GENERAL GUIDELINES                                               

• • Avoid symbols and punctuation marks where possible: Instead of the forward slash ‘/’ use ‘or’; instead of ‘&’ use ‘and’.
  • All citations should end with a full stop. Do not use full stops in Mr; Mrs; or Dr: Do not use full stops to separate initials, in both citations and text: FX Njenga notX. Njenga, UN not U.N.
  • Avoid latinism, for instance, et al; coup d’état; prima facie; inter alia; per se.
  • Italicise non-English words, unless acknowledged as part of English, and unless part of a quotation: obusuma; ebarimo; Gacaca courts; Mato oput trials; Tribunal de premier instance du Dakar. Where latinised term have English equivalents, use English equivalent, for instance preparatory works not travaux preparatoires.
  • When writing out lists, use the Oxford comma:

‘Like the ICC, the proposed International Crimes Chamber of the ACJHR will not repair the entirety of refugees, IDPs, and other victims of the atrocities that constitute international crimes of genocide, crimes against humanity, or war crimes.’

‘They are the result of a collectivity of shared myths and legends, heroes, events, landscapes and memories disseminated through media — oral, print, or electronic — in the creation of an imagined national community.’ 

• • Do not to use an apostrophe in abbreviated plurals, MPs, CVs not MP’s, CV’s; or with dates, 1990s not 1990’s.
  • Abbreviations

First mention: Constitution of Kenya Review Commission (CKRC) Subsequent mentions: CKRC

• • Page numbers are placed at the end of the citation without ‘p’:

Humphrey Sipalla, ‘(In)Validity of Egypt’s reservations to the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child’ 4 Kabarak Journal of Law and Ethics (2019) 195.

• • Paragraph numbers are identified by ‘para’ without a period:

CCPR General Comment No. 22: Article 18 (Freedom of Thought, Conscience or Religion), 30 July 1993, CCPR/C/21/Rev.1/Add.4, para 10.

• • Avoid superscripts and commas in dates and publications: 1 April 2000 not 1^st April, 2000; 3rd edition not 3^rd
  • Use -ise not -ize: organise not
  • Capitalise only the first letter of a title as well as proper nouns.

Emily Osiemo, ‘The legal effect of rendezvous clause in the East African Community – European Union Economic Partnership Agreement’ 1(1) East African Community Law Journal (2020/2021) 39.

• • Do not capitalise nouns that do not serve as proper nouns in a sentence, such as judge, court, constitution, council, president, or government:

The making of a government (non-proper noun)

The Government [of Kenya] and the Independence Constitution (proper nouns).

• • Use words for numerals between one (1) and nine (9); use figures for numerals from 10: 21, 37; and use words at the start of sentences: Thirty-nine delegates attended the conference.
  • Figures should be matched with symbols or abbreviations: 34 kg, 12 mm, 100 m, Kshs 1.6 billion.
  • When writing numerals, do not use space before brackets: article 27(2).
  • Avoid using Roman numerals.
  • When writing more than three digits in a figure, use a comma without space: 33,000.
  • Numbers should be separated by a dash: 150,000 – 290,000.
  • Avoid superscripts:

first, second, twenty-ninth, third session of the Parliament  Fourth Schedule of the Constitution.

• • Indicate shortened version of long titles such as reports:

First mention: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the right to food, 24 January 2017, A/HRC/34/48, para 28. 

Subsequent citations: UNHRC SR 2017 Report, para 28.

• • Place punctuation and footnotes outside quotation marks unless the quotation includes the punctuation:

‘... as decreed by law’.²⁷

‘The expression “progressive realization” is neither a stand-alone nor a technical phrase’.²⁷

• • Do not use endnotes.
  • The preferred formatting requirements are: Times New Roman font style, font size 12, 1.5 line spacing, 2 cm margins at all sides for the main text and Calibri (body), size 10, single line spacing for the footnotes.