Editorial Policy

Editorial Policy

The primary objective of the Kampala International University Law Journal (KIULJ) is to serve as platform for a robust intellectual discourse, through the publication of incisive and insightful articles and other contributions from a variety of scholars, jurists and practitioners across jurisdictions. The desire to accomplish this objective guides the choice of the materials being presented to the reading public in every edition. The peer review and editing processes of the papers that are finally selected for publication are equally influenced largely by the pursuit of this goal.

To this end, well-researched articles from seasoned scholars and practitioners in each edition address a wide spectrum of issues from different branches of the law, such as, International Criminal Law, Law of International Institutions, Environmental Law, Human Rights Law, Medical Law, Oil and Gas Law, Constitutional Law, Corporate Governance to mention but just a few. You will, no doubt, find these scholarly works a worthy contribution to knowledge in their respective fields.

The Kampala International University Law Journal follows strict ethical standards aligned with the Committee on Publication Ethics to ensure quality and integrity in academic publishing.

Publication Ethics
The Kampala International University Law Journal (KIULJ) strives to maintain integrity and ethics in all facets of academic publishing. The KIULJ is strongly opposed to publication misconduct and upholds strict policies that prevent unethical behaviors. The Editorial Board is an important safeguard against publication misconduct, ensuring that all submissions are dovetailed with ethical and scholarly standards. All forms of plagiarism violate a journal's ethics and will not be tolerated. Upon submission of a manuscript to the KIULJ, the author is to declare through their submission that the manuscript is original and authored fully by them; the content hasn't been published before (in part or whole, in any language); and it is not being considered by another publication. All actors in the publication process (publishers, editors, authors, reviewers) are required to fulfill their ethical obligations and must practice responsible publishing while following the journal's ethical guidelines. A summary of the ethical principles that govern publication in the KIU Law Journal is included below.

Section A: Responsibilities of Authors
i.    Authors are required to acknowledge that their submission is completely original.
ii.    They must also agree that the manuscript has not been published before.
iii.    Authors should confirm that the work has not been submitted to another journal.
iv.    All authors submitting work must contribute to the peer-review process.
v.    Authors must issue corrections or retractions when a substantial error is determined.
vi.    Each author listed should have made a significant contribution to the research.
vii.    Authors must verify that all data presented are reliable and real.
viii.    Any conflicts of interest must be indicated to the editorial team.
ix.    All references and sources consulted during the research should be correctly cited.
x.    Authors must inform the editors of any errors they find after publication.

Section B: Responsibilities of Reviewers
i.    Reviewers are expected to regard the content of all manuscripts as confidential and privileged.
ii.    Reviews should be neutral and constructive and should not contain personally directed comments toward the author(s).
iii.    Feedback should be articulated clearly, and comments should be logically justifiable. 
iv.    Reviewers should identify any relevant literature that the authors may have missed.
v.    If reviewers observe significant similarities or overlap with other published work, they must notify the
vi.    Reviewers must recuse themselves from reviewing any submission with a conflict of interest as a result of personal, professional, or institutional relationships with authors or related organisations. 

Section C: Editors' Responsibilities
i.    Editors have the ultimate authority to accept or reject articles submitted to the journal. 
ii.    Editors are responsible for the accuracy, quality, and integrity of the journal's content. 
iii.    Editors should balance the needs of authors and readers in advancing the journal. 
iv.    Editors must uphold the highest academic, ethical, and professional standards and maintain the integrity of the scientific record. 
v.    Where relevant, editors should correct or publish errata. 
vi.    Editors must be aware of the source(s) of research funding. 
vii.    Editorial decisions regarding manuscripts must be made on their merit, including originality, clarity, importance, and relevance to the journal. 
viii.    The decisions of prior editors must not be overturned without adequate justification. 
ix.    Anonymity of peer reviewers must be maintained at all times. 
x.    Editors must ensure that every published article is by international ethical standards.
xi.    A manuscript may only be accepted after it has been reasonably verified for quality and validity. 
xii.    Editors must investigate instances of suspected misconduct and make an effort to resolve incidents of misconduct regardless of the circumstances.
xiii.    Decisions to reject must not be based only on suspicion; credible evidence of misconduct must exist.
xiv.    Editors must take steps to ensure that their decisions about authors, reviewers, staff, or editorial board members are not influenced by personal or professional conflicts of interest.

