Authorship Policy

All authors contributing to the International Review of Law (IRL) journal shall comply with the below conditions:   

  1. Authorship criteria

    Authorship credit in IRL should be based on a justifiable scientific contribution of the submitted work starting with the problematic definition, structure and design, as well as setting the research methodology, discussions and findings. An author should also have a clear research or scientific contribution in the drafting, review and approval of the final version. Accordingly, substantial contribution in research is of utmost importance. Performing a technical minor paid or unpaid service such as translation, copyediting does not qualify for listing a contributor. This could however be recognized in the designated acknowledgment section.

    The final or revised version of research papers submitted for publishing by two or more authors must obtain the approval of all participating authors in the research.

    The primary corresponding author should ensure that all authors meet the above-mentioned conditions in line with the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) authorship standards.

  2. Acknowledgements and disclosures

    Contributors who do not qualify for authorship shall be listed/thanked in the acknowledgement section, the first margin of the published article.

    All sources of financial support through grants or other means should be mentioned with the exact spelling of grant funding agency or affiliation name, grant number and abbreviations, date and country.

    Authors whose papers are extracted from a masters or PhD thesis should cite, in the first footnote of the submitted article, that their research is originally a masters or PhD thesis by mentioning: the student’s name, thesis title, acquired degree, granting university/institution, date, and online link to the OA access to the original thesis (if any).    

    Authors submitting a translation of an article should get the written rights permission from the original publisher/journal and author of the translated article, and should thank and cite the original publisher in the first footnote appropriately in the translated version.

  3. Order and eligibility of authorship

    The authors themselves should decide on the order in which their names are listed in the article, taking into consideration the exerted efforts and contribution in the paper. Early communication and written agreement on this matter is key in maintaining a healthy and transparent research environment among authors. A final review on this matter by all authors before submission to the journal is important.

    Primary author: is the person who leads the research study and makes the largest contribution and efforts in comparison to other authors.

    Corresponding author: can be the primary author or one of the co-authors.

    Co-authors: all authorship criteria apply to co-authors who have an actual contribution to the research submitted for publication.

    Authors with no or very limited contribution to the research such as honorary authors, who do not qualify for authorship.

    Supervisors of masters or PhD theses do not qualify for authorship, unless there is a clear major contribution, endorsed by the student, and ensuring major research contribution such as developing and re-drafting the paper. In this case, the supervisor’s name could only be mentioned as a co-author and cannot qualify for primary authorship.

  4. Changes to authorship

    All participating authors must agree on the contributing names and order as initially submitted to IRL journal through the final article version and “Author Declaration Form”. Any changes on authorship or contribution order during the editorial stages must be requested by the primary corresponding author in writing by email to the IRL’s E-i-C, and must include: a) the reason the name should be added or removed, or the author names rearranged and b) signed updated, “Author Declaration Form” by all participating authors. No authorship change is allowed after publication of manuscript unless for non-avoidable reasons, such as if requested by the authors’ affiliation for a reason.   

  5. Conflict of interests

    Since IRL is committed to publish unbiased research, contributing authors are required to disclose any interests that could appear to compromise, conflict or influence the validity of data, analysis, interpretations and conclusions of the research paper.

    Competing interests can take financial and non-financial forms. The declaration of such relationships helps to ensure that academic rigor is maintained and that publications cannot be accused of undue bias or misinformation.

    Examples of competing interests include:

    • Receipt of payment, in any form, from an organization or individual related to the subject matter.
    • Ownership of stocks or shares in organizations directly related to the subject matter.
    • Receipt of grants or funding.
    • Membership of relevant boards.
    • Gifts.
    • Known relationships that will hinder impartiality (e.g. colleagues, family, mentor, previous supervisor/student).
    • Political, religious, ideological or commercial interests.

    Conflict of interests must be disclosed to IRL journal through the “Author Declaration Form”. The acceptable and justified conflict of interests should be referred to in the first margin of the article. IRL journal reserves the right to decide on any consecutive relating matters.

  6. Research integrity

    Authors should ensure that they have written and submitted non-plagiarized and original work only. Plagiarism takes many forms, from “passing off” another’s paper as the author’s own, to copying or paraphrasing substantial parts of another’s paper (without attribution), to claiming results from research conducted by others. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable and penalized.

    If any part of the research content has been published previously in any form, the author should notify IRL journal. The latter reserves the right to accept or reject the manuscript. The author guarantees that permissions have been obtained, and any required fee has been paid.

    In its turn, IRL journal checks on any suspicious and considerable similarities (above 20%) and verifies the originality of the submission iThenticate and other research platforms.

  7. Editorial review

    All new submissions go through an initial review by IRL’s editorial team to check on adherence to IRL’s authors guide and completion of required submitted documents. At this stage, IRL’s editorial team runs all submissions on iThenticate plagiarism software and other programs to check on any alarming similarities (higher than 15%). The editorial committee assesses the research matching with the scope of the journal and checks whether the submission is in line with the editorial and writing standards.

    Within two weeks from the initial submission, a notification about the initial stage result will be sent to authors and papers that pass the initial stage will sent to double blind specialized peer review. The author thereby commits to await the peer review feedback that could take up-to two months.

