Publication in a peer reviewed learned journal serves many purposes outside of simple communication. It is a building block in the development of a coherent and respected knowledge network. For all these reasons and more, it is important to lay down standards of expected ethical behaviour by all parties involved in the act of publishing: the Author, the journal Editor, the peer reviewer, the Publisher and the academic community for the Russian-Asian Law Journal.

The Journal’s editorial policy is based upon traditional ethical principles of Russian academic periodicals. It supports the Academic Periodicals Ethical Codex, stated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (Russia, Moscow) and is informed by ethical standards of editing and publishing confirmed by the Code of Conduct and Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and Code of Conduct for Journal Publishers, developed by Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

As a Publisher, we take our duties of guardianship over the scholarly record extremely seriously. Our journal programmes record the “minutes of science” and we recognise our responsibilities as the keeper of those “minutes” in all our policies, not least in the ethical guidelines here adopted.

Duties of Editors

Publication decision – The Editor of the Russian-Asian Law Journal is solely and independently responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published, though often working on conjunction with the relevant academic community. Such decisions must always be justified in terms of a validation of the work in question and its importance to researchers and readers. The Editor may be guided by the policies of the Russian-Asian Law Journal editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as are currently in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

The Editor may confer with other editors or reviewers (or society officers of the academic community) in making this decision.

Fair play – The Editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to the gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality – The Editor and any editorial staff of the Russian-Asian Law Journal must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding Author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the Publisher, as appropriate.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an Editor’s own research without the express written consent of the Author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Editors should recuse themselves (i.e. should ask a co-Editor, associate Editor or other member of the editorial board instead to review and consider) from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers.

Vigilance over the published record.

Any Editor presented with convincing evidence that the substance or conclusions of a published paper are erroneous should coordinate with the Publisher (and/or relevant academic community) to promote the prompt publication of a correction, retraction, expression of concern, or other note, as may be relevant.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations.

The Editor together with the Publisher (or academic community) should take reasonably responsive measures when complaints of an ethical nature have been received concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper, in conjunction with the Publisher (or society). Such measures will generally include contacting the Author of the manuscript or paper and giving due consideration of the respective complaint or claims made, but may also include further communications to the relevant institutions and research bodies.

Duties of Reviewers

Contribution to Editorial Decisions – Peer review assists the Editor in making editorial decisions and, through the editorial communications with the Author, may also assist the Author in improving the paper. An essential component of formal scholarly communication, the peer review process is enshrined at the heart of the scientific method. The Publisher shares the view of many that all scholars who wish to contribute to publications have an obligation to do a fair share of reviewing.

Promptness – Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor of the Russian-Asian Law Journal and recuse him- or herself from the review process.

Confidentiality – Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be disclosed to or discussed with others except as expressly authorised by the Editor.

Standards and objectivity – Reviews should be conducted objectively. Any personal criticism of the Author is inappropriate. Referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Acknowledgement of Sources – Reviewers should identify any relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that an observation, derivation, or argument had been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. A reviewer should also call to the Editor’s attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.

Disclosure and Conflict of Interest

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the Author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Authors

Reporting standards

Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behaviour and are unacceptable.

Review and professional publication articles should also be accurate and objective; any works featuring editorial “opinion” should be clearly identified as such.

Originality and Plagiarism

The authors must ensure that they have written entirely original works and, if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited or acknowledged.

Plagiarism takes many forms, from “passing off” another’s paper as one’s own to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution) or claiming credit for the results of research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

Multiple, Redundant or Concurrent Publication

An Author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal of primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behaviour and is unacceptable.

In general, an Author should not submit for consideration a paper that has been previously published in another journal.

Publication of some kinds of articles (e.g. translations) in more than one journal is sometimes justifiable, provided certain conditions are met. The authors and editors of the journals concerned must agree to the secondary publication, which must reflect the same data and interpretation of the primary document. The primary reference must be cited in the secondary publication. Further detail on acceptable forms of secondary publication can be found at www.icmje.org.

Acknowledgement of Sources – Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be provided. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, including conversations, correspondences, or discussions with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or assisting with grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the Author(s) of the relevant work(s).

Authorship of the Paper

Authorship is limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors.

The corresponding Author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are duly acknowledged in the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper as well as explicitly agreeing to its submission for publication.

Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest

All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.

Examples of potential conflicts of interest which should be disclosed include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations and grants or other funding. Potential conflicts of interest should be disclosed at the earliest possible stage.

Fundamental errors in published works – When an Author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in a published work, it is the Author’s obligation to promptly notify the Editor of the Russian-Asian Law Journal and cooperate with the Publisher to retract or correct the paper, Should the Editor or Publisher learn from a third party that a published work contains a significant error, it is the obligation of the Author to promptly retract or correct the paper.

Duties of the Publisher

The Publisher should adopt policies and procedures that support editors, reviewers and authors of the Russian-Asian Law Journal in performing their ethical duties under these ethics guidelines. The Publisher should ensure that the potential for advertising or reprint revenue has no impact or influence on editorial decisions.

The Publisher should support the Russian-Asian Law Journal editors in the review of complaints raised concerning ethical issues as well as facilitate communications with other journals and / or publishers where this is useful to editors.

The Publisher should develop codes of practice and inculcate industry standards for best practice on ethical matters, errors and retractions.

The Publisher should provide specialised legal review and counsel if necessary.

The section is prepared according to the files (http://health.elsevier.ru/attachments/Editor/file/ethical_code_final.pdf) of Elsevier Publisher (https://www.elsevier.com/) and files (http://publicationethics.org/resources) from Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE - http://publicationethics.org/). 

All articles published in this journal are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, unless otherwise stated.

Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in a reviewer’s own research without the express written consent of the Author. Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage.

Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the papers.

Plagiarism detection

Russian-Asian Law Journal uses the Antiplagiat Russian-language plagiarism detection software  to screen the submissions. If plagiarism is identified, the COPE guidelines on plagiarism will be followed.

Prior to acceptance and publication in the Russian-Asian Law Journal, authors may make their submissions available as preprints on personal or public websites.

As part of the submission process, authors are required to confirm that the submission has not been previously published, nor has been submitted for consideration with another journal. After a manuscript has been published in the Russian-Asian Law Journal, we suggest that the link to the article on journal's website be used when sharing the article on personal or public websites.