About the Journal

 

Background information

Foro: Law Journal is an academic Journal of Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Ecuador campus, and edited continuously since November 2003. The Journal receives and reviewed original articles in Spanish and English.

The Journal is bi-annual peer-reviewed law Journal open to the international community and specializes in reflections from an interdisciplinary perspective about advances in legal. Thus, the Journal seeks to attend to a large demand for knowledge and legal investigation through the results of academic research of the highest quality.

Foro: Law Journal, it es aimed at students, researchers and professionals interested in both law and interdisciplinary critical analysis, and those who investigate legal problems in the regional and global context. FORO is a double-blind peer-reviewed academic review using the Deusto Chicago Style Manual citation standards.

The Journal is edited in Spanish in two versions: printed (ISSN: 1390-2466) and electronic (e-ISSN: 2631-2484). Additionally, every work is identified with a Digital Object Identifier System (DOI).

The publication of articles in Foro: Law Journal is completely free.

Focus and scope

2.1. Focus

Foro: Law Journal  has two sections: 

  1. Monograph section: contributions for this section address a thematic line of the current call for papers. This section is coordinated by experts in the topics, such as subject editors

  2. Open section: varied contributions within the following thematic lines of the Journal: 

  • Pluralism, diversity and non-discrimination
  • Law, justice and society
  • Economic constitution, market and globalization
  • Critical theories of law
  • State, public administration and democracy

2.2. Scope

Submissions should be original unpublished work and not under consideration for publication elsewhere.

The manuscripts are 5 to 6 thousand words long, counting the body of the article and the citations in the footnote and the references. In addition, the manuscript will have a minimum  of 30 references, between doctrinal and jurisprudential.

Contributions to this Journal may be:

  • Academic articles, resulting from research projects which respond to national, regional and international legal problems. The articles reflect a deep analysis and a critical reflection on the thematic lines of the Journal.
  • Analyses of current or emblematic case-law that are related to with the thematic lines of the Journal. Some elements that authors could highlight include: legal problems tackled, arguments from the parties, the reasoning/argumentative methods and critical analysis of the ratio decidendi.

Publication frequency and deadline

3.1. Publication frequency

The Journal is published every 6 months, in January and July.

3.2. Deadline for submission of articles

Manuscripts for both sections must be submitted until the deadline established in the current call for papers

Double-blind peer-review evaluation process

Manuscripts should be sent to the Journal through the OJS platform (https://bit.ly/33yPkxU). Foro acknowledges receipt of the papers sent by the authors and informs about the process of estimation/rejection and acceptance/rejection, as well as, in case of acceptance, the editing process.

Within a maximum period of 30 days after the closing of the call for papers, each author receives notification of receipt, indicating whether the work is rejected or preliminarily estimated for evaluation by academic peers. In case the manuscript presents formal deficiencies or is not included in the thematic focus of the journal, the Editorial Committee rejects the work without the option to return. On the contrary, if it presents superficial formal deficiencies, it is returned to the author for correction before the start of the evaluation process.

Manuscripts that pass the preliminary review phase are scientifically evaluated anonymously by two experts in the field under the double blind peer review methodology, where the anonymity of the peer reviewers and the author is respected at all times. The protocol used by the reviewers of the Journal is public. The double blind peer review process takes a maximum of 100 days.

All authors receive the scientific evaluation reports of their manuscript anonymously, so that they can make (if necessary) the appropriate improvements or replications. Papers that are positively evaluated and require modifications (both minor and major) are sent to the authors, who have a maximum of 7 days to return the article incorporating the corresponding improvements.

In case of discrepancies in the results of the peer review process, the article is sent to a third anonymous expert, whose evaluation defines the relevance of the article to continue to the next phase.

The evaluation form used by Foro: Revista de Derecho maintains a qualitative and a quantitative component. In this sense, in view of the evaluation reports, and once the authors - where appropriate - have incorporated the observations of the blind peers, and the thematic editor of the edition has validated these additions, the Editorial Committee of the journal meets to evaluate each of the review reports and determine the articles to be published.

Articles rejected during the editorial process of a call for papers may not be resubmitted for consideration by the journal.

The authors of accepted articles are notified and before sending the materials to the co-publisher, the journal's editorial team performs a final style review of each article.

Each issue of Foro: Revista de Derecho is published at the beginning of its stated period: January and July of each year.

The Journal - if necessary - publishes corrections, clarifications, retractions and apologies.

Open acces policy

Foro: Law Journal maintains its commitment to Open Access policies for scientific information, considering that scientific publications and research financed with public funds should circulate freely on the internet, free of charge, and without restrictions.

