Manuscript submission, Copyright Notice, Open Access Policy and Review Process

Instructions for Authors

The Journal of Ethics and Legal Technology (JELT) publishes two numbers a year, one in Spring an another in Autumn. Special issues are published during the year with no previously determined timing. Proposals for monographic issues (regular or special) are welcomed, if you are interested in submitting one, please, contact the Editorial Board for further information and instructions.

In general, JELT considers all articles on the strict condition that:

the article is your own original work, and does not duplicate any other previously published work, including your own previously published work;
the article has been submitted only to JELT; it is not under consideration or peer review or accepted for publication or in press or published elsewhere.

Before submitting your article, please ensure you carefully read and adhere to all the guidelines and manuscript style to authors provided below. Manuscripts not conforming to these guidelines may be returned. We expect all authors submitting to JELT to adhere to the Code of Ethics, Copyright and Open Access Policies of the Journal. All manuscripts must be submitted online.

Article Processing Charges (APC).

Unlike many open-access journals, JELT does not ask for articles processing (APC) or submissions charges.

Copyright Notice

The articles included in JELT are freely available: no registration or subscription required to read, print, download and share the full-text of articles. JELT does not require the transfer of copyright, that is authors retain any and all rights on the content of their papers. The Authors authorize the Publisher to issue their articles under a Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND)” license. For further information please see:
The editorial format and the graphical layout of the texts published in print and/or online in JELT remain the exclusive property of the Publisher.

Open Access Policy

JELT is a fully open access journal, since all articles are available for all readers immediately after publication: no registration or subscription required to read, print, download and share the full-text of articles.
The works included in JELT are licensed under a Creative Commons “Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND)” license.
JELT provides immediate open access to its content, nevertheless you may not use the material for commercial purposes or in commercial websites. Any reference to material included in JELT has to include the citation of the author and the source.

General Guidelines

Text: articles should be compiled in the following order: title page; author(s); abstract; keywords; main text (number of tables and figures cited in the article); acknowledgement (optional); references; appendices (optional).
Language: articles can be in English, Italian or Spanish, while abstracts should be only in english. In case of a language different from the afore mentioned, authors should contact the Editorial Board before submission. Writing should be coincise and correct.
Lenght: Lenght should not exceed 10.000 words.
The title page should include: 1) a coincise and informative title; 2) complete contact information for all authors (Name, current affiliation, email address). The corresponding author, who will be handling the correspondence with the Editorial Board should be clearly indicated; 3) abstract (in english). It should be a summary of the article and not an introduction. Maximal lenght of the abstract is 500 words; 4) keywords. Each article should have 4 keywords.
Tables, figures and illustrations: the purpose of tables and figures is to present data to the reader in a clear and unambiguous manner. The author(s) should not describe the data in the text in such detail that illustration or text is redundant. Tables/Figures/Illustrations should be submitted in Microsoft Word, RTF or Excel Format typed on separate pages. They should be numbered consecutively and cited in the article.
Reference list: a reference list contains only references that are cited in the text. Its accurancy and completeness are the responsibility of the author(s).

Manuscript style

Formats for the text and tables of your manuscript are: doc, docx, odt, rtf, txt. Any supplementary files should be in Microsoft Word,RTF or Excel Format. PDFs are not acceptable. Articles failing to conform to the editorial norms may not be considered for publication.

The page layout should be formatted according to the template available on the JELT website.

References should follow the author-date system (author surname, publication year, page numbers): e.g. Sarra, 2010, 112-114. The text should be followed by a list of references in alphabetical order and, for a same author's work, listed in chronological order. The Chicago Manual of Style should be followed.

Submission – Checklist

Please make sure you have provided:

The name of the author designated as the corresponding author who will check proofs and receive correspondence
All author data (name and affiliation)
A short title
Abstract, keywords, main text, tables, figures, illustrations, acknowledgement; references and appendices
Numbered pages in sequence
Text and references in the correct format for JELT (see Manuscript style)

Peer Review

JELT adopts a double-blind peer review process of evaluation. Reviewers are requested to evaluate the submitted papers according to the following criteria:

originality, clarity, consistency of the papers as well as the relevance of the cited references;
pertinence of language and fluency.

The evaluation process may result in a judgment of a) acceptance; b) acceptance after revision; c) refusal.

In case b) the reviewer is required to specifically indicate the points in need of modification.

On the average, the review process takes 20 dd. In case of acceptance after revision the Author is given another deadline to revise the paper.

Privacy statement

The email and name addresses entered in the JELT site will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of this journal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.