    IRL is extremely selective and meticulous in choosing reliable, objective, experienced and specialized external peer-reviewers from leading surrounding academic institutions, since its goal is to uplift the legal research quality in the region. In favor of its respected regional positioning as a trusted scholarly legal platform, IRL has been able to attract the best scholarly peer reviewers in the field that collaborated to provide detailed, specialized and progressive feedback. Each paper is evaluated by at least two peer reviewers that provide objective, critical, transparent and impartial review and in case of conflicting views, a third reviewer shall be assigned.

    Articles will most likely be recommended for minor or substantial review, rejected or rarely accepted without modifications. Accordingly, authors are required to diligently adhere to the reviewers’ suggestions and demonstrate that sufficient effort has been exerted to implement the required changes. Authors are given between ten days and two weeks for revisions and in case of substantial review, a longer period that may reach up to a month and a half may be given. Authors must answer how they implemented the peer reviewers’ suggestions or sufficiently justify why they have not implemented the recommendations through the filling of the “Author Response to Reviewers Comments Form”. The author is also required to submit a revised version indicating the modifications made on the research by a highlighted track-changed Word document. In case of substantial review, the journal may submit the revised version to the same reviewers to ensure that the vital critical recommendations have been implemented.

    IRL’s Editor-in-Chief and the journal’s editorial committee reserve the final decision regarding acceptance or decline of a certain submission in light of the provided peer review comments and appraisal of the revised version.

    The author is notified about the final decision within a period ranging from two to six months at the maximum from the date of submission, depending on the simplicity or complexity of editorial review, author’s responsiveness and availability of peer reviewers.

  8. Production and publishing stages

    Accepted research papers are scheduled by IRL journal and submitted to QU Press for production and publication according to the acceptance dates, and diversity of authors and research topics in the issues. Accordingly, papers go through language review and copyediting, and the revised tracked changed versions are sent back to authors for final review before design and publication. Additional amendments on articles after this stage shall not be accepted, except for un-avoidable cases.

  9. Copyrights

    Author(s) grant IRL journal and Qatar University Press a license to publish, including to display, store, copy, and reuse the content under the Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits non-commercial use of the material, appropriate credit, and indication if changes in the material were made. This means that the author(s) retain(s) copyright, but the content is free to download, distribute, and build upon the material for non-commercial purposes, given appropriate attribution/reference to the original article. The full terms of this license may be seen at this link: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.

    Authors’ Rights

    The Journal grants authors the following non-exclusive rights, subject to giving proper credit to the original publication of the contribution in the Journal, including reproducing the exact copyright notice or logo as it appears in the Journal:

    • To use the published paper by its author, in any other scholarly work;
    • To use the published paper by its author for teaching purposes, including making copies for students, either as individual copies or as part of a printed course pack;
    • To promote the published paper by sharing its link on the author’s personal or institutional webpage or social media account, provided that the platform is non-commercial and with free access; and
    • To deposit a copy of the published paper in a non-commercial data repository maintained by the author’s institution.

  10. Open Access - Free publishing model

    In line with Qatar University Press’s vision to make innovative and rigorous scholarship available to the widest possible readership to support legal research excellence and national and regional economic growth, IRL authors are not required to pay any fees for the publishing of their articles. However, although IRL does not charge any Article Processing Charges (APC) from authors, however, it is open to voluntary institutional funding for fostering its growth and sustainability.

  11. Handling unethical publishing

    Multiple, or Concurrent Publications:

    An author should not publish the same research in more than one journal. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable to IRL or to QU Press that will follow COPE standards to perform required corrections or retractions.

    Author’s declaration for a fundamental error in a published work:

    When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

    Publisher’s initiation to a correction or retraction:

    If the editor or the publisher learns from a third party or discovers by its own means that a published work contains a significant error or proven scientific misconduct, fraudulent publication or plagiarism, it is the obligation of IRL and QU Press to follow the Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE) standards and procedures to promptly publish a correction or, in the most severe cases, to retract the work in question.

    IRL’s editors take responsive measures when ethical concerns are raised with regard to a submitted or published research paper. Every reported act of unethical publishing behavior will be looked into, even if it is discovered years after publication.

  12. Article withdrawal procedure

    IRL expects its authors to comply with the best practices in publication ethics and considers authors as partners in the publishing process. Authors are expected to value the time resources and efforts exerted by the Journal’s editorial team in reviewing and managing the submission. The authors are therefore invited to be committed to the peer review process’s timelines.

    Unethical withdrawal:

    The withdrawal of a submission will be permitted only for the most compelling and unavoidable reasons. If the author(s) request(s) the withdrawal of their manuscript during or after the peer review or production stages (early release or ahead of publishing), a valid justification should be provided in written through the filling and submission of the “Article Withdrawal Letter” signed by all authors to the journal’s E-i-C.

    Author(s) must not assume that their manuscript has been withdrawn until they receive a written notification to this effect stating the withdrawal penalty, based on case-by-case basis, to cover the incurred costs and efforts.

    If the authors do not reply to communication from the editorial office, even after multiple reminders, at any stage of the publication process; IRL holds all rights to disclose the conduct of the author/s and content of the manuscript without further approval from the author/s, and cannot be held responsible for the consequences arising from it.

    Tolerable withdrawal:

    The author is only allowed to withdraw the manuscript without paying any withdrawal penalty, if the withdrawal request is submitted within the early submission initial stages (one week from the initial submission).