Section D: Author Submission Declaration
When submitting a manuscript to KIU Law Journal, the author(s) confirm:

i.    The manuscript has not already been published, except in limited forms such as a preprint, abstract, conference presentation, academic thesis, or registered report. 
ii.    The manuscript is not under review by any other publication. 
iii.    The manuscript has the approval of all contributing authors, as well as the approval of appropriate institutional representatives. 
iv.    If the article is accepted for publication, the same article cannot be published elsewhere in the same form or language (including online form) without prior written permission from the copyright holder.

Section E: The Policy on Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) usage at KIULJ 
1.    Author(s) are required to make full disclosure of their GenAI tool usage during manuscript creation. 
2.    The disclosure must specify the nature, scope, and purpose of the GenAI assistance (e.g., language editing, data analysis, or drafting support). 
3.    Authors bear full responsibility for the accuracy, originality, and integrity of all content submitted. 
4.    The author must demonstrate their intellectual work through essential academic assessment while substantiating their ideas with proof. 
5.    Under no circumstances should GenAI tools be included as authors or co-authors of any work. 
6.    Authors must ensure that the use of GenAI does not result in plagiarism, data fabrication, or any form of academic misconduct. 
7.    All submissions that involve GenAI assistance will undergo strict editorial assessment together with peer review. 
8.    The journal requires manuscripts to meet its ethical standards through transparent processes and accountable practices and proper attribution methods.

Section F: Authorship Depends On 
To qualify as an author, a person needs to have significantly contributed to:
i.    The original idea and/or concept and/or study design; data collection; data analysis and/or interpretation; 
ii.    Drafting; revising critically for intellectual rigor and quality;
iii.    Final approval of the version to be submitted up to the point of submission; 
iv.    All aspects of the research, including responsibility for questions regarding the integrity or accuracy of any part of the work.

Section G: Authorship Changes
Changes to the list of authors after submission are normally not allowed by the editorial team. Authors must consider carefully how to settle on the right authorship and order before submission. The journal's authorship change policy encompasses the following points:
i.    All contributors must have been part of the original submission (manuscript) and included in it.
iii.    Any changes (new, removed, or reordered) must be requested before the manuscript is accepted and are subject to editor approval.
iv.    The corresponding author needs to request the change, providing a robust justification along with a written agreement from all authors potentially affected (as well as any new authors being added).
v.    Changes to authorship after acceptance will only be permitted in exceptional circumstances, subject to the discretion of the editorial team.
vi.    Any change to authorship may cause delays to the publication while the request is considered.
vii.    If a change to authorship is approved after publication, a formal corrigendum will be issued.
viii.    Unauthorised changes to authorship may result in the submission being formally rejected or the published article being formally retracted.

Plagiarism policy
i.    Any type of plagiarism, including self-plagiarism, will not be tolerated. Authors must only submit completely original work. If work done is cited or borrowed from another source, it needs to be adequately referenced or quotes attributed.
ii.    Submitting the same or substantially similar manuscript to multiple journals at the same time is unethical and happens only in rare cases. No author will be able to publish overlapping research findings in different journals or primary publications.
iii.    It is critical to give due credit to the contributions made by other researchers. Authors must reference items that have had a significant impact on the research they are presenting.

Plagiarism review process
i.    The editorial team carefully reviews each manuscript by screening the submitted manuscript using online and offline databases to verify any citations and quotes, including those of the work of others. 
ii.    Additionally, after or simultaneously with this, the manuscript is also screened against Turnitin. 
iii.    If the similarity index is above 20%, your submission will be rejected outright.

Section H: Process of Peer Review
Once a manuscript is received, the Editor-in-Chief immediately forwards it to the Managing Editor to begin processing. Next, the Managing Editor will reach out to at least two reviewers to review the manuscript. The submission undergoes double-blind peer review, meaning the reviewer does not know who the authors are and vice versa. This review process provides a check for maintaining the scholarly quality and limiting biases. Only manuscripts that have been carefully reviewed and accepted by an expert in the related field will be published. There will always be at least two reviewers who contributed to the decision related to the publication of the manuscript.

