Peer Review Process

PEER REVIEW GUIDELINES

All manuscripts undergo double-blind peer review by external academic referees. Anonymity is strictly maintained on both sides, authors and reviewers, throughout the evaluation, so that the assessment remains wholly impartial. The review phase appraises the scholarly and scientific substance of the manuscript, taking into account its nature, methodology, subject matter, and type of contribution.

Reviewers are chosen for their expertise, academic background, research experience, or relevant knowledge of the subject matter. Anyone with a conflict of interest (personal, academic, institutional, professional, or otherwise) that could compromise impartiality should recuse themselves. By accepting an invitation to review, referees commit to confidentiality, objectivity, diligence, and academic respect.

Subject-matter experts assess manuscripts accepted for review on the basis of the following criteria:

• Clarity, Structure and Internal Coherence: Reviewers assess whether the text is logically organized, clearly and precisely written, and coherent throughout, specifically, whether the problem posed, objectives, methodological approach, analysis, and conclusions align with one another. Expository fluency and effective segmentation into sections that aid comprehension of the argument are also evaluated.

• Relevance, Pertinence and Originality of the Contribution: Manuscripts are assessed for their significant contribution to legal knowledge or to doctrinal, normative, case law analysis, institutional, theoretical, methodological, empirical, or interdisciplinary debate. Reviewers also weigh the topic's relevance and pertinence in the current academic and social context, along with the originality, both as contribution and as novelty, of the approach, the theses advanced, or the results obtained. 

• Methodological Rigor or Analytical Consistency: For empirical, socio-legal, comparative, or mixed-methods research, assessment covers the methodological design, corpus, selection criteria, analytical categories, and procedure, and their relationship to results and conclusions. For doctrinal, dogmatic, theoretical, or case-law work, it covers the conceptual, argumentative, interpretive, and systematic consistency of the analysis.

• Support from Relevant Sources: Reviewers examine whether the bibliographic, normative, case law, documentary, empirical, or comparative sources used are of adequate quality, sufficiency, currency, and pertinence, and whether they are properly cited in accordance with the journal's citation and referencing standards.

• Argumentative Development and Academic Discussion: Whether the manuscript constructs a well-founded argument, engages with relevant debates, considers alternative positions where appropriate, and substantiates its claims through evidence, doctrine, legislation, case law, or sufficient legal reasoning.

• Results, Conclusions and Implications: The extent to which the results, findings, theses, or conclusions follow reasonably from the analysis developed, and the manuscript's identification of its contributions, limitations, implications, or possible avenues for future research.

Upon completion of the evaluation, reviewers submit a reasoned recommendation through the journal's internal review form. This form serves as an editorial management tool, reserved for use between the Editorial Team and the reviewer.

The recommendation may take one of the following forms:

• Acceptance: The manuscript satisfies the academic and editorial standards required for publication, subject to stylistic adjustments, editing, formal standardization, or minor queries.
  
  
• Minor Revision: The manuscript requires limited modifications, clarifications, formal adjustments, or technical corrections that do not substantially alter its structure, argument, method, results, or conclusions. Progressing to the next editorial phase is contingent upon the Editorial Team verifying that all requested changes have been fully incorporated. The Editorial Team reserves the right to require additional review cycles whenever necessary.
  
  
• Major Revision: The manuscript requires substantive modifications to its structure, argumentation, method, sources, analysis, discussion, results, or conclusions. Further review of the revised manuscript may be conducted by the same referees or by new reviewers, subject to the substantiality of the requested changes.
  
  
• Rejection: The manuscript does not meet the academic, scientific, legal, methodological, ethical, or editorial standards required by the journal, or does not sufficiently align with its scope and priority areas.

Authors required to revise their work must submit the updated version within the deadline specified in the editorial notice, along with a itemized response to the reviewers' comments where applicable. Failure to meet this deadline without prior editorial approval may result in the withdrawal or rejection of the manuscript.

Peer review evaluations provide specialized technical guidance. They do neither constitute a binding decision to publish nor establish a vested right to publication. While a favorable peer review is a prerequisite for progressing through the editorial process, it does not by itself ensure final acceptance.

All final decisions on acceptance, rejection, revision, further review, or publication rest with the Editorial Team. In reaching its decisions, the Editorial Team considers the peer review reports, the author's response, compliance with editorial policies, the manuscript's fit with the journal, the scholarly integrity of the process, the quality of the final submitted version, and the editorial planning of the relevant issue.

The Editorial Team is not bound by referee recommendations and retains full authority to make independent, reasoned decisions. Specifically, the Editorial Team may overrule a favorable review in light of significant editorial concerns, ethical or formatting non-compliance, academic integrity issues, lack of alignment with journal scope, unfulfilled revisions, or broader standards of editorial quality. Where reviewer opinions diverge or prove insufficient, the Editorial Team reserves the right to solicit additional evaluations, request author clarifications, mandate further amendments, or assign an independent third reviewer. 

Editorial decisions will be formally communicated through the journal’s official channels. In the event of a substantiated grievance, authors may initiate the appeal procedure established in the journal’s policies (see Digital Preservation, Corrections Management, and Appeals).