Peer-Review Policy

Peer-Review Policy

General rules of reviewing

Works submitted to the editorial board of the journal European and Asian Law Review and corresponded to its theme are subject to mandatory peer-review for the purpose of their expert assessment.

Internal peer-review is carried out by the competent members of the editorial board or the editorial council. External peer-review is carried out by independent experts who have the scientific specialization closest to the topic of the paper, as well as who have publications on the theme of the reviewed work in last three years. The main principles that independent reviewers should adhere to are described in the Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

When reviewing the received work, the principle of double-blind peer-review is applied: the reviewer and the author do not have access to information about each other during the review process.

The full cycle of the work review is two months from the moment of its receipt by the editorial board of the journal. However, due to a large number of works at a certain point a longer review period may be  required.

The editorial board of the journal proceeds from the need to create conditions for the most rapid works publication. Authors can expect to receive a response from the executive secretary of the journal within three weeks after the paper submition.

Stages of peer-review

The procedure for works reviewing consists of the following stages::

Step 1. Paper submission by the author through the personal account on the journal's website.

Before paper submission authors should read the section "About the Journal", as well as the Author Guide. Authors must register on the journal's website. After registration the author should log in to his personal account using his account data and start sending the work.

Stage 2. The first review of the received work by the editor-in-chief / deputy editor-in-chief.

Upon receipt of the work the editor-in-chief / deputy editor-in-chief conducts a preliminary check of the submitted work for compliance with the journal's scope and the formal requirements contained in the Author Guide.

At this stage the work may be rejected without review, if it is concluded that it does not have a sufficiently high scientific level and/or is not relevant to the scope of the journal. In case of rejection without review the work can not be re-sent to the editor.

Stage 3. The work submission for peer-review.

The executive secretary sends works that were not rejected without review to one external reviewer and  to one or two internal reviewers for review. If a conflict of interest is found with any of authors of the work, the executive secretary is obliged to notify the editor-in-chief. In this case, the submission of the work for review is carried out by a member of the editorial board who does not have a potential conflict of interest with any of authors of the work.

The terms of reviewing in each case are determined by the executive secretary of the journal, taking into account the creation of conditions for the most rapid publication of the work.

Stage 4. The work peer-review

The review of the work is carried out by one external reviewer and one or two internal reviewers. The identity of authors and their affiliation to the organization are not disclosed to the reviewers.

During the review process the work is assessed according to the following criteria: compliance the content of works with the theme stated in the title; the compliance of works with modern achievements of scientific thought; availability of papers to readers for whom it is intented to, from the point of view of language, style, structure of data, clarity of tables, charts; the expediency of publication of the work by taking into account literature previously published on the this issue .

The results of the assessment are reflected in the review. The review should also contain answers to the following questions:

• What are advantages and disadvantages of the work?
• What corrections and additions should be made by the author?
• Is the work recommended for publication in the journal, including taking into account the correction of drawbacks identified by the reviewer?

Reviews are certified in accordance with the procedure established in the organization in which the reviewer works. The original reviews are kept in the editorial office of the journal European and Asian Law Review for five years. The editorial board of the journal undertakes to send copies of the reviews to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation upon receipt of the corresponding request.

Stage 5. Making a decision on the results of the work review.

After receiving reviews from all reviewers the editor-in-chief / deputy editor-in-chief makes one of the following decisions:

• accept the work for publication;
• accept the work for publication with minor amendments (the paper requires to be edited before it is accepted);
• accept the work for publication with serious amendments (the journal is interested in the paper publication, but the work is unacceptable in its current form and needs to be revised in order to submit it for publication);
• it is advisable to reject the work (the work is not suitable for publication unless the authors conduct additional research or collect additional data);
• reject the work (negative reviews are provided to the authors).

If the reviews contain recommendations for correcting and improving the work, the executive secretary sends the author  texts of reviews with a proposal to take into account comments and suggestions of the reviewers when preparing a new version of the work or to refute (partially or completely) them with a reason. The authors make amendments to the work in accordance with comments and suggestions of the reviewers and re-submit the work within 2-3 weeks. The modified (revised) work by the author is re-sent for review.

A work that is not recommended for publication by reviewers is not accepted for re-consideration. Texts of negative reviews are sent to the author by e-mail.

After the decision of the editor-in-chief / deputy editor-in-chief to accept the work for publication the executive secretary of the journal informs the author about this and specifies terms of the work. publication. The review texts are sent to the author by e-mail.