Journal policy

EDITORIAL RESPONSIBILITIES

The editorial bodies includes: 1) Editorial Staff (Editor-in-Chief, Deputy of Editor-in-Chief, Secretary of the Journal and Technical Editor); 2) Editorial Board, and 3) Advisory Board.

Editor-in-chief is appointed by Scientific Council of Institute of Comparative Law for a term of four years. The Editorial staff of the journal is elected by the Scientific Council of the Institute of Comparative Law in Belgrade for a term of four years. The Scientific Council of the Institute decides on the composition of the Editorial Board and the Advisory Board of the journal Strani pravni život

Editorial operations related to content and peer review are independent and free from the influence of the entities that support the journal.

The Editor-in-Chief is responsible for deciding which articles submitted to Strani pravni život will be published. The Editor-in-Chief is guided by the Editorial Policy and constrained by legal requirements in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism.

The Editor-in-Chief reserves the right to decide not to publish submitted manuscripts in case it is found that they do not meet relevant standards concerning the content and formal aspects. The Editorial Staff will inform the authors whether the manuscript is accepted for publication within a month from the date of the manuscript submission.

Editor-in-Chief must hold no conflict of interest with regard to the articles they consider for publication. If an Editor feels that there is likely to be a perception of a conflict of interest in relation to their handling of a submission, the selection of reviewers and all decisions on the manuscript shall be made by the Deputy Editor-in-Chief.

Editor-in-Chief shall evaluate manuscripts for their scientific content free from any racial, gender, sexual, religious, ethnic, or political bias.

The Editor and the Editorial Staff must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

Editors and the Editorial Staff shall take all reasonable measures to ensure that the reviewers remain anonymous to the authors before, during and after the evaluation process and the authors remain anonymous to reviewers until the end of the review procedure.

AUTHORS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Authors warrant that their manuscript is their original work, that it has not been published before and is not under consideration for publication elsewhere. Parallel submission of the same manuscript to another journal constitutes misconduct and eliminates the manuscript from consideration by Strani pravni život.

If a manuscript has previously been submitted elsewhere, authors should provide information about the previous reviewing process and its outcome. This provides an opportunity for authors to detail how subsequent revisions have taken into account previous reviews, and why certain reviewer comments were not taken into account. Information about the author's previous reviewing experience is to the author's advantage: it often helps the editors select more appropriate reviewers.

In case a submitted manuscript is a result of a research project, or its previous version has been presented at a conference in the form of an oral presentation (under the same or similar title), detailed information about the project, the conference, etc. shall be provided in Acknowledgements section.

It is the responsibility of each author to ensure that manuscripts submitted to Strani pravni život are written with ethical standards in mind. Authors affirm that the manuscript contains no unfounded or unlawful statements and does not violate the rights of third parties. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.

Reporting standards

Strani pravni život is committed to serving the research community by ensuring that all articles include enough information to allow others to reproduce the work. A submitted manuscript should contain sufficient detail and references to permit reviewers and, subsequently, readers to verify the claims presented in it - e.g. provide complete details of the methods used, including time frames, etc. Authors are required to review the standards available for many research applications from Equator Network and use those that are relevant for the reported research applications. The deliberate presentation of false claims is a violation of ethical standards. Book reviews and case law reports should be accurate and they should present an objective perspective.

Authors are exclusively responsible for the contents of their submissions and must make sure that they have permission from all the involved parties to make the content public. Authors are also exclusively responsible for the contents of their data/supplementary files. Authors affirm that data protection regulations, ethical standards, third party copyright and other rights have been respected in the process of collecting, processing and sharing data.

Authors wishing to include figures, tables or other materials that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright holder(s). Any material received without such evidence will be assumed to originate from the authors. 

