Publication Ethics

 
RESEARCH INTEGRITY & PUBLICATION ETHICS

Publication Ethics

TITAH: Journal of Law

TITAH: Journal of Law is committed to maintaining the integrity, transparency, credibility, and quality of the scholarly record. All parties involved in the publication process — authors, editors, peer reviewers, and the publisher — are expected to uphold high standards of academic integrity and responsible scholarly publishing.

Ethical Framework

This publication ethics policy is developed with reference to the principles and good practices promoted by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). The journal applies these principles throughout manuscript submission, editorial evaluation, peer review, publication, and post-publication management.

ETHICAL FOUNDATION

Core Areas of Publication Ethics

01
Allegations of Misconduct		 02
Authorship & Contributorship		 03
Complaints & Appeals		 04
Competing Interests		 05
Data & Reproducibility
06
Ethical Oversight		 07
Intellectual Property		 08
Journal Management		 09
Peer Review		 10
Post-Publication Actions

Ethical Responsibilities

A. Responsibilities of Authors
Authors are responsible for the integrity, originality, accuracy, transparency, and ethical compliance of their manuscripts.
✓ Submit original scholarly work.
✓ Accurately represent legal authorities, evidence, data, and research findings.
✓ Properly acknowledge and cite all sources used.
✓ Avoid plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, and misleading presentation of evidence.
✓ Avoid simultaneous or duplicate submission.
✓ Identify all legitimate authors and contributors.
✓ Disclose relevant funding and competing interests.
✓ Obtain appropriate ethical approval or informed consent where applicable.
✓ Disclose the use of generative AI or AI-assisted technologies where applicable.
✓ Promptly notify the journal if a significant error is discovered after submission or publication.
B.   Responsibilities of Editors
Editors are responsible for protecting the integrity and independence of the editorial process.

Editorial decisions must be based on scholarly merit, relevance to the journal, quality of legal reasoning, methodological rigor, research integrity, and compliance with publication ethics.

Editors must maintain confidentiality, avoid inappropriate influence, disclose conflicts of interest, ensure appropriate peer review, investigate credible allegations of misconduct, and take reasonable corrective action when problems are identified.
C.   Responsibilities of Peer Reviewers
Peer reviewers must provide independent, objective, confidential, constructive, and substantive scholarly assessments.

Reviewers should accept assignments only when the manuscript falls within their area of competence and when no competing interest prevents an impartial assessment.

Reviewers must not use confidential manuscripts, unpublished legal arguments, research data, ideas, or findings for personal or professional advantage.
RESEARCH & PUBLICATION MISCONDUCT

Practices that are not permitted

Fabrication
Inventing data, evidence, legal materials, findings, participants, documents, or research results that did not exist.		 Falsification
Manipulating, altering, suppressing, or misrepresenting research materials, evidence, data, or findings.		 Plagiarism
Using another person's words, ideas, arguments, data, or work without appropriate attribution.
Improper Authorship
Adding individuals who did not make a legitimate contribution or excluding contributors who qualify for authorship.		 Duplicate Submission
Submitting the same or substantially similar manuscript to more than one journal at the same time.		 Undisclosed Conflict
Failing to disclose a relationship or interest that could reasonably influence the research or publication process.
1

Originality and Plagiarism

Authors must ensure that submitted manuscripts represent original scholarly work. Ideas, quotations, arguments, legal interpretations, data, figures, tables, and other materials derived from external sources must be properly acknowledged.

The journal may use similarity-detection tools as part of its editorial screening. A similarity report is treated as an editorial assessment tool and must be interpreted contextually rather than solely on the basis of a numerical percentage.

Similarity involving extensive unattributed text, ideas, arguments, data, or other intellectual content may result in rejection, investigation, correction, or retraction depending on the stage at which it is discovered.
2

Authorship and Contributorship

Authorship must reflect genuine scholarly contribution to the work. Individuals should not be listed solely because of their position, institutional authority, funding role, professional relationship, or other non-scholarly consideration.

All authors must approve the submitted manuscript and accept responsibility for the integrity of their respective contributions and the final publication.

The manuscript template provides an Author Contributions statement to transparently describe each author's role in the research and manuscript.

Requests to add, remove, or rearrange authors after submission must be supported by a legitimate explanation and are subject to editorial assessment.

3

Multiple, Duplicate, and Redundant Publication

A manuscript submitted to TITAH: Journal of Law must not be simultaneously under consideration by another journal.

Authors must not republish substantially the same work under a different title or with only superficial modifications intended to present previously published material as a new publication.

Relevant prior publications, conference papers, working papers, or related outputs should be transparently disclosed where necessary so that the Editor can assess overlap and originality.
4

Conflict of Interest / Competing Interests

Authors, editors, and reviewers must disclose financial, professional, institutional, personal, academic, or other relationships that could reasonably influence — or be perceived to influence — the research, review, or editorial decision.
Required in the TITAH manuscript:
“The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest related to this manuscript.” when no competing interests exist.
5

Funding Transparency

Authors must disclose all financial support related to the research, including the funder and grant number where applicable.

Where relevant, authors should also disclose whether the funder had a role in the design of the study, data collection, analysis, interpretation, manuscript preparation, or the decision to publish.

