Normas Éticas

ETHICS POLICY

The Latin American Journal of Trade Policy publishes articles with the highest standards of quality and ethics. We maintain ethical behavior standards in all the stages of the publication and towards all the members of our Journal, including the author, the editorial team, reviewers and the publisher. Plagiarism or any other unethical behavior is strictly forbidden.

Duties of Editors

- Articles selection: The Latin American Journal of Trade Policy’ editorial team is responsible for the selection of the articles that will be published. The editorial team must follow the journal’s ethical standards and they must comprise all legal requirements, including, but not limited to, libel, copyright infringement, and plagiarism. The editorial team has the freedom to discuss the selection of articles with the editorial board, the academic committee or an evaluator.

- Non-discrimination clause: The editorial team will evaluate submitted manuscripts and it will make decisions regarding the articles, without regard to the author’s race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, nationality or political philosophy.

- Confidentiality agreement: The editorial staff and wording team members will not disclose any information regarding a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers and the Publisher.

- Disclosure and conflict of interest: The editorial board will not use unpublished information disclosed in a submitted manuscript for their own research purposes without the authors’ explicit written consent. Editors will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Reviewers

- Confidentiality: Any manuscripts received for review are confidential documents and must be treated as such; they must not be shown to or discussed with others.

- Promptness: Any selected referee who feels unqualified to review the research reported in a manuscript or knows that its prompt review will be impossible should notify the editor and excuse himself from the review process.

- Standards of objectivity: Observations must be neutral, and opinions must be clearly formulated with supporting arguments.

- Contribution to editorial decisions: Peer review assists the editor in making editorial decisions and through the editorial communications with the author may also assist the author in improving the paper 

- Acknowledgment of sources: Reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors and they should also notify of any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other manuscript.

- Disclosure and conflict of interest: Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for the reviewer’s personal advantage. Reviewers will recuse themselves from considering manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships/connections with any of the authors, companies or institutions connected to the papers.

Duties of Authors

- Reporting standards: Authors of reports of original research should present an accurate account of the work performed as well as an objective discussion of its significance. Underlying data should be represented accurately in the paper. A paper should contain sufficient detail and references to permit others to replicate the work. Fraudulent or knowingly inaccurate statements constitute unethical behavior and are unacceptable.

- Multiple, redundant or concurrent publication: In general, an author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. Submitting the same manuscript to more than one journal concurrently constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

- Originality and plagiarism: Authors should ensure that they have written and submit only entirely original works, and if they have used the work and/or words of others, that this has been appropriately cited. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.

-Authorship of the manuscript: Authorship belongs to all persons who made substantial contributions to the design, creation and comprehension of the work reported in the manuscript. All persons that considerably contributed to the article must be mentioned as coauthors. Other people that contributed in other ways to the research, must be acknowledged as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate coauthors (according to the above definition) and contributors are included in the author list and verify that all coauthors have seen and approved the final version of the manuscript and agreed to its submission for publication.

- Acknowledgement of sources: Authors should ensure that they have properly acknowledged the work of others. Authors should provide the references list and also cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately (from conversation, correspondence or discussion with third parties) must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Authors should not use information obtained in the course of providing confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, unless they have obtained the explicit written permission of the author(s) of the work involved in these services.

- Disclosure and conflicts of interest: Authors should disclose any conflicts of interest that might be construed to influence the results or their interpretation in the manuscript. All sources of financial support for the work should be disclosed.

- Fundamental mistakes in published works: When authors discover significant errors or inaccuracies in their own published work, it is their obligation to promptly notify the journal’s editors or publisher and cooperate with them to correct the paper in the form of an erratum.

Managing unethical conduct

Recognizing an unethical conduct:

-Misconduct and unethical actions must be reported to the director and the editor.
- Misconduct and unethical actions include, but not limited to, plagiarism or copyright.
- The person who informs unethical conduct must offer enough information and proof to start an investigation. All complaints will be treated in a similar way until everything is solved.

Investigation:

- The editor will choose the appropriate way of conducting research, being assessed by the editorial and academic committee, or the reviewer.
- The evidence must be gathered avoiding both a conflictive situation and the proliferation of accusations.
Punishment (in order of severity):
- When there is a misunderstanding, or the ethics standards are not correctly applied to an article, notify the author or reviewer.
- Prepare a letter or declaration addressed to the author, expressing the unethical behavior and issue a warning
- Publication of a formal observation that details misconduct.
- Publication of an editorial comment that details misconduct.
- The withdrawal and formal elimination of the work from the journal, notifying the supervisor of the author or group of evaluators, and the audience.

- Enforce a formal embargo on the author’s presentations for a specific period of time.

 Ethics standards and practices

The Latin American Journal of Trade Policy is committed to the academic community and it only publishes works that meet the highest quality standards. For this reason, it is expected that every one of the actors in the publication process follow the following ethics standards.

Editors:

1. They are responsible for all the elements published in the journal.
2. They must not disclose information regarding the documents received.
3. They must objectively evaluate the documents.
4. They must detect and correct the mistakes in the documents received.
5. They must remind reviewers their job is impartial.
6. They must do their best to publish with the highest quality standards.

Authors:

1. They must send original and academically relevant documents.
2. The articles sent must contain all the corresponding references. Plagiarism will not be tolerated.
3. They must notify significant errors or inaccuracies in their own work.
5. They are responsible for all the content presented in the document.

Reviewers:

1