Preliminary Manuscript Selection Criteria
Preliminary screening evaluates manuscripts against the following criteria:
- Editorial Scope and Alignment: The manuscript must directly align with the journal's editorial focus, priority research areas, and specific call for papers. Consequently, the journal may decline submissions that, despite their scientific validity, fall outside its thematic scope, orientation, or institutional focus.
- Academic Relevance and Contribution: Submissions are initially evaluated for a relevant and identifiable contribution to legal knowledge across doctrinal, normative, case-law, institutional, theoretical, methodological, empirical, or interdisciplinary fields. This preliminary appraisal does not replace expert peer review.
- Originality and Academic Integrity: Manuscripts must be original, unpublished, and not under concurrent consideration by another journal, book publisher, repository, or editorial body, except where explicitly permitted under journal policies. Authors must formally certify originality and adherence to academic integrity guidelines via the Authorship Form.
- Methodological and Structural Soundness: The text must present a clear research problem, objective, thesis, or analytical framework, supported by a coherent structure suited to the article type. Research articles will be screened for the preliminary sufficiency of their methodology, scholarly and legal sourcing (legislation, case law, or empirical data), and logical alignment between arguments and conclusions.
- Formal and Documentation Compliance: Submissions must satisfy all requirements regarding manuscript length, preparation guidelines, double-blind anonymization, citation standards, and required accompanying documentation. Material non-compliance may hold the manuscript from peer review until remedied, or lead to desk rejection where it seriously impairs editorial assessment.
