The Encyclopedia of Economic Law journal is a member of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and adheres to the Executive Bylaw of the Law on Preventing and Combating Academic Misconduct.

🔗 COPE Membership Link of the Journal

Duties of Editors

• Manuscript Acceptance: The editor of the journal is responsible for deciding whether to accept or reject submitted manuscripts. This decision is made with the help of the editorial board and by considering copyright issues, plagiarism, and the recommendations of reviewers and editors.

• Fairness: Editors should evaluate manuscripts exclusively on their academic merit without bias or personal animosity, and without regard to nationality, gender, religion, ethnicity, race, or political affiliation.

• Confidentiality: Editors and editorial board members must not disclose information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the reviewers, authors, and editorial staff.

• Non-Disclosure and Personal Use: Unpublished materials disclosed in a submitted manuscript must not be used in an editor’s or editorial board member’s own research without the express written consent of the author. Confidential information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal gain.

Duties of Reviewers

🔗 COPE Ethical Guidelines for Peer Reviewers

• Manuscript Evaluation: Reviewers assist editors in making editorial decisions and may also help authors improve the quality of their manuscripts through suggestions.

• Right to Decline Review: Reviewers should decline to review a manuscript if they are unable to do so within the required timeframe or if they do not consider themselves sufficiently qualified to review the research.

• Confidentiality: Reviewers must treat the manuscript as confidential and must not disclose its content or information to others without the written consent of the author.

• Objectivity: Reviews must be conducted objectively. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments and avoid personal criticism of the author.

• Sources: Reviewers are required to identify and cite relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. Any statement that is an observation, derivation, or argument that has been previously reported should be accompanied by the relevant citation. Reviewers must also notify the editor if they identify any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published work.

• Conflict of Interest: Reviewers should not use any information or ideas obtained during the peer review process for personal advantage. They should not review manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, financial, organizational, personal, or other connections with any of the authors, companies, or institutions connected to the manuscript.

Duties of Authors

🔗 International Standards for Authors

• Research Findings Reporting: The author is ultimately responsible for the entire content of the submitted manuscript. Authors must report their research findings completely and interpret them accurately. The manuscript must contain sufficient details and references to allow others to replicate the research.

• Plagiarism: Authors must ensure that the manuscript is their original work and appropriately cite all data sources.

• Originality: Manuscripts must be original and unpublished. Authors must not submit a manuscript that is under review or has been published elsewhere in whole or in part.

• Acknowledgment: Authors should acknowledge individuals or organizations that contributed to their research.

• Authorship: All authors listed in the manuscript must have made significant contributions to the research and must take responsibility for the results. Authorship credit should be based on substantial contributions to research and writing. The corresponding author must ensure that all co-authors approve the final version of the manuscript and its submission for publication.

• Conflict of Interest: Authors must disclose any financial or personal relationships that could influence the research findings or their interpretation. All sources of research funding must be disclosed.

• Accuracy: If an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their published work, they must promptly inform the editor and cooperate with the revision or retraction process.

Publisher’s Responsibilities

• Addressing Unethical Publishing Behavior: In cases where academic misconduct such as fraudulent publication or plagiarism is alleged or proven, the editor, in collaboration with the publisher, will take all necessary measures to clarify and correct the situation. These may include publishing a correction, issuing a clarification, or in extreme cases, retracting the article. The editor and publisher must take reasonable steps to identify and prevent the publication of papers where research misconduct has occurred and must not knowingly encourage such misconduct.

• Access to Journal Content: The publisher is responsible for ensuring permanent access to the published content by supporting archiving organizations and maintaining a digital archive.

• Business Model: Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, as the journal’s publisher, financially supports the journal by allocating a defined budget for each published issue, based on the journal’s annual ranking in the portal of scientific journals of the Ministry of Science, Research and Technology.

Ferdowsi University of Mashhad’s Policy on the Use of AI and Large Language Models

According to COPE's publication ethics perspective, authors are permitted to use AI tools and large language models for drafting the author’s version of manuscripts—specifically in the “Materials and Methods” section (or equivalent). This use is allowed only if authors fully accept responsibility and accountability for the work’s content. AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Ferdowsi University of Mashhad Press upholds traditional academic standards of authorship, plagiarism prevention, transparency, and accountability. Authors are therefore required to clearly document and explain how they have used AI tools or language models.

Journal Policy on Plagiarism

The editorial board of the Encyclopedia of Economic Law performs necessary checks to verify the originality, accuracy, and proper citation of submitted manuscripts. The board reminds contributors that plagiarism is unacceptable and enforces the following policies if plagiarism is detected:

Plagiarism in any form—including verbatim or paraphrased use of another's essential work without citation, presenting another's article as one's own, or submitting research results conducted by others under one's own name—is unethical and unacceptable in academic publishing. All authors must ensure that the submitted manuscript is original and free from any form of plagiarism. Authors are advised to use similarity detection software to assess the originality of their work. The submitted article must not have been previously published in another language or simultaneously submitted to another journal.

If plagiarism or unethical behavior is detected by the editorial board or reviewers, the manuscript will be immediately rejected. The authors will be contacted to provide an explanation. If the authors fail to respond appropriately within a reasonable timeframe, the editors will inform the editors of other journals (in the case of simultaneous submissions) and the authors’ affiliated institutions. The authors will be blacklisted and banned from submitting to the Encyclopedia of Economic Law.

If plagiarism is reported after publication, the editorial board will review the case. If plagiarism is found to be significant, the article will be removed from the journal’s archive, the authors’ institutions will be notified, and the authors will be blacklisted.

Post-Publication Discussion and Corrections

The Encyclopedia of Economic Law allows readers to comment on and critique scientific discussions presented in articles accepted for publication. Comments can be submitted via the “Submit Comment on this Article” section on each article’s webpage. Comments are reviewed up to one month before the final publication. If the comments are useful and constructive, they will be forwarded to the author for corrections and displayed under the “References” section of the article’s webpage.

Authors have the right to appeal editorial decisions. Those who wish to appeal must submit their request to the journal’s editor. The editor will re-evaluate the manuscript along with reviewers’ and editorial comments and may either uphold the original decision, return the manuscript to the author for revision, or send it to a new reviewer. The editor's decision is final.

📧 How to Submit an Appeal

Authors who wish to appeal may send their request via email to: economiclaw@um.ac.ir. All appeals will be addressed within three working days.