Ethical Principles for Scientific Publications

The editorial office, editorial council, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law are guided in their activities by the ethical principles for scientific publications, based on the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics, a worldwide nonprofit organization that aims to support publishers and editors in achieving high standards of publication ethics, and recommendations for principles that should underlie statements on publication ethics and global best practices in the field of scientific publications ethics, such as the recommendations on countering unfair publishing practices (PEMS), as well as Russian legislation regulating copyright and mass communications, and require all participants in the publishing process to comply with them.

Basic principles of research ethics

Research papers published in the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law must comply with the principles of professional and academic ethics. All participants in the research process should demonstrate responsibility, integrity, high standards, and respect, honesty, and openness in their interaction and communication.

If the research published in the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law was not conducted in accordance with the ethical guidelines, a valid claim should be sent to the editorial office by e-mail at jzsp@izak.ru or jzsp@norma-verlag.com. The appeal will be reviewed according to the COPE and PEMS recommendations.

Ethical principles in activities of the editorial office, editorial council, and editor-in-chief

The editorial office strives to ensure independence of scientific research and to prevent conflicts of interest or other corporate, business, financial or political influence.

The editorial office does not discriminate authors or reviewers on the basis of personal qualities, but encourages diversity and promotes equity at every stage of the publishing process.

The Institute of Legislation and Comparative Law under the Government of the Russian Federation (ILCL) as a founder of the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law approve on the publisher that would assume responsibility for releasing the Journal. The ILCL approves the editor-in-chief and composition of the editorial council. It may also advise the editorial council on changes in policy, ethics or other issues.

The editorial office ensures publicity of its editorial policy and consideration of appeals against negative decisions taken in respect of articles. The editorial office considers appeals only if they are provided with information relevant to the editorial decision or if there is a reason to believe that the editorial council did not follow the COPE and PEMS standards of the presented Ethical Principles. An appeal or a justified complaint may be submitted to the editorial office by e-mail at jzsp@izak.ru or jzsp@norma-verlag.com.

Editing process

The editorial office, editorial council, and editor-in-chief of the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law are responsible for publishing authors' materials.

The editorial office, editorial council, and editor-in-chief, guided by the policy of the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law and not allowing violation of copyright, evaluate the manuscript based on its scientific significance and reliability of the data presented in it, regardless of the race, gender, sexual orientation, religious beliefs, nationality, citizenship and political views of the author.

Information concerning the manuscript submitted for review and unpublished data contained therein must remain confidential and may not be used by participants of the publishing process for personal purposes or passed on to third parties without the written consent of the author.

The editorial office, editorial council, and editor-in-chief do not disregard claims of unfair behavior regarding reviewed manuscripts or published material, and take all reasonable steps to properly investigate and resolve the conflicting situation.

The editorial office expects the publisher, authors, and reviewers to abide by all relevant confidentiality provisions of the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law and to provide the necessary information.

The editorial office expects to be notified about evidence of unfair or manipulative peer review by emailing jzsp@izak.ru or jzsp@norma-verlag.com.

The editorial office, editorial council, and editor-in-chief express their willingness to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when necessary.

Publication decision

The editor-in-chief is responsible for making the decision to publish articles submit to the editorial office of the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law. In doing so, the editor-in-chief is guided by the general policy of the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law adopted by the editorial council and the relevant provisions of the current Russian legislation regarding copyright infringement and plagiarism.

When deciding on the publication of articles, the editor-in-chief takes into account the opinions of reviewers and members of the editorial council.

Unbiased decisions

In evaluating the quality of a submitted manuscript, the editor-in-chief considers only its professional and intellectual quality. His decisions are not influenced by factors such as the author's political views, background and nationality, religious beliefs, race, gender, and sexual orientation.

Authorship and participation in publication-related work

Authors can only be persons made substantial contributions to the conception of the manuscript or to the interpretation of the ideas contained therein and have agreed to be responsible for all aspects of the work and to ensure that its integrity and the accuracy of the data provided are properly addressed. All of them should be listed as co-authors of the manuscript.

If a person does not meet the criteria for authorship participated in the research or writing of the article, authors are encouraged to note their contributions accordingly (with their permission) in the Acknowledgements section.

Ethical principles in the author's work

The author guarantees that the article submitted to the editorial office has not been previously published and is not under consideration in another publication.

The author is aware that the submitted article must be of scientific novelty. If the author used any publications in his research, they must be properly bibliographically referenced. Excessive and (or) incorrect borrowing, plagiarism, knowingly untrue statements, unverified facts are unacceptable.

The author is responsible for the accuracy of information about the co-authors of the article, information about the persons and sources of funding of the work, the results of which are described in the article.

The author acts on behalf of the co-authors in responding to inquiries from other persons after publication, including questions regarding ethics, reuse of published material, availability of used data and resources.

The author should not artificially inflate scientometric indicators, use unreasonable cross-citations, or give irrelevant references to the literature.

The author should give due credit to the work of other colleagues on the same topic. Authors should cite publications that have influenced the nature and content of their own work.

The author signs the Publication Agreement and/or ensures that any third-party rights holders sign the Agreement.

При обнаружении существенной ошибки или неточности в статье автор обязан незамедлительно уведомить об этом редакцию по электронной почте jzsp@izak.ru и сотрудничать с ней в целях внесения соответствующих корректировок в статью.

If a significant error or inaccuracy if found in an article, the author must immediately notify the editorial office by e-mail at jzsp@izak.ru or jzsp@norma-verlag.com and cooperate with it in order to make appropriate corrections to the article.

Affiliation

The author’s affiliation indicated in the article should represent the institution(s) in which the submitted research was carried out and/or supported and/or approved.