Inclusive Language

The journal Strani pravni život promotes accessible, and inclusive language to ensure that scientific research is widely understood and respectful of all individuals. To promote accessibility, authors should:

  • Use clear, simple language that is understandable across disciplines and for non-native English speakers;
  • Avoid overly technical or unnecessary terminology, unnecessary complexity, long sentences, repetition, uncommon acronyms and abbreviations, stereotypes, idiomatic speech, slang, and cultural assumptions;
  • Explain technical terms when needed;
  • Respect diversity and avoid implying superiority of any group based on gender, race, ethnicity, nationality, disability, health status, age, or socio-economic background.
  • Use inclusive and appropriate language in relation to race and ethnicity and provide participants with a comprehensive range of categories and subcategories to choose from when collecting self-reported racial or ethnic identity data, as well as the option to select multiple, not mutually exclusive categories;
  • Be cautious in generalizing findings from studies to groups simply on the basis of a shared identity category and provide the rationale behind any racial or ethnic groupings used in the Methods section;
  • Where it is necessary to make reference to the indigenous identity of a person or group, use the terms preferred by the person or group. If in doubt, ask the person or group;
  • Make a distinction between biological sex and socially constructed gender. Use self-identified pronouns and gender-neutral terms (e.g., "chairperson" instead of "chairman");
  • Use "impairment" for medical conditions and "disability" for societal barriers. Avoid discriminatory language and offensive terms (derogatory labelling, depersonalising, stereotyping and emphasising the disability) in relation to the portrayal of people with disabilities (e.g. use ‘a person diagnosed with cancer’ rather than ‘a cancer victim’)

Consult also additional resources from C4DISC (Coalition for Diversity and Inclusion in Scholarly Communications): https://c4disc.org/toolkits-for-equity/

Authorship

Authors must make sure that only contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors and, conversely, that all contributors who have significantly contributed to the submission are listed as authors. If persons other than authors were involved in important aspects of the research project and the preparation of the manuscript, their contribution should be acknowledged in a footnote or the Acknowledgements section.

As a guide, authors should refer to the criteria for authorship that have been developed by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). In order to be named on the author list one must have:

  • made substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; or the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of data for the work; AND
  • contributed to the drafting the work, or revising it critically for important intellectual content; AND
  • provided final approval of the version to be published; AND
  • agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved; AND
  • agreed to be named on the author list, and approved of the full author list.

Each author’s contribution must be detailed using the CRediT taxonomy.

The addition or removal of authors during the editorial process will only be permitted only if a justifiable explanation is provided to the editorial team and publisher. Attempts to introduce 'ghost', 'gift' or ‘honorary’ authorship will be treated as cases of misconduct.

Acknowledgment of sources

Authors are required to properly cite sources that have significantly influenced their research and their manuscript. Information received in a private conversation or correspondence with third parties, in reviewing project applications, manuscripts and similar materials, must not be used without the express written consent of the information source.

When citing or making claims based on data, authors should provide the reference to data in the same way as they cite publications. We recommend the format proposed by the FORCE11 Data Citation Principles.

Plagiarism

Plagiarism, where someone assumes another's ideas, words, or other creative expression as one's own, is a clear violation of scientific ethics. Plagiarism may also involve a violation of copyright law, punishable by legal action.

Plagiarism includes the following:

  • Word for word, or almost word for word copying, or purposely paraphrasing portions of another author's work without clearly indicating the source or marking the copied fragment (for example, using quotation marks);
  • Copying equations, figures or tables from someone else's paper without properly citing the source and/or without permission from the original author or the copyright holder.

Please note that all submissions are thoroughly checked for plagiarism. The journal uses iThenticate plagiarism detection software.

Any manuscript that shows obvious signs of plagiarism will be automatically rejected.

In case plagiarism is discovered in a paper that has already been published by the journal, it will be retracted in accordance with the procedure described below under Retraction policy.

Conflict of interest

Authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might have influenced the presented results or their interpretation. If there is no conflict of interest to declare, the following standard statement should be added: ‘No conflict of interest was disclosed’.

Conflict of interest may be of non-financial or financial nature. Examples of the conflict of interest include (but are not limited to):

  • individuals receiving funding, salary or other forms of payment from an organization, or holding stocks or shares from a company, that might benefit (or lose) financially from the publication of the findings;
  • individuals or their funding organization or employer holding (or applying for) related patents;
  • official affiliations and memberships with interest groups relating to the content of the publication;
  • political, religious, or ideological competing interests.

Authors from pharmaceutical companies, or other commercial organizations that sponsor clinical or field trials or other research studies, should declare these as competing interests on submission. The relationship of each author to such an organization should be explained in the ‘Conflict of interest’ section. Publications in the journal must not contain content advertising any commercial products.

Fundamental errors in published works

When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in their 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.

By submitting a manuscript the authors agree to abide by the Strani pravni život’s Editorial Policies.