  • Foro: Law Journal is of free and open access for both readers and authors, providing immediate access to its content after its publication.
  • All expenses, supplies and financing of Foro: Law Journal is funded by the Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Ecuador.
  • No payment is required to publish or access the material:
    • The authors can reuse and archive their post-print articles in databases, directories, repositories, etc.
    • The readers can freely download, read, print, distribut, quote and archive all the articles without restrictions after publication.
  • Authors retain the copyright and grant Foro the right of the first publication. Manuscripts are registrated under the Creative Commons License 4.0 “Non-Commercial Recognition-Equal Sharing 4.0” which allows:
    • Sharing: copying and redistributing the material in any media or format.
    • Adaptation: remixing, transforming and constructing from the material.

        Under the following terms:

    • Credit: you should adequately give credit, provide a link to the license and indicate if changes have been made. You can do this in any reasonable way, but without implying that you or its use are supported by the licensor.
    • Non-commercial: you cannot use the material for commercial purposes.
    • Equal sharing: if you remix, transform or create something new from the material, you should distribute your contribution under the same license as the original.
    • There are no additional restrictions: you cannot apply legal terms nor technological measures which legally restrict others from using the material in any way permitted by the license
  • Authors may implement other independent and additional contractual agreements for the distribution of the article published in this Journal (e.g., including it in an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as authors clearly indicate in the new publication that the manuscritpt was published for the first time in Foro: Law Journal. In case of reproduction, a note similar to the following must be included: This manuscript was originally published in Foro, Law Journal N ° -, year of publication

Foro: Law Journal freely delivers a printed copy to all of its authors.

Ethical policies

Foro: Law Journal adheres to the norms of good conduct of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Some of these norms are detailed below:

Ethical practices for authors:

  • The works sent to the Journal should be original and without any type of alteration.
  • Do not simultaneously submit the same article for evaluation in several journals.
  • Always give credit to the people who have contributed to carrying out your research.
  • Explicitly declare that there are no conflicts of interest that could have influenced the obtained results.
  • Indicate any financing of agencies or projects that your research article stems from.
  • Your academic literature review is always current and relevant, taking into account different knowledge streams.
  • Deliver texts that comply with the established publication norms.
  • Promptly collaborate with reviewers’ corrections and suggestions.

The responsibility for the content of the articles published in Foro: Law Journal, exclusively lies with the authors.

Ethical practices for reviewers:

  • Perform a critical, honest, constructive, unbiased review that guarantees the academic quality of the research article.
  • Immediately notify if for some reason you cannot evaluate the article, either because it is not in your field of expertise or because you cannot comply with the evaluation report delivery within the established timeframe.
  • Always maintain confidentiality concerning the authorship of the article to review.
  • Evaluation reports are delivered in the established revision template and substantiate the evaluations that have led you to your decision.
  • Precisely indicate the bibliographical references of fundamental works that the author has possibly forgotten.
  • Inform the editors of any similarity between the research article and other published works.

The evaluation is always carried out anonymously. If for any reason the author’s identity, institutional affiliations or any other information has been compromised that puts the document’s anonymity at risk, the reviewer should immediately notify the editors.

Editors' commitment

  • Evaluate the articles based on the content’s academic merit, without discrimination with regards to the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnic origin, nationality or political opinion.
  • During the whole process, the confidentiality of authors, articles, and reviewers is maintained.
  • Editors are the most responsible for meeting deadlines for revision and publication of accepted works.
  • Guarantee the selection of the most qualified reviewers to issue an academic, critical and expert evaluation of the work that is as unbiased as possible.

Digital preservation policies

Foro: Law Journal, establishes two means of preserving its publications:

Anti-plagiarism policies

In order to guarantee the originality of the articles that arrive at the Journal, all are analyzed by the Turnitin system which allows for the prevention of plagiarism and guarantees that the received works are original.

Articles with a high percentage of similarity with other texts published or available online will be rejected.

Promotion and dissemination of manuscripts

  • Authors are expected to promote their own manuscripts once published, as well as the Journal itself.
  • Foro encourages authors and the scientific community to generate the maximum promotion and dissemination of the final version of their work through:
    1) Contact (e-mails) and social networks (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn…).
    2) Institutional repository of their own University and public repositories (Mendeley…).
    3) Scientific social networks (Academia.edu, ResearchGate, Kudos…).
    4) The authors’ own websites or institutional website, blog, etc.
    5) Google Scholar, ORCID, ResearchID, ScopusID, Dimensions, PlumX...
    6) Printed copies and sent to experts for further reading and citation if necessary.