“This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.”
6

Data, Evidence, and Reproducibility

Authors are responsible for ensuring that research materials, empirical data, interview records, legal documents, cases, statutes, regulations, judicial decisions, and other evidence relied upon in the manuscript are presented accurately and transparently.

Where empirical data are used, authors should retain sufficient research documentation to support the findings and provide appropriate information about data collection and analysis in the manuscript, subject to confidentiality, privacy, legal restrictions, and ethical obligations.

7

Ethical Oversight

Research involving interviews, surveys, observations, human participants, confidential records, personal information, or other activities requiring ethical oversight must comply with applicable ethical and institutional requirements.

Authors should disclose relevant ethical approval, informed consent, confidentiality safeguards, or other ethical procedures when required by the nature of the research.

8

Ethical Peer Review

Peer review must be conducted independently, confidentially, objectively, and without inappropriate influence.

Reviewers must disclose conflicts of interest and should decline assignments when they cannot provide a fair assessment or when the manuscript lies outside their competence.

Reviewers should provide substantive and constructive comments intended to improve the scholarly quality of the manuscript. Personal attacks, discriminatory comments, coercive citation, or misuse of confidential information are not acceptable.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE POLICY

Use of Artificial Intelligence

TITAH: Journal of Law requires transparency concerning the use of generative Artificial Intelligence and AI-assisted technologies.

Authors
Authors must disclose relevant use of generative AI or AI-assisted technology and remain responsible for originality, accuracy, citation verification, confidentiality, ethics, legal reasoning, and final content.		 Editors
AI-assisted tools must not replace independent editorial judgment or decision-making. Confidential manuscript information must be protected throughout the editorial process.		 Peer Reviewers
Reviewers must not use generative AI to analyze, evaluate, or prepare comments on confidential manuscripts, nor upload unpublished manuscripts or portions of them to AI systems.
AI systems cannot be listed as authors. Human authors remain accountable for all scholarly claims and content submitted to the journal.
9

Intellectual Property and Copyright

Authors must respect copyright, attribution requirements, licenses, permissions, and other intellectual property rights associated with texts, figures, photographs, tables, datasets, or other materials incorporated into the manuscript.

In accordance with the TITAH manuscript template, published articles are distributed as open-access works under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-SA 4.0).
10

Complaints and Appeals

The journal treats reasonable complaints and appeals seriously and seeks to handle them fairly, transparently, and without retaliation.

Authors or other parties may raise concerns concerning editorial procedures, peer review, publication ethics, editorial conduct, or published content.

An appeal concerning an editorial decision should provide a clear scholarly explanation and supporting information. Submission of an appeal does not automatically result in reversal of the original editorial decision.

INTEGRITY PROCEDURE

Handling Allegations of Misconduct

1
 Receipt of Allegation
The journal receives an allegation, concern, complaint, or evidence relating to possible research or publication misconduct.
2
 Preliminary Assessment
The Editor assesses whether the allegation is sufficiently specific, credible, and relevant to warrant further investigation.
3
 Collection of Information
Relevant editorial records, manuscript files, peer-review records, correspondence, similarity reports, or other evidence may be examined.
4
 Opportunity to Respond
Where appropriate, the party concerned may be asked to provide clarification or supporting information before a conclusion is reached.
5
 Editorial Action
Based on the evidence and stage of publication, the journal may take appropriate action, which may include rejection, correction, notification, expression of concern, or retraction.
Post-Publication Discussions, Corrections, and Retractions
The journal recognizes that editorial responsibility continues after an article has been published. Credible concerns regarding a published article will be assessed and, when necessary, investigated.
Correction
Used when a published article requires an important correction while its overall findings remain reliable.		 Erratum / Corrigendum
May be issued to transparently correct errors in the published scholarly record.		 Expression of Concern
May be used where substantial concerns exist but the available evidence is not yet sufficient for a final conclusion.		 Retraction
May be applied when findings are unreliable or serious publication or research misconduct materially compromises the integrity of the article.

Post-publication notices should remain transparently connected to the original scholarly record and should explain the reason for the editorial action.

Preservation of the Scholarly Record
When correction or retraction is required, the journal aims to preserve the transparency of the scholarly record rather than silently removing information. Relevant metadata and notices should remain accessible so readers can understand the publication history and editorial action taken.
Editorial Independence
Editorial decisions must not be improperly influenced by commercial, financial, political, institutional, personal, or other interests.

The publisher supports the Editorial Team's responsibility to make independent scholarly decisions consistent with the journal's aims, peer-review standards, publication ethics, and integrity obligations.

Confidentiality
Manuscripts submitted to the journal are confidential documents. Editors and reviewers must protect unpublished manuscripts, reviewer reports, editorial correspondence, research data, and confidential information obtained through the editorial process.

Confidential materials must not be shared or used for personal, academic, commercial, competitive, or other unauthorized purposes.

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Commitment to Integrity
TITAH: Journal of Law considers research and publication integrity a shared responsibility. Evidence of misconduct may be acted upon whether identified before publication or after an article has entered the scholarly record.
TITAH: Journal of Law
Publication Ethics · Research Integrity · Transparency · COPE Principles