At the KIU Law Journal, reviews are in two phases. Once the submission is received, the editorial team will first complete an initial technical screening. The submission will then be evaluated for relevance and quality for the journal. If the submission passes the technical review and is confirmed for inclusion in the journal, it will have a handling editor assigned and then go through peer review with decisions before heading to print. The handling editor can assign the paper to reviewers as well as make the final decision. The handling editor will select and contact two reviewers assigned to the paper. Peer review is voluntary, and so it may take time for a reviewer to prepare their review. There will be times when the handling editor has to send reminders for delayed responses. When the editor has received the necessary reviews, the editor contacts the author and asks the author to respond to the comments of the reviewers. It should be noted that if the editor determines that the manuscript does not fit with the aims or standards of the journal at this stage, they may reject the submission. In such cases, the author(s) will be informed of the rejection without delay and offered advice on more appropriate venues for publication.
In some instances, the editor may decide that additional reviews are needed before a final decision can be made. When this happens, the author(s) will be informed accordingly.

The above steps are therefore simplified as follows:

i.    Author submission of manuscript.
ii.    Manuscript screening and check by the managing editor.
iii.    The rights of editors to directly accept, review or reject.
iv.    Blind peer review process.
v.    Notification of manuscript status by editor to author (Revision or rejection.
vi.    Manuscript revision by author
vii.    Submission of response to reviewers' comments
viii.    If the editor is satisfied with the revision, notification for acceptance (by editor).
ix.    Galley proof and production.

Items (i) through (v) represent a complete round of the peer review process. When a decision is made about the paper, the editor or a group of editors considers each review together to reach a decision. Possible editorial decisions include:
i.    Accept without changes - The paper has been accepted as is and will be published as is.
ii.    Accept with minor revisions - The paper has been accepted for publication, pending minor corrections by the author within a specified timeframe.
iii.    Accept with major revisions - The paper has been accepted for publication but needs major changes made by the author based on reviewer and/or editorial comments within a specified timeframe.
iv.    Revise and resubmit - The paper needs substantial changes, and it will be reconsidered for review at another time after those changes have been made.
v.    Reject - The paper has been rejected and will not be considered again, even if revised.

Section I: Publication Fees 
The KIU Law Journal does not charge the following author fees.
Submission of Article: FREE
Publication of Article: FREE

Section J: Journal Withdrawal and Retraction Policy 
The following can also result in retractions of articles: scientific errors, ethical violations, duplicate submissions, misappropriation of authorship, plagiarism, and data manipulation. Retracting an article involves the author completing a signed statement. Also, all co-authors must agree on the retraction before it takes place. The publisher will issue a retraction notice; this will be published, prominently linked to the article, and will outline the reasons for the retraction and who has requested it. The original article will still be retained by the publisher and maintained on their website, but will be marked as retracted. This will also include a note that it was retracted in the table of contents of the journal.

Section K: Withdrawal of Articles by Authors
Authors should be discouraged from withdrawing articles except for very rare circumstances through the submission process. Withdrawal of articles, by authors, usually takes place with early version of accepted manuscripts before they are formally published online. There are specific cases when withdrawal may occur, i.e., errors in an early version article, allowing the early version to be published with intentional or accidental duplication, or breaches of the ethics of publishing including, but not limited to: submitting the same article to different journals, dishonest authorship, or significant amounts of plagiarism and misconduct. If articles potentially generate legal or ethical violations while acceptable, or the article possesses data that may harm, and we discover inaccuracies in the data, they may be removed from the platform.  The retraction notice will replace the PDF.
It should be noted that ownership of the copyright to your article does not permit the author unilaterally to withdraw a published article from the journal, in essence, the author cannot reverse or withdraw from the permanence of the record of the academic literature, and the mechanisms for withdrawal and retraction exist to provide some assurance of transparency and accountability.

Section L: Article Replacement
In the case of a published article that contains content which, when acted upon, could place the reader's health or safety at serious risk or harm, the author may ask for the original article to be replaced with a corrected article. In this case, the standard retraction will be issued with a reference to the replacement article and a record of any changes made.

Section M: Article Removal
In exceptional and extreme circumstances, we may consider the total removal of a published article from online availability. This can be reserved for legally defamatory content, infringing individual rights, or if there is a court order in force to remove it. It may also be considered if an article contains sufficiently dangerous misinformation that, if acted upon, poses a risk to public health. If we were ever to remove an article in this way, we would keep the article metadata (title and authors) on record and replace the content with a notice saying the article has been removed for legal and/or ethical reasons.

Dr. Paul Atagamen Aidonojie
Editor-in-Chief
Tel: +256782 366 329
Email: [email protected], [email protected]