Ethical obligations of reviewers

1. All articles submitted to the journal undergo a peer-review process.

2. Peer review is conducted confidentially on a double-blind basis (where neither the author nor the reviewer knows the identity of the other). Communication between the author and the reviewers takes place via the journal’s editor-in-chief.

3. The reviewer must objectively assess the quality of the manuscript, the theoretical and practical significance of the work, the scientific rigour of the presentation and conclusions, and the manuscript’s compliance with high academic standards.

4. The reviewer must respect the intellectual independence of the authors and treat the manuscript received for review as a confidential document.

5. The reviewer is not permitted to use or disclose unpublished information, arguments or interpretations contained in the manuscript without the author’s consent.

6. The reviewer must provide feedback on the manuscript in a timely manner.

7. The reviewer must adequately explain and justify their judgements so that authors and editors can understand the basis for their comments. Any assertion that an observation, conclusion or argument has been previously published must be accompanied by a relevant reference.

8. The reviewer must note any instances where the authors have insufficiently cited the works of other scholars directly relevant to the work under review; they must also draw the editor’s attention to any substantial similarity between the submitted manuscript and any published article.