Publication Ethics and Malpractice Statement

Ethical Framework

Problems of Modern Law conducts its editorial work in accordance with the Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). This statement sets out the obligations of editors, reviewers, and authors, and the procedures the journal follows when those obligations are breached. It applies to all parties involved in the publication of the journal, including the editorial staff of both founding organizations.

Duties of Editors

  • Evaluate manuscripts exclusively on scholarly merit, without regard to the authors' nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, political views, institutional affiliation, or professional rank.
  • Ensure a fair, timely, and documented review process, and keep authors informed of the status of their manuscripts.
  • Preserve the confidentiality of submitted manuscripts and of reviewer identities.
  • Take no part in decisions on manuscripts in which they have a conflict of interest, and transfer such manuscripts to an independent editor.
  • Investigate credible allegations of misconduct, whether raised before or after publication, and issue corrections or retractions where the record requires it.
  • Refrain from using unpublished material from a submitted manuscript in their own research without the authors' written consent.

Duties of Reviewers

  • Provide objective, reasoned assessments and support every recommendation with specific argument; personal criticism of authors is not acceptable.
  • Treat manuscripts as confidential documents; they may not be shown to or discussed with others except with the editor's authorization.
  • Declare conflicts of interest and decline assignments where impartiality cannot be guaranteed.
  • Identify relevant published work not cited by the authors, and alert the editor to any substantial overlap with other publications.
  • Complete reviews within the agreed period or notify the editorial office promptly if this is not possible.

Duties of Authors

  • Submit only original work that has not been published elsewhere and is not under consideration by another journal.
  • Present results and legal analysis accurately, with sufficient detail to permit verification; fabrication, falsification, and selective misrepresentation of sources are serious misconduct.
  • Cite all sources relied upon, including legislation, case law, and prior scholarship, and obtain permission for the use of copyrighted material.
  • Disclose all funding sources and any financial, institutional, or personal conflicts of interest.
  • Notify the editorial office immediately upon discovering a significant error in a submitted or published work, and cooperate in its correction or retraction.

Plagiarism Policy

Every submission is screened for textual similarity before peer review. Similarity reports are assessed by the editorial office, which considers the nature and location of matching text rather than a numerical score alone. As a working guide, an overall similarity above 20 per cent, or a single uncited match exceeding 5 per cent, triggers editorial examination; properly attributed quotation, standard legal formulations, and reproduced statutory text are discounted. Verbatim or closely paraphrased use of another author's work without attribution results in rejection. Where plagiarism is discovered after publication, the article is retracted, the authors' institutions are informed, and the authors may be barred from submitting to the journal.

Data Fabrication and Falsification

Invention of empirical results, manipulation of statistical or survey data, misattribution of legislative or judicial texts, and citation of non-existent sources are treated as major misconduct and lead to rejection or retraction. Authors of empirical work must retain their primary data and make it available to the editors on request.

Duplicate and Concurrent Submission

Simultaneous submission of the same manuscript to more than one journal is not permitted. Republication of substantially the same content, including translation into another language, is permissible only with prior disclosure to and written consent of both journals and with a clear citation to the original publication.

Authorship

Authorship is limited to those who have made a substantial contribution to the conception or design of the work, or to the acquisition, analysis, or interpretation of its material; who have drafted the work or revised it critically for important intellectual content; who have approved the final version; and who agree to be accountable for it. Persons who do not meet all four conditions should be named in the acknowledgements. Honorary, gift, and ghost authorship are prohibited. Any change to the author list after submission requires the written agreement of all authors and the editor's approval.

Generative Artificial Intelligence

  • AI tools cannot be listed as authors. Authorship entails accountability for the work, which a software system cannot bear. Responsibility for the entire content of a manuscript, including any part produced with AI assistance, rests with the human authors.
  • Substantive use must be disclosed. Authors who use generative AI for drafting, translation, summarization, data analysis, code generation, or literature synthesis must describe that use in a dedicated AI Use Statement placed before the reference list, naming the tool, its version, and the purpose. Routine assistance such as spelling and grammar checking need not be disclosed.
  • Authors remain responsible for accuracy. Fabricated citations, invented case law, and misstated legislative provisions produced by AI tools are treated as author error and, where published, are grounds for correction or retraction.
  • Reviewers must not upload manuscripts to AI tools. Submitting any part of a confidential manuscript to an external generative AI service breaches confidentiality and is prohibited. Reviewers must write their own reports.
  • Editors decide disputes. Questions concerning AI use, including alleged non-disclosure, are decided by the Editor-in-Chief in accordance with COPE guidance, after the authors have been given an opportunity to respond.

Corrections and Retractions

Minor errors that do not affect the findings are addressed by a published correction notice linked to the original article, which itself remains unchanged. Errors that invalidate the work's conclusions, and cases of established misconduct, result in a retraction issued in accordance with COPE retraction guidelines. Retracted articles remain online, clearly marked as retracted, so that the scholarly record remains complete. Retraction notices state the reason for retraction and who initiated it.

Complaints

Complaints concerning editorial decisions, review conduct, publication ethics, or the behaviour of the editorial office should be addressed in writing to info@in-academy.uz. Complaints are acknowledged within five working days and investigated by the Editor-in-Chief, or, where the Editor-in-Chief is implicated, by a panel appointed jointly by the two founding organizations. Complainants are informed of the outcome in writing.

Research Assessment (DORA)

The journal endorses the principles of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA). Manuscripts are judged on their scholarly content, argument, and methodology, never on the venue in which an author has previously published or on journal-level metrics. The journal does not promote impact-factor-style indicators, does not encourage citation of its own articles for metric purposes, and asks reviewers and editors to assess the work in front of them on its own merits. The journal likewise encourages its author community and affiliated institutions to apply content-based criteria in hiring, promotion, and funding decisions.