Code of Ethics

This Code of ethics is written in Italian and in English. Both language versions are considered to be equally authentic. In the event of inconsistency or discrepancy between the two aforementioned versions, the Italian version shall prevail in determining the spirit, intent, and meaning of this Code. For any clarification with respect to the content of the Code, please contact the Editorial team at: trentostudentlawreview@unitn.it

The present Code of Ethics binds the Trento Student Law Review to achieve the highest standards in publication and to prevent any editorial abuse, by explicating the existing policies meant to ensure an ethical treatment for all the entities involved in its review and publication procedures.
These guidelines conform to the “Core Practices” catalogued in the Guidelines on good publication practice of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and must be understood as applied to all manuscripts sent to the Trento Student Law Review.
Revisions and additions to this Code of Ethics can be suggested at any time by the Editor-in-chief, the Vice Editor-in-chief and the Managing editors. The amendments and additions thus proposed must be submitted to the attention, discussed and approved by the first convening of the Ordinary Assembly of the “Trento Student Law Review” Association.
The Associate Editors, the Visiting Editors and members of the Advisory Board as well as any Intern, the Reviewers and the Authors are encouraged to read the following Code.

Preamble.
The Trento Student Law Review (hereinafter, the “Law Review”) is a legal periodical exclusively managed and published by students at the Faculty of Law of the University of Trento.
The Editorial team includes:

  1. The Editor–in–Chief
  2. The Vice Editor–in–Chief
  3. Managing editors
  4. Associate editors
  5. Visiting editors (if any)

Each member of the Editorial team is selected at the beginning of every academic year amongst the Juris Doctor students of the Faculty of Law.
The Advisory Board assists the Editorial team and it is tasked with advisory functions. It consists of Law professors, Research fellows and professionals with specific competence for each legal field.
The Law Review is published every six months and it is committed to the comparative approach, which characterizes our Faculty. The Law Review publishes articles both in Italian and in English, with the declared scope to foster the research, the exchange and the discussion in the legal area. It encourages a multidisciplinary approach towards the legal phenomenon in order to engage scholars interested in contemporary legal studies.
Each submission selected for publication is subjected to a double-blind peer review process, fulfilled by our reviewers specifically selected on the basis of the subject of the submission.
The Law Reviews operates in compliance with: Articles 21 §1 and 33 §1 of the Italian Constitution; Article 8 of the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity; Articles 1, 27 and 33 §1 of the Charter of the University of Trento.
The Law Review is a non-profit periodical which provides open access to its content, as it believes that the exchange of worldwide knowledge is improved by distributing publications free of costs to the public.
The founding principles of the Law Review, which are fixed in our Charter, are:

  1. Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Press and Freedom of Knowledge;
  2. Active student participation in Academic life;
  3. Horizontal subsidiarity;
  4. Meritocracy;
  5. Open access to knowledge and knowing.

The present Preamble shall be considered as an integral part of the Code of Ethics and shall serve as an interpretative criterion for all of its parts.

Chapter I - The Editorial team.
The Editorial team as a whole is responsible for the contents of the Law Review and is committed to ensure the integrity of any published work by:

  1. Using a double-blind peer-review process so that the highest quality in any issue of the Law Review is warranted;
  2. Paying constant attention to improve and reasses the standards of the Law Review in the light of shared scientific principles and of the most recent academic practices.
  3. Providing a reasoned and informed criticism of the work published in the Law Review;
  4. Providing informed editorial policies, free of any personal interest and exclusively aimed at the highest quality of our work, at the originality of the articles and at the compliance with the best practices in scientific publishing.

In order to discharge said duties the Editorial team:

  1. Ensures that any submission is evaluated by adequately qualified reviewers of recognized experience;
  2. Adopts specific internal policies and cooperates with the Authors with the purpose of enhancing the accuracy, the completeness and the clarity of the research;
  3. Asks Authors to provide adequate corrections and integration even after the blind peer review process is fulfilled;
  4. Proceeds to mere editorial modifications after the first proofreading, in order to ensure the homogeneity of the Review;
  5. Reports any possible conflict of interest with respect to specific submissions to the Editor-in-chief, the Vice Editor-in-Chief and the other managing editors.