Plagiarism

The editorial office of the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law adheres to the definition of plagiarism as “the use of others’ ideas, research results, texts or other materials without permission of the authors, and respective references”.

Plagiarism involves incorrect borrowing from all types of sources and media, including:

• texts, illustrations, extended mathematical conclusions, etc;

• material downloaded from websites or copied from manuscripts and other media;

• any published and unpublished materials, including lectures and presentations.

The editorial office bars plagiarism in all publications and reserves the right to check all submitted materials with the use of appropriate tools (for instance “Anti-Plagiarism”). Materials containing plagiarism are rejected. The editorial office also expects the readers, reviewers and editors to report on possible plagiarism by contacting the editorial office on the e-mail jzsp@izak.ru or jzsp@norma-verlag.com.

Self-Plagiarism

A duplicate publication or “self-plagiarism” is a situation when a work or significant parts of it are published more than once by the author(s), in the same or another language, without appropriate cross-referencing or justification of duplication.

The editorial office does not support extensive duplication of publications except for the cases when it contributes to academic discussion, with correct source citation.

Any manuscript based on an academic thesis should be written in accordance with the style of the journal, and the material should be revised. When citing the thesis or reusing the figures, authors should avoid self-plagiarism by referring to any excerpts from the thesis in a proper manner. If the thesis has been published and is freely available, permission of the publisher may be required. When submitting a manuscript, the author should inform the editor in a cover letter that it is based on the thesis.

The editorial office expects the readers, reviewers and editors to convey information of any duplication of publication by emailing to jzsp@izak.ru or jzsp@norma-verlag.com.

Image processing

The editors ask the authors to avoid applying unreasonable changes to images, if possible, since this may lead to distortion of obtained results and decrease their significance. If images are used, appropriate references to the source must be made. The author undertakes to comply with the norms of Russian legislation regulating copyright and mass communications.

Ethical principles in the peer reviewer's work

Peer assessment/reviewing is crucial for maintaining the high standard of scientific publications. The purpose of reviewing is assessing the theoretical level of submitted articles and assisting the editor-in-chief in taking a decision on publication.

Reviewing is intended to help the editor-in-chief make a publication decision regarding the submitted article. It may also help the author refine his or her submission.

Reviewing articles in the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law is anonymous and is carried out by specialists in the subject area of the submitted manuscript on the basis of the Regulations on reviewing articles.

The reviewer, striving for maximum objectivity and avoiding personal criticism of the author, conducts a scientific examination of the manuscript submitted by the author.

The reviewer's recommendations are the basis for the decision to publish or not to publish the article.

The reviewer must refuse to perform the review if he/she has a personal interest in the results of the review of the submitted manuscript or if, in his/her opinion, he/she is not competent enough to evaluate it scientifically.

Information concerning the manuscript submitted for review and unpublished data contained therein must remain confidential and may not be used by the reviewer for personal purposes under any circumstances.

Retraction of articles

The editorial office considers retractions and changes to publications in accordance with the COPE recommendations on retractions.

Retraction of articles is performed in order to correct published information and alert readers that a publication contains serious flaws or erroneous data that cannot be trusted, as well as to alert readers to cases of duplicate publications, plagiarism and concealment of conflicts of interest that may have affected the interpretation of data or recommendations for its use.

A published article may be retracted at the initiative of the author, the editorial office, the editorial council or the editor-in-chief of The Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law.

The decision to retract an article is made by the editorial council.

Information about the retraction of an article is posted at the website jzsp.jes.su and reported to all databases where the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law is indexed.

Resolving of the conflict can be achieved through negotiations with the parties concerned or by sending a request for expertise to the appropriate institution.

Conflict of interest and financing

The editorial office strives to exclude any undue influence on the scholarly papers publication process. The authors, editors and reviewers of publications in the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law are obliged to report on any potential conflict of interest. The conflict of interest is a situation that may affect the outcome of the peer review or the decision on publication of research results. The conflict may be of financial, non-financial, professional, contractual or personal nature. The editorial office expects anyone who has a reason to believe that there is an implicit conflict of interest in respect of a work published or being under consideration by the editorial office to report it by e-mail to jzsp@izak.ru or jzsp@norma-verlag.com.

All participants in the publishing process should avoid conflicts of interest in any form and at any stage of preparation of a manuscript for publication. In case of conflict of interest, the parties should take all necessary steps to resolve it.

Libel, defamation and freedom of expression

Freedom of expression is crucial for the the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law as an academic edition; at the same time, the editorial office does not support publication of false statements that can damage the reputation of individuals, groups or organisations. The editorial office carries out its activities in accordance with the Constitution and the legislation of the Russian Federation.

Censorship

The Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law aims to disseminate knowledge to a broad audience and serve the academic community worldwide. The editorial office supports the СОРЕ’s statement on censorship and follows its recommendations.

Transparency

The editorial office is committed to following the СОРЕ’s and PEMS’s Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing and encourages the publishing partners to adhere to the same principles.

Marketing communication

Social media and email are powerful tools for disseminating information about publications in the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law, attracting new readers and discussing research findings. However, communication should not be to the prejudice of the Journal’s activity. The editorial office expects the dissemination of information about the journal to be made in accordance with the editorial policy in social media, the best media interaction practices and the Russian legislation.

Advertising

The editorial office allows for limited, appropriate and in some cases targeted advertising at the Journal web-site jrp.jes.su and in the printed issues of the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law. Advertising should be strictly separated from the Journal content.

Contacts

One may contact the editorial office by e-mail jzsp@izak.ru or jzsp@norma-verlag.com for any questions about the Journal of Foreign Legislation and Comparative Law. The messages are handled promptly and confidentially.