Peer review policy
The purpose of a peer review is to help selecting the highest quality articles for publication. It is an effective and objective form of research evaluation by specialists in the same field. Our aim is to publish papers that might influence thinking in a specific field in law, in order to maintain the high standards of USEK Law Journal.
To maintain high‐quality publication, all submissions undergo an arduous review process following the procedure outlined below.
The review process
All papers are assessed by the Journal’s editorial committee on their originality, appropriate methodology, accuracy, and suitability for publication. Papers that do not meet our general criteria are rejected without any external review and their authors are informed within five weeks of receipt.
Type of peer review
USEK Law Journal adopts a double‐blind review procedure, where both the reviewer and the author remain anonymous during the procedure to avoid any conflict of interest.
Peer‐reviewers selection
Peer‐reviewers are experts in a specific field who will provide a constructive and balanced review of a paper. They are selected from around the world. It’s vital to get global perspectives on manuscripts during the peer review process. International reviewers should provide new insights on authors work. They have the required knowledge and experience to fulfill their mission.
The reason behind such expertise is to make sure that the manuscript would stand up to intense scrutiny. In addition, our reviewers’ database is being constantly updated.
Reviewers’ reports
Reviewers have the responsibility to assess the articles for:
- Uniqueness, novelty, weight of their input and the use of an appropriate methodology.
- Interest to topics combining human rights and practice.
- International suitability.
Protecting confidentiality is a major concern in our Journal to ensure that reviewers feel safe and provide honest open opinions. Reviewers’ names are withheld from authors and from each other. For some mistakes would be eliminated from later versions, all ideas and results in the papers are protected until the paper is published. Articles submitted to our Journal would only be available to editors and reviewers.
Editing guidelines
Authors are invited to respect the publication guidelines of the journal.
By submitting their papers, authors accept all necessary editing operated to their paper by the journal’s editorial board prior to publishing.
The editorial board ensures communication with the authors over any necessary substantial modifications.
Authors should provide complementary information required by the editorial board, as well as retractions or corrections pointed out by the board.
Plagiarism
Fighting plagiarism is a substantial value of our journal. Jurists and scholars prosper in openness and honesty.
Our journal’s reputation is essential to our success as jurists, and we are conscious that a serious, tangible risk of plagiarism will put our reputation at risk.
Papers are checked for plagiarism and self-plagiarism using Turnitin database.
Plagiarism is not tolerated. Papers with plagiarism will be refused.
If despite the thorough pre-publishing examination, plagiarism is discovered after publication, the journal reserves its right to publish all necessary corrections, clarifications, retractions or apologies.
Depending on the gravity of the plagiarism, further steps would be taken, as permitted by the law.
Copyright
Research papers and articles are protected and would not be accessible to anyone outside the editorial board or reviewers before their publishing.
Authors are entitled to their author’s moral rights according to the law. Authors assign to the journal the right to publish and reproduce their papers once accepted.
The journal has a copyright over all the material it publishes: none of this material may be reproduced in whole or in part, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the permission of the editor in chief.
Access and archiving
USEK Law Journal is published yearly, both online and in paper version.
Paper issues can be bought at the USEK bookshop.
Subscription for the online version is available
here.
The preservation of the published issues is secured by electronic back-up in the archives of USEK.