The submissions subject to the examination by the Editorial team:

  1. Are evaluated by the Editor-in-Chief and by the Vice Editor-in-chief or by both in first place, as well as by at least one other Managing editor in order to ensure that the subject be consistent with the themes and the scopes of the Review;
  2. Are examined without taking into account sex, gender, race, religious beliefs, citizenship and political views of the Author;
  3. Are evaluated after being subjected to the said double-blind peer review process;
  4. Will be approved or rejected following a scrutiny as to their scientific basis led by an external Reviewer, as well as on the basis of their envisaged compatibility with the scopes of the Law Review;
  5. Are deemed and treated as confidential in any time during the evaluation and publishing process. The same applies with respect to the communications with the Authors, in order to ensure that no content be disclosed to third parties;
  6. Will be protected under Italian Copyright Law, under international treaties on Intellectual Property, as well as under our internal policies on personal data protection.

Each member of the Editorial team has the duty to act when suspecting bad conduct, bad faith or potential abuse in the publishing procedures, or in the case a specific allegation of bad conduct, bad faith or abuse of their role is made to them.

Chapter II - Managing editors
The Managing editors lead the publishing procedures and make the most relevant choices with respect to editorial policies of the Law Review. They are assisted by the Advisory Board.
The Managing editors include:

  1. The Editor-in-Chief;
  2. The Vice Editor-in-Chief;
  3. all other members of the Board of Directors of the "Trento Student Law Review" Association.

Albeit the selection and the publications of the articles submitted to the Law Review rest with all the Managing editors, the ultimate authority for approving or rejecting any decision is up to the Editor-in-Chief.
The Editor-in-Chief assures the honesty and the integrity of the Law Review by adopting informed decisions, free of any personal interest and exclusively aiming at the highest quality of our work, at the originality of the articles and at the compliance with the best practices in scientific publishing, always adhering to the advices from external Reviewers.
The decisions adopted by the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing editors with respect to the acceptance or the rejection of a specific submission may be limited by the space available in any issue, as well as by legal standards concerning law of defamation, copyright infringement and plagiarism.
The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing editors shall enforce any appropriate measure for maintaining the quality of the published materials, in compliance with the publishing process and [with the standard of publications set forth by] the platform OJS. They shall also ensure that any material submitted to the Law Review as well as any personal data of the Authors be kept as confidential during the whole publishing process.
The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing editors shall also ensure that any submission be evaluated timely, independently and anonymously by adequately qualified external Reviewers with specific competence for the legal field under consideration and with no concurring interests, in compliance with the proper double blind peer review procedures.
Following the first scrutiny of any submissions and on the basis of the findings of the external reviewers, the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing editors may provide Authors with guidelines in order to enhance the accuracy, the clarity and the completeness of their contents.
The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing editors shall enforce any appropriate measure for ensuring that the published materials and their metadata be archived in a correct and safe manner, and make sure that any article be published in open access in accordance with the Creative Commons License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) of the Law Review.
The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing editors are obliged to publish corrections, explanations, retractations and apologies, when needed.

Chapter III - The Advisory Board
The Advisory Board guarantees the scientific quality and the integrity of the Law Review. It monitors the development of the Law Review and it supervises its procedures.
The Advisory Board fulfils advisory and leadership functions. It evaluates the scientific approach and the validity of the publishing policies of the Law Review. It assists the Editor-in-Chief and the Managing editors in their decisions.
The Advisory Board has additional representative functions aimed at enhancing the image of the Law Review and disseminating the achieved results.
The President of the Advisory Board is appointed by the Board of Directors of the “Trento Student Law Review” Association on recommendation of the Dean of the Faculty of Law of the University of Trento. The President of the Advisory Board must be selected among well respected members of the academic community, who have demonstrated a closeness to the Journal’s Editorial team, its principles and its spirit.
The members of the Advisory Board are appointed by the Board of Directors of the “Trento Student Law Review” Association, with full freedom of judgment, among Law professors, Research fellows and professionals with specific competence for each legal field.
Members of the Advisory Board may be consulted in any time over specific questions regarding the publishing process; the content of the submissions as well as over any relevant question regarding the life of the Law Review.
Members of the Advisory Board hold their position permanently and in a non-profit honorific position. Their appointment ceases in case of death, resignation or revocation following lack of cooperation with the Law Review for a period of one year or more.

