Papers selection

Submitting a paper

 Authors interested in publishing their research works in InDret should send their paper to the review using the filling form available at the webpage. The paper should be original and follow the journal’s style sheet. InDret reserves the right to modify the paper in order to adapt it to the style sheet.

Submission of a manuscript implies that its publication has been approved by all co-authors, if any, as well as by any responsible authorities – tacitly or explicitly – at the university or institute where the work has been carried out; that the work described in the manuscript has not been published before; and that authors have not simultaneously submitted it for publication anywhere else.

Authors wishing to include text passages, figures or tables that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) and to inform about such permission when submitting their papers. Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors.

 

Peer-review policy

• General information

Articles published under the heading «Analysis» are subject to peer review.

Other contributed articles are not usually peer-reviewed. Those include technical reports, surveys of cases, book reviews, and news. They are published either under the heading «Developments» or «Book Reviews». Nevertheless, such contributions, particularly if they present some further analysis, may be peer-reviewed at the discretion of the editors.

• Double blind peer review

InDret uses a double-blind peer review system to assess submitted contributions, which means that both the reviewer and author identities are concealed from the reviewers, and vice versa, throughout the review process. Authors are responsible for anonymizing their manuscript accordingly.

• Criteria for publication

 

InDret receives many more submissions than they can publish. To be published in InDret, a paper should meet the following general criteria:

• relevance and interest of the topic
• correctness of the content
• reasoning and development of the analysis’ goal
• use and quotation of relevant legislation and case-law
• writing style 

• The review process

All submitted manuscripts are read by the editorial staff. Those papers judged by the editors to be out of InDret’s scope or of insufficient general interest may be rejected promptly without external review.

Manuscripts judged to be of potential interest to our readership are sent for formal review, to two reviewers, both external to the Board of Editors and Editorial Staff. They will write a report in the same language as the original.

The reviewers’ reports will provide a justified decision from among several possibilities:

• Accept, with or without editorial revisions
• Invite the authors to revise their manuscript to address specific concerns before a final decision is reached
• Reject, but indicate to the authors that further work might justify a resubmission
• Reject outright, typically on grounds of specialist interest, lack of novelty, insufficient conceptual advance or major technical and/or interpretational problems

If both reports are contradictory, the Board of Editors may seek advice from a third expert reviewer, who will write a new decisive report.

The reviewers’ reports will be submitted to the authors for them to incorporate the corrections and suggestions.

The final decision about publishing the papers corresponds to the Editorial Board, once it has analysed the reviewers’ reports. The editors then make a decision based on the reviewers’ advice.

When reviewers agree to assess a paper, we consider this a commitment to review subsequent revisions. However, editors will not send a resubmitted paper back to the reviewers if it seems that the authors have not made a serious attempt to address the criticisms.

• Selecting peer-reviewers

Reviewer selection is critical to the publication process, and we base our choice on many factors, including expertise, reputation, specific recommendations and our own previous experience of a reviewer’s characteristics.

We check with potential reviewers before sending them manuscripts to review. Reviewers should bear in mind that these messages contain confidential information, which should be treated as such.

• Writing the review

The primary purpose of the review is to provide the editors with the information needed to reach a decision but the review should also instruct the authors on how they can strengthen their paper to the point where it may be acceptable. As far as possible, a negative review should explain to the authors the major weaknesses of their manuscript, so that rejected authors can understand the basis for the decision and see in broad terms what needs to be done to improve the manuscript for publication elsewhere.

• Timing

InDret is committed to rapid editorial decisions and publication, and we believe that an efficient editorial process is a valuable service both to our authors and to the scientific community as a whole. We therefore ask reviewers to respond promptly within the number of days agreed. If reviewers anticipate a longer delay than previously expected, we ask them to let us know so that we can keep the authors informed and, where necessary, find alternatives.

 

Copyright policies and Open Access

InDret holds non-exclusive rights of distribution, public communication and reproduction of the author’s work for its publishing in InDret as well as for its deposit in repositories and databases where InDret is indexed. Authors retain any other rights and particularly any rights necessary for any commercial usage of their works. Any subsequent uses by authors shall mention reference to InDret.

Readers may read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to any of the full texts of InDret’s articles for any purposes other than commercial, provided that, when applicable, they provide full credit to author(s) and InDret.