Journal of Liberty and International Affairs is determined to publish original work of value to the academic community in the best possible form and the highest possible standards. We expect similar standards from our reviewers and authors. Honesty, originality, and fair dealing on the part of authors, and fairness, objectivity, and confidentiality on the part of editors and peer-reviewers are among the critical values that enable us to achieve our aim. The journal fully accepts and behaves following the Core Practices established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and is available free of charge on its website. For all parties involved in the act of publishing (the author, the journal editors, the reviewers, and the publisher), it is necessary to agree upon standards of expected ethical behavior. The Journal of Liberty and International Affairs ethics statements are based on COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors.

EDITOR DUTIES:

Liability

The editor of a peer-reviewed journal is accountable for identifying which articles submitted to the journal need to be published and is accountable for the entirety published in the journal, according to the legal stipulations for defamation, copyright laws, and plagiarism. The editor might also consult with different editors or reviewers while making publication selections. The editor must uphold the academic record’s integrity, prevent business motives from compromising ethical and intellectual principles and be ready to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies as necessary.

Honesty

The editor should evaluate the articles for scientific content regardless of the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, confession, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political ideology. The editor will no longer discuss an article with anybody outside the author(s), peer-reviewers and potential peer-reviewers, and, in some cases, the editorial board members, as necessary.

Confidentiality

The corresponding author, peer-reviewers, potential peer-reviewers, other editorial consultants, and the publisher, where applicable, are the only parties to whom the editor and any editorial staff may disclose information on a submitted manuscript.

Disclosure, conflicts of interest, and other issues

When considering retracting, expressing concern, and issuing corrections concerning articles published in the Journal of Liberty and International Affairs, the editor may refer to COPE’s Guidelines for Retracting Articles as a guide.

Unpublished data disclosed in an article submission should no longer be used in the editor’s research without the author’s explicit written permission.

Confidential data or thoughts acquired via review have to be stored confidential and are now not used for personal benefit.

The editor must ensure that marketing, reprint, or other commercial revenue has no impact or impact on editorial selections. The editor must seek to ensure an appropriate peer-review procedure. Editors must withdraw from considering manuscripts if they have a conflict of interest with any of the authors, organizations, or (presumably) institutions involved in the articles due to any collaborative, competitive, or other relationships or connections they may have.

All authors should be required to disclose competing interests (or conflicts of interest), and editors should publish corrections if any are discovered after the article has been published. Along with releasing a retraction or statement of the situation, additional appropriate action may be required.

If you are uncertain, make sure to disclose any potential conflicts of interest or have a conversation with the editorial office. Submissions with undisclosed conflicts that come to light later may face rejection. If published articles are found to have undisclosed conflicts, they might require reassessment, publication of a correction, or in severe cases, retraction. For additional details on conflicts of interest, refer to the guidance provided by the WAME.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations

Editors must protect the integrity of the published material by pursuing any suspected or alleged research and publication wrongdoing and issuing corrections and retractions as necessary. Editors must investigate wrongdoing by peer-reviewers and editors. When ethical concerns are made about an article that has been submitted or an article that has been published, an editor must act reasonably quickly.

REVIEWER DUTIES:

Contribution to editorial decisions

Peer-review helps the editor’s decision-making process and, through editorial correspondence with the author, can aid the author in improving the article text.

Agility

Any invited reviewer who feels inadequate to evaluate the article or is aware that a timely peer- review will not be possible must immediately inform the editor so that other reviewers can be contacted.

Confidentiality and discretion

All peer-reviewed articles must be treated as confidential files at all times. They cannot be discussed or presented to anyone else without the editor’s permission.

Peer-reviews must adhere to strict standards of objectivity. It is forbidden to make personal remarks about the authors. Reviewers must honestly state their opinions and provide appropriate justification.

Attribution of sources

Reviewers must locate relevant published works that the authors have not cited. Any allegation that a statement, conclusion, or line of reasoning has previously been stated must be accompanied by the proper citation. Reviewers must also draw the editor’s attention to any striking similarities or overlaps between the article under consideration and any other published materials they know firsthand.

Conflicts of interest and disclosure

Peer-reviewed material that contains private information, concepts or ideas should be kept secret and not used for personal advantage. Peer-reviewers can no longer consider evaluating articles with conflicts of interest because of collaborative, competitive, or other relationships or affiliations with any of the authors, businesses, or institutions associated with the article.

AUTHOR DUTIES:

Reporting standards

Authors who present original research findings should give a truthful assessment of the work done and an unbiased analysis of its relevance. The article should appropriately reflect the underlying data. An article should have enough information and citations to allow others to replicate the work. False or deliberately inaccurate statements are inappropriate and represent unethical activity.

Originality and plagiarism

The authors must make sure that their articles are entirely original and that, if they have borrowed any ideas or words from others, they have correctly cited or noted the source.

Multiple, duplicate, or simultaneous publications

The authors cannot publish submissions presenting the same study in different journals or primary publications. The simultaneous submission of the same article to multiple journals is unacceptable and constitutes unethical publishing.

Acknowledgment of sources

The authors should cite publications that helped define the character of the present research. Always give proper recognition to other people’s contributions.

Authorship

Only those who contributed significantly to the idea, concept, implementation, or interpretation of the research findings should be allowed to write it. All those who have contributed significantly ought to be listed as co-authors. An acknowledgment section must list the names of other people who contributed significantly to the article’s composition.