Chapter IV - Authors
Authors are primarily responsible for the articles subject to the examination of the Review. They shall assure the originality of their work and shall be aware of the consequences resulting from bad conducts in terms of copyright infringement and plagiarism (be it direct, indirect or self-plagiarism).
Before submitting any contribution to the Law Review, the Authors are invited to follow the Author Guidelines published on the official website of the Law Review.
The Authors shall ensure the accuracy, the completeness and the clarity of their research, both formally and substantially. They are hence for invited to pay special attention when drafting the critical apparatus of their articles by acknowledging their sources and providing details about the publications where they extracted relevant quotations.
The authorship of any work shall be made clear. Any person who significantly contributed to the realization of an article shall appear as co-author. Each co-author shall confirm the final drafting of the article and give explicit consent for the final publication.
The Authors as well as the members of the Editorial team shall additionally declare any conflict of interest which may have influenced the achieved results, the argued theses or the proposed interpretations. The Authors shall disclose if any funder of the research or of the project from which the article is derived exists.
The offer to publish on the Law Review must be formalized by signing an appropriate form (the “disclaimer”) which shall be sent to the Authors via e-mail by a Managing editor. The form shall be sent back to the Law Review after being fully completed. By accepting the offer to publish the Authors abide to the present Code of Ethics in its entirety.
Authors shall comply with any deadline following the review process.
Should they not be able to comply with any deadline, Authors shall contact the Editorial team as soon as possible in order to agree on an extension of the allowed period of time.
Authors shall promptly inform the Editorial team of any manifest error in the version of their article published in the Law Review and shall cooperate with the Editor-in-Chief and/or with the Vice Editor in Chief in order to rectify the document.
If any substantial error is detected after the publication, the Law Review shall inform the Readers immediately by publishing a correction message on the official website and on the archive of the manuscripts.

Chapter V - Reviewers
Reviewers are members of the national and international academic community, who have been recognized as experts in their field of research. They are selected on the basis of their credit and of their experience by the Editor-in-Chief and/or the Vice Editor-in-Chief in collaboration with the Managing Editors.
Exceptionally, members of the Advisory Board as well as other national or international scholars may be engaged in the double-blind peer review process, provided that the Editor-in-Chief and/or the Vice Editor-in-Chief deem their intervention as additional reviewers as necessary.
For each submission subjected to the examination of the Law Review, a Reviewer is chosen by the internal team tasked with managing relations between Authors and Reviewers on the basis of the substantial proximity with the subject of the contribution.
Reviewers shall evaluate any contribution objectively and professionally by pursuing integrity and transparency and shall avoid any personal judgment as well as any type of preconception.
When discharging their duties, Reviewers shall express their judgment clearly by providing arguments in support of their positions and by delivering a fair and motivated opinion. Reviewers shall follow and adequately fill the appropriate Review form that they will be provided with.
As soon as the review is assigned to them, Reviewers shall declare any potential conflict of interest that may arise with respect to the contribution subject to their review, in their personal capacity. In the case the Reviewers acknowledge that they have been directly or indirectly involved, under any circumstances, in the drafting of the contribution subjected to their examination, they shall refrain from reviewing it.
Reviewers shall comply with the principle of confidentiality with respect to the content of the contribution submitted by the Authors. They shall not discuss the manuscript with anyone but with the Editor-in-Chief, the Vice Editor-in-Chief or other members of the Editorial team.
Reviewers assist the Editorial team in discovering plagiarism or other misconduct and shall ensure that the Authors have acknowledged every bibliographical source of their research.
Reviewers shall promptly notify the Editor-in-Chief in case of any suspected similarity between the examined article and another already existing publication, of which they are aware.
Reviewers hold their position permanently and in a non-profit honorific position. Their appointment ceases in case of death, resignation or revocation following lack of cooperation with the Law Review for a period of one year or more.

Approved by the Ordinary Assembly of the “Trento Student Law Review” Association - October 11, 2021