Harvard Referencing Legislation: Acts, Bills, Case Law and US Statutes

Harvard referencing legislation has no single official manual. Harvard is a family of author-date styles, and each university writes its own version. For Harvard referencing law and other sources, our generator follows Cite Them Right (12th edition) by Richard Pears and Graham Shields; many UK library pages now cite its 13th edition. The rules below come from university library guides, and we name the school each time. Where schools disagree, we say so.

Check your assignment brief first

Law is where your own department matters most. Cumbria's leaflet says law students use OSCOLA instead. If your module hands you a style sheet, follow it over this guide.

The pattern for Harvard referencing law sources in one line

In referencing legislation Harvard style, an Act follows this pattern: Short title Year, c. number. Available at: URL (Accessed: date). Bills, statutory instruments and cases use different patterns, covered below. Our free Harvard referencing generator builds the entries for your books, articles and web pages, but it can't format Acts or cases, so you add those by hand.

This is how referencing legislation Harvard style works for a UK Act passed since 1963. St George's, University of London, UCL and Birmingham City University (BCU) give the same elements: the short title and year in italics, the chapter number, Available at: with the web address, and the Accessed date.

A worked Act

Data Protection Act 2018, c. 12. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2018/12/contents/enacted (Accessed: 26 October 2026).

St George's says the chapter number appears when you view the Act on the government website.

The in-text citation

UCL's in-text example is the title and year in brackets, as in (Localism Act 2011). St George's names the Act inside the sentence: "As defined in section 10(2) of the Data Protection Act 2018..." The list entry stays the same for the whole Act, whichever section you use.

Devolved Acts and Acts before 1963

BCU adds that Welsh Acts use an anaw or asc number and Scottish Acts an asp number, as in Health and Care (Staffing) (Scotland) Act 2019, asp 6. For Acts before 1963, UCL and BCU include the regnal year and chapter, such as (5 & 6 Eliz. 2, c. 51), with place and publisher.

Statutory instruments (SIs) are regulations and orders made under an Act. Bills are proposed laws. Schools vary more here than for Acts.

Statutory instruments

UCL's pattern is the title and year in italics, the SI year and number in round brackets, Available at: and the Accessed date, as in Terrorism Order 2004 (SI 2004/3354). St George's says to write the title exactly as the government site shows it, brackets included. BCU's example, The Local Authority (Duty to Secure Early Years Provision Free of Charge) Regulations 2014, SI 2014/2147, uses a comma and no web address.

Bills

Three guides give three forms. UCL: Green Belt Bill (1999). Parliament: House of Commons. Bill no. 9. London: The Stationery Office. BCU gives the title, the session in brackets and the running number, then the web address. LSBU treats the House as the author: Parliament. House of Commons (2013) Food labelling (sugar content). [Bill 23].

In-text forms

UCL cites its bill as (Green Belt Bill, 1999) and its SI as (Terrorism Order 2004). LSBU uses (Parliament. House of Commons, 2013).

Harvard referencing case law in the UK depends on how recent the case is. Newer judgments carry a neutral citation. Older ones are cited from a law report. Two kinds of school guide exist.

Italic case names (BCU and UCL)

BCU puts the case name in italics, then the neutral citation, then the law report citation if the case is reported: Coventry v Lawrence [2014] UKSC 46, [2015] AC 106. An unreported case drops the second part: KAT v Torbay Council [2018] EWCA Civ 3045. UCL's law report example is R v. Derek Roy Taylor (1977) 64 Cr App R 182, cited in text as (R v. Derek Roy Taylor, 1977).

Quoted case names (Cumbria and City St George's)

Both put the case name in single quotation marks, then the year, court and case number; Cumbria adds the database. For older cases, City St George's example is 'Bibby Cheshire v. Golden Wonder Ltd' (1972) Weekly Law Reports, 1, pp. 1487-1492.

Which brackets to use

BCU says round brackets are used when the volume number differs from the year, as in Vadera v Shaw (1999) 45 BMLR 162, and square brackets when the year identifies the volume. Add a pinpoint with "at" and the page, as BCU does.

Harvard referencing US statutes is the least settled part of this topic, because the UK library guides behind most Harvard versions rarely cover American law. The one we found that does is BCU. It says to use the Bluebook quick style guide for US legislation.

Federal statutes and Public Laws

For Harvard referencing US statutes, BCU's first example is 42 U.S.C. §1983. That is Title 42 of the US Code, section 1983, which the Cornell Legal Information Institute's page titles "Civil action for deprivation of rights". Its second is National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (1970) Pub. L. No. 91-190, § 102, 83 Stat. 852. Check statutes on the Cornell LII U.S. Code site.

Supreme Court cases

None of the UK guides we checked gives a template for a US case. The Bluebook form is the name, the volume and page of the United States Reports, and the year, as in Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954), a citation the Library of Congress also uses. Treat it as the form for Harvard referencing case law from the US, and ask your tutor first. Unsure which style your course wants? See Harvard vs APA.

BCU gives an Official Journal example: European Commission (2012) Consolidated version of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union. OJ, C326, 26 October, pp. 47-390. Its in-text form gives the document's author and year: (European Commission, 2012).

Cumbria's leaflet and the Open University's law guide send you to Cite Them Right's full guidance for EU formats. For a non-UK Act, BCU says to cite it as its own jurisdiction does, as in Electoral Act 1993 (New Zealand).

Legislation is cited differently from books in the body of a paper. Instead of an author, the title of the Act or case stands in. The table shows the in-text forms for Harvard referencing law that the guides above give, with the school each comes from.

Names in the sentence

BCU's examples name the Act in the sentence with its section: "S 43 of the Care Act 2014 requires...". A direct quotation from a statute or judgment follows the usual quotation rules, covered in our guide to Harvard referencing quotes.

You can build most entries for Harvard referencing legislation from the official page itself. On legislation.gov.uk, copy the title, year and chapter number of an Act, or the full title and SI number of an instrument. The address shows both numbers: in the Data Protection Act's address, 2018 is the year and 12 is the chapter.

On the US side, Congress.gov lists federal bills and laws. Search it by name, then copy the Public Law number and title exactly as shown there.

Cumbria's leaflet notes that law students use OSCOLA, and the Open University's law guide shows an OSCOLA-style footnote, not a Harvard entry: Human Rights Act 1998, s 6(1).

Our generator makes neither OSCOLA nor Bluebook entries, so if your syllabus names one, follow that manual.

These slips cost marks in Harvard referencing legislation and in Harvard referencing law generally.

One last check

Italic rules, bracket styles and Accessed dates vary by school, so follow your department's handout. Our guide to Harvard referencing images shows the same method for pictures and photographs.

You now have the pieces of Harvard referencing legislation and Harvard referencing law: the Act pattern, statutory instruments, bills, UK cases, US statutes and the in-text forms. For Harvard referencing case law and statutes alike, aim for one reference-list entry per Act, case or bill, and cite each one wherever you rely on it.

For the rest of your list, the Harvard referencing generator formats books, articles and websites, and you add the legislation by hand. Start the paper with the Harvard title page generator, and see more topics on the student writing guides page. For one university's own legal examples, see the BCU Harvard legal sources page.