and advisory board will be published here as appointments are completed.
The founding team takes shape role by role: editor-in-chief first, then deputy editors, section editors, and the international advisory board.
Editorial positions
- Editor-in-Chief
- Associate Editors
- Editorial Board
- Advisory Board
Founding editorial board appointments in progress
Expressions of interest
Scholars interested in contributing to the journal's editorial development are welcome to write to the editorial office.
Journal facts
The journal publishes continuously in Volume 1 (2026). The facts below record its confirmed policies.
| Item | Current status |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2026 |
| Publication frequency | Continuous publication |
| Volume | Vol. 1 (2026) |
| Languages | English |
| Peer review | Double-anonymous |
| External reviews | At least 2 |
| Review window | 30 days |
| License | CC BY 4.0 |
| Article processing charge | No article processing charge (APC) |
| ISSN | In application |
| Contact | [email protected] |
The table above is kept current; each entry will be updated as soon as it is confirmed.
Discovery & indexing
The journal publishes open access online. After the first volume, the editorial office will prepare applications to the relevant legal and multidisciplinary indexes. Indexing and archiving details will be published here once they are confirmed.
The journal's metadata and content will be designed to support discovery and long-term preservation. Full details of indexing and archiving arrangements will be published once they are confirmed.
Indexing and archiving
Indexing, archiving, and preservation arrangements will be published here once they are confirmed. The journal's status pages are updated as the launch develops.
Development stages
The journal is being developed in stages. Dates will be announced when they are set.
Scope and planning. The journal’s disciplinary range, editorial scope, and open-access publication model are established.
Editorial formation. The founding editorial team is being assembled. Appointments will be announced when confirmed.
Call for papers and submission information. Published. Submissions are open through the ORCID portal; the author guidelines and LaTeX template are available on this site.
Inaugural issue. Volume 1 (2026) is published continuously; articles appear online as they are accepted.
Contact
The editorial office can be reached by email. The journal is a Standard Law Academic journal and is editorially independent.
Contact information
For information about the journal's scope and status, please use the pages on this site. They will be updated as the launch develops.