Peer Review Process

All manuscripts submitted to the Editorial Board undergo before accepting a review procedure, during which two independent reviews are prepared, usually by members of the Editorial Board. The review procedure is double-blind. Persons with institutional or other connections with the author do not review manuscripts.

The review procedure usually takes no more than three (3) weeks, and the author is informed about its outcome. IJLS reserves the right to not publish an article or return an article to the review procedure, provided there are compelling reasons. This holds even if the outcome of the review procedure was positive (e.g. in case there was a significant change in legislation during or after the completion of the review procedure). The review process will take approximately 4 to 12 weeks. The peer review at IJLS proceeds in 9 steps with the following description.

1. Submission of Paper
The corresponding or submitting author submits the paper to the journal. This is carried out via an online system supported by the Open Journal System (OJS). But to facilitate authors, IJLS temporarily also accepts paper submissions by email.
 
2. Editorial Office Assessment
The submitted paper is first assessed by the IJLS editor. The editor checks whether it is suitable for the Journal focus and scope. The paper's composition and arrangement are evaluated against the journal's Author Guidelines to ensure it includes the required sections and stylizations. In addition, an assessment of the minimum required quality of the paper for publication begins at this step, including one that assesses whether there is a major methodological flaw. Every submitted paper which passes this step will be checked by Turnitin to identify any plagiarism before being reviewed by reviewers. All articles submitted will be screened for plagiarism by Turnitin (maximum similarity 20%).

3. Appraisal by Editor-in-Chief
The Editor in Chief checks whether the paper is appropriate for the journal, is original, exciting and significant enough for publication. Otherwise, the article can be rejected without further review; if accepted, the author does an APC before the editor forwards it to the reviewer read Author Fess.

4. Invitation to Reviewers
The handling editor sends invitations to individuals who he or she believes would be an appropriate reviewers (also known as referees) based on expertise, the closeness of research interest, and no conflict of interest consideration. The peer-review process at IJLS involves a community of experts in the field of law and social studies theory and practice, which is narrowly defined as stated in the focus and scope that meets the requirements and can conduct a fairly impartial review.  The impartiality is also maintained by the double-blind peer review employed in this journal. That said, the reviewer does not know the author's identity, conversely, the author does not know the reviewer's identity.  The paper is sent to reviewers anonymously.
 
5. Response to Invitations
Potential reviewers consider the invitation against their own expertise, conflicts of interest, and availability. They then decide to accept or decline. In the invitation letter, the editor may ask the potential reviewer for the suggestion of an alternative reviewer when he or she declines to review.
 
6. Review is Conducted
The reviewers allocate time to read the paper several times. The first read is used to form an initial impression of the work. If major problems are found at this stage, the reviewers may feel comfortable rejecting the paper without further work. Otherwise, they will read the paper several times, taking notes to build a detailed point-by-point review. The review is then submitted to the journal, with a recommendation to accept or reject it or else with a request for revision (usually flagged as either major or minor) before it is reconsidered.
 
7. Journal Evaluates the Reviews
The Editor-in-Chief and handling editor considers all the returned reviews before making an overall decision. If the reviews differ widely between both reviewers, the handling editor may invite an additional reviewer to obtain an extra opinion before making a decision.
 
8. The Decision is Communicated
The editor sends a decision email to the author, including any relevant reviewer comments. Reviewer comments are sent anonymously to the corresponding author to take the necessary actions and responses. At this point, reviewers are also sent an email or letter letting them know the outcome of their review.
 
9. Final Steps
If accepted, the paper is sent to copy-editing. If the article is rejected or sent back to the author for either major or minor revision, the handling editor will include constructive comments from the reviewers to help the author improve the article. The author should make corrections and revise the paper per the reviewers' comments and instructions.
 
After the revision, the author should resubmit the revised paper to the editor.
 
If the paper was returned for revision, the reviewers should expect to receive the revised version unless they have opted out of further participation. However, where only minor changes were requested, the handling editor might do this follow-up review.
 
If the editor is happy with the revised paper, it is considered to be accepted. The accepted papers will be published online; all are freely available as downloadable pdf files.