ORCID

The journal asks that all authors submitting a paper register an account with Open Researcher and Contributor ID (ORCID). ORCID numbers for all authors and co-authors should be added to the author data upon submission and will be published alongside the submitted paper, should it be accepted.

ORCID registration provides a unique and persistent digital identifier for the account that enables accurate attribution and improves the discoverability of published papers, ensuring that the correct author receives the correct credit for their work.

Funding information

If a paper is a result of the funded project, authors are required to specify funding sources according to their contracts with the funder.

REVIEWERS’ RESPONSIBILITIES

Reviewers are required to provide written, competent and unbiased feedback in a timely manner on the scholarly merits and the scientific value of the manuscript.

The reviewers assess manuscript for the compliance with the profile of the journal, the relevance of the investigated topic and applied methods, the originality and scientific relevance of information presented in the manuscript, the presentation style and scholarly apparatus.

Reviewers should alert the Editor to any well-founded suspicions or the knowledge of possible violations of ethical standards by the authors. Reviewers should recognize relevant published works that have not been cited by the authors and alert the Editor to substantial similarities between a reviewed manuscript and any manuscript published or under consideration for publication elsewhere, in the event they are aware of such. Reviewers should also alert the Editor to a parallel submission of the same manuscript to another journal, in the event they are aware of such.

Reviewers must not have conflict of interest with respect to the research, the authors and/or the funding sources for the research. If such conflicts exist, the reviewers must report them to the Editor without delay.

Any selected reviewer who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the Editor without delay.

Reviews must be conducted objectively. Personal criticism of the author is inappropriate. Reviewers should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.

Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. Reviewers must not use unpublished materials disclosed in submitted manuscripts without the express written consent of the authors. The information and ideas presented in submitted manuscripts shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

Peer Review

The submitted manuscripts are subject to a peer review process. The purpose of peer review is to assist the Editor-in-Chief in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communication with the author it may also assist the author in improving the manuscript.

All papers undergo a double-blind peer review conducted by at least two experts in the field.

Reviewers are required to complete the peer review process within no more than two weeks from the date on which the review request was sent.

The choice of reviewers is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. The reviewers must be knowledgeable about the subject area of the manuscript; they must not be from the authors' own institution and they should not have recent joint publications with authors.

The peer review process in Strani pravni život is conducted through the online journal management platform (OJS). Reviewers receive an email invitation from the Editorial Office requesting them to review the manuscript.

All submitted manuscripts are subject to double-blind peer review (the reviewer does not know the identity of the author, nor does the author know the identity of the reviewer). The purpose of the review is to assist the Editor-in-Chief in deciding whether the manuscript should be published, and—through communication with the authors—to help them improve the quality of their work.

To complete the review, reviewers must fill out an electronic form containing ten questions. Evaluation is performed by choosing a score from a drop-down menu (on a scale from 5 (the highest) to 1 (the lowest)).

Evaluation Scale

5 = Very good; 4 = Good; 3 = Minor (easily correctable) deficiencies; 2 = Substantial deficiencies requiring major revision; 1 = Manuscript does not meet publication standards

Additional comments, suggestions, or observations can be entered below each question. These remarks are particularly important when the reviewer recommends changes to the manuscript or identifies deficiencies that prevent the work from meeting publication standards.

Reviewers may also provide suggestions directly within the manuscript text by using the Track Changes and comment section, provided that they do so in a way that ensures their identity remains concealed from the author(s). If this option is chosen, the reviewer attaches the annotated document when submitting the review (via the “Reviewer Files” option).

The identity of reviewers remains unknown to authors before, during, and after the peer review process. Authors are advised to avoid formulations in their manuscripts that could reveal their identity. The Editor guarantees that, prior to sending a manuscript for review, all personal data of the authors (primarily name and affiliation) will be removed, and that all reasonable measures will be taken to ensure that the authors’ identity remains unknown to reviewers until the completion of the peer review procedure.

All of the reviewers of a manuscript act independently and they are not aware of each other’s identities. If the decisions of the two reviewers are not the same (accept/reject), the Editor-in-Chief may assign additional reviewers.

During the review process, the Editor-in-Chief may require authors to provide additional information (including raw data) if they are necessary for the evaluation of the scholarly merit of the manuscript. These materials shall be kept confidential and must not be used for personal gain.