The corresponding author must ensure that all competent co-authors are listed in the article’s author listing, that none are unnecessary, and that all co-authors have approved the submission of the article for publication after having seen the final draft and given their permission.

Editors are allowed to publish their own articles, but they are not permitted to participate in the editing process for their own academic work. Submissions authored by editors will be assigned to at least two independent outside reviewers. Decisions will be made by other editorial board members who do not have conflicts of interest with the author/s. 

Disclosure and conflicts of interest

Any financial or other significant conflicts of interest that could be taken to have an impact on the findings or how they are interpreted in the publication should be disclosed by all authors. Disclosure of all funding sources for the project is required.

Fundamental errors

The author must contact the journal’s editor or publisher as soon as he or she becomes aware of a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her published article and work with them to either retract the article or publish an appropriate erratum.

PUBLISHER’S CONFIRMATION:

In the alleged or established fraudulent publication, scientific misconduct, plagiarism, or duplication, the publisher will closely work with the editors and take all necessary steps to clarify and correct the problematic article. In the worst scenarios, the affected article may be completely retracted. This case includes the quick release of an erratum.

COMPLIANCE WITH ETHICAL STANDARDS:

The authors should include informed consent if the research involved humans and a statement on the welfare of animals if the research involved animals to ensure objectivity and transparency in the research and that accepted principles of ethical and professional conduct have been followed. When submitting an article, authors must add the statements (if appropriate) in a separate “Compliance with Ethical Standards” section before the References section.

If a waiver was obtained for the research, the authors must expressly state that fact, along with the justification for the waiver. They must attest that the research was carried out following the Declaration of Helsinki and any later revisions or comparable ethical guidelines.

Acknowledgments

Everyone who helped create the article’s content but did not satisfy the criteria for authorship should be acknowledged, including those who gave technical support, institutional or department chiefs who offered general encouragement, and medical writers. The journal expects authors to include this section in the article and write an acknowledgment even if they have no one to thank. In this case, the authors should write only: “not applicable”.

Funding

It is essential to disclose all funding sources for the research and their involvement in the study’s design, data collection, analysis, and interpretation, as well as the article’s authorship. Along with the grant numbers, provide the name of the financing entity or agencies. The journal expects authors to include this part before the References section and to write: “not applicable” if the research received no funding.

RESEARCH INVOLVING HUMAN PARTICIPANTS OR ANIMALS:

Human rights

When presenting a study that involved human subjects, authors should state that the study was carried out following the standards outlined in the Declaration of Helsinki and any later amendments or with comparable ethical standards and that the study has been approved by the appropriate institutional or national research ethics committee. Suppose there is doubt whether the research was carried out following the Declaration of Helsinki or other comparable standards. In that case, the authors must justify their strategy and show that the questionable portions of the research were expressly approved by an independent ethics committee or institutional review board.

Before the References section, the following statement needs to be added:

“All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were following the ethical standards of the institutional or national research committee and with the Declaration of Helsinki and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards”.

Please add the following statement for retrospective studies:

“For this type of study, formal consent is not required”.

Statement on the welfare of animals

Respect must be shown for the well-being of animals utilized in research. When describing animal experimentation, authors must state whether institutional, national or international regulations for the care and use of animals have been adhered to, as well as whether a research ethics committee at the institution or practice where the experimentation was carried out has approved the research (if there is such a committee).

Before the References section, the following statement needs to be added:

“All applicable international, national, or institutional guidelines for the care and use of animals were followed”.

If applicable (if there is such a committee): “All procedures performed in studies involving animals were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institution or practice at which the studies were conducted”.

Please select one of the following statements if an article does not contain experiments with human participants or animals by any of the authors:

  • “This article does not contain any studies with human participants performed by authors”.
  • “This article does not contain any studies with animals performed by any of the authors”.
  • “This article does not contain any studies with human participants or animals performed by any authors”.

Informed consent

Human rights belong to everyone and cannot be violated. Individuals who participate in studies have certain rights, including the ability to control what happens to any personal information collected about them, any statements they made during research or interview, and any photos that may have been taken. Therefore, each human participant must sign a written informed consent form before being included in the research. Unless the information is essential for scientific purposes and the participant (or parent or guardian if the participant is incapable) gave written informed consent for publication, identifiable characteristics (names, identity numbers, dates of birth, and other information) of the study participants may not be published in written descriptions, photos, or genetic profiles.

Complete anonymity can be hard to achieve in some circumstances, and if there is any doubt, informed consent must be obtained. Authors must guarantee that alterations do not change the scientific meaning if identifiable characteristics are changed to protect anonymity, as in genetic profiles.

Before the References section, the following statement needs to be added:

 “Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study”.

The following statement needs to be added if the article contains identifiable participant characteristics: “Additional informed consent was obtained from all individual participants for whom identifying information is included in this article”.

Note

When requested during peer-review or after publication, the corresponding author must be ready to gather documentation of compliance with ethical standards and present it. False claims or failing to adhere to ethical standards will result in the author being held accountable.

Publisher’s note:

The publisher remains neutral concerning jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Post-Publication Discussions and Corrections
Following COPE post-publication discussions and corrections, any comments fostering discussion or expressing concerns about the published content should be submitted as a Letter to the Editor-In-Chief. JLIA encourage unbiased, evidence-based comments that add value to scholarly discussions and refrain from subjective opinions or derogatory language. If post-publication discussions indicate a necessity to correct or retract the published content, the concerns will be addressed through a Correction or Retraction Notice.

The journal editors always are willing to publish corrections, clarifications, retractions, and apologies when needed.