Centre for Advanced Legal Studies and Research, (CALSAR), Thiruvananthapuram

Ethics Policy

Legal research and scholarship has developed more intensively in relation to its impact on society and law reform touching all spears of life including right jurisprudence, commerce, industry and competition. So on ethical and fair considerations, certain standards to be adopted by the author as conditions for accepting the article are laid down by the Law Review as follows:

(i)  Originality: Articles must be the original work of the author or authors identified on the submission, except for material in the public domain or material from other works that are properly cited or included with the permission of the rights owners. Secondary sources shall not be cited as Primary Sources. The article, in whole or in part, must not have been published before.

(ii) No Plagiarism: Source of all principles and facts are to be acknowledged and no principle or data or facts obtained from another source are to be used as the author’s own source without acknowledgement. No part of another article or work shall not be copied or borrowed without acknowledging it.

(iii) Replicability: The documentation of datasets in scientific or empirical study by the author must be exhaustive and comprehensive and must be disclosed and made available by publication so that third parties may replicate the published findings. The datasets will be published in our website except where issues of confidentiality or privacy are involved.

(iv) Citation: The author has to follow the style and citation prescribed and the citation format in Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (20th edition 2015) shall be followed and not tampered with. Lifting or copying or malpractice of footnote works of other authors or from other works/articles is unethical and disqualifies the submission.

(v) Peer Review: Blind Peer Review increases the quality and standard of the article, assures originality and ensures independence and objectivity in the selection of articles for publication. We have adopted Guidelines for Peer Review for initial and final selection of the articles within a prescribed time frame. The author is strictly prohibited from enquiring or attempting to identify or identifying or contacting the persons who peer review or edit his article for maintaining objectivity and independence in selection and any act of the author violating this confidentiality is unethical and disqualifies the submission.

(vi) Conflicts of InterestOnce a submission is accepted by the Journal, the author/authors must disclose all actual and potential conflicts of interest. Authors should disclose any personal, family or financial interests that may be affected by the results or conclusions in the submission. Disclosure of financial interest would include any source of outside funding for the research/submission and name of organizations that provided funding for the research/submission that may have affected or biased the assumptions, results, or conclusions in the article. For instance, if any payment or funding has been received from any organization for completing the research and article including expenses funded for the research study, travel, data compilation etc., the said association only needs to be noted and the organization thanked in the footnote. Authors should disclose their involvement or participation in any judicial decision or litigation that is mentioned in or which is relevant to the article. The conflict of interest or connection shall be disclosed in the first footnote of the published version of the article.