The editorial team shall ensure reasonable quality control for the reviews. With respect to reviewers whose reviews are convincingly questioned by authors, special attention will be paid to ensure that the reviews are objective and high in academic standard. When there is any doubt with regard to the objectivity of the reviews or quality of the review, additional reviewers will be assigned.

Members of the editorial team/board/guest editors are permitted to submit their own papers to the journal. In cases where an author is associated with the journal, they will be removed from all editorial tasks for that paper and another member of the team will be assigned responsibility for overseeing peer review.

 

POST-PUBLICATION DISCUSSIONS

Strani pravni život encourages post-publication debate either through letters to the editor, or on an external moderated site, such as PubPeer.

 

USE OF LARGE LANGUAGE MODELS AND GENERATIVE ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI) TOOLS

Strani pravni život conforms to the World Association of Medical Editors (WAME) recommendations on chat bots, ChatGPT and scholarly manuscripts and the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)’s position statement on Authorship and AI tools.

AI bots such as ChatGPT cannot be listed as authors on your submission.

Authors must clearly indicate the use of tools based on large language models and generative AI for data or code generation, data collection, cleaning, analysis, or interpretation, (which tool was used and for what purpose), preferably in the methods or acknowledgements sections. Photography, videos or illustrations created wholly or partly using generative AI are not considered acceptable. The use of non-generative machine learning tools to manipulate, combine or enhance existing images or figures should be disclosed in the relevant caption upon submission to allow a case-by-case review. Concealing the use of AI tools is unethical. The use of AI-based tools for copyediting and spell checking does not need to be declared.

AI outputs should not be cited as primary sources for backing up specific claims. .

Editors and Reviewers must ensure the confidentiality of the editorial work and the peer review process. Editors must not share information about submitted manuscripts or peer review reports with any tools based on large language models and generative AI. Reviewers must not use any tools based on large language models and generative AI to generate review reports. Concealing the use of AI tools is unethical and undermines transparency in editorial work and peer review. The editorial and review processes are confidential, and using AI tools on the manuscript makes it public, violating the confidentiality principle, disclosing confidential information in public, and compromising transparency.

RETRACTION POLICY

The infringement of the legal limitations of the publisher, copyright holder or author(s), the violation of of professional ethical codes and research misconduct, such as multiple submissions, duplicate or overlapping publication, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data and data fabrication, undisclosed use of tools based on large language models and generative AI, honest errors reported by the authors (for example, errors due to the mixing up of samples or use of a scientific tool or equipment that is found subsequently to be faulty), unethical research  or any major misconduct require retraction of an article. Occasionally a retraction can be used to correct errors in submission or publication.

For any retracted article, the reason for retraction and who is instigating the retraction will be clearly stated in the Retraction notice. Standards for dealing with retractions have been developed by a number of library and scholarly bodies, and this practice has been adopted for article retraction by Strani pravni život: in the electronic version of the retraction note, a link is made to the original article. In the electronic version of the original article, a link is made to the retraction note where it is clearly stated that the article has been retracted. The original article is retained unchanged, save for a watermark on the PDF indicating on each page that it is “retracted.”

SELF-ARCHIVING POLICY

Authors can deposit preprints (versions before peer review), Author Accepted Manuscripts (AAMs) and/or Versions of Record (VoRs) in a repository of the authors' choice (e.g. an institutional, disciplinary and general-purpose repository. etc.), author's personal website (including social networking sites, such as ResearchGate, Academia.edu, etc.), and/or departmental website prior or during the submission process, at any time after the acceptance of the manuscript and at any time after publication.

Full bibliographic information (authors, article title, journal title, volume, issue, pages) about the original publication must be provided and links must be made to the article's DOI and the license.

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSING

Authors retain copyright of the published papers and grant to the publisher the non-exclusive right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media. Articles will be distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

Authors can enter the separate, additional contractual arrangements for non-exclusive distribution of the published paper (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

METADATA POLICY

The journal metadata are freely accessible to all, and freely reusable by all, under the terms of the Creative Commons Universal (CC0 1.0) Public Domain Dedication license.

DISCLAIMER

The views expressed in the published works do not express the views of the Editors and Editorial Staff. The authors take legal and moral responsibility for the ideas expressed in the articles. The publisher shall have no liability in the event of issuance of any claims for damages. The Publisher will not be held legally responsible should there be any claims for compensation.