Neutral citation, e.g. [2019] EWCA Civ 44, is a court-assigned reference number for a judgment in a common law jurisdiction, usually after 2001.

A typical neutral citation is composed of a year, jurisdiction and court, and a unique case number. There may also be a court division or list noted.

For example: [2015] EWCA Civ 17 (year, England and Wales Court of Appeal Civil division, case number)

See 'Links & Files' below for the ICLR (Incorporated Council of Law Reporting) information on neutral citations.

Most cases have a traditional or standard mode of citation, e.g. [2016] QB 23, and can be located on the Law Library shelves. Both standard citation and neutral citation can be used to search for a case within our legal databases.

Please note

If you are studying law and using one of our legal databases, Westlaw, you may come across the abbreviation 'WLUK'.

If you are submitting work to Newcastle Law School for marking then you should not cite WLUK.

WLUK are Westlaw's own neutral citations and are not a published case series or law report. As noted in the current Practice Direction you should cite a published series in preference, e.g. The Law Reports, the Weekly Law Reports, the All England Law Reports or a specialist series. If this is the only version of the case available then please note the difference in detail:

Stream v Environment Agency [2019] 4 WLUK 397

Where:

[2019] is the year the case was heard

4 is the month of the hearing (not the volume)

WLUK is Westlaw United Kingdom

397 is a sequential number given to the case by Westlaw (not a page number)

If you are submitting work to Newcastle Law School for marking then you should not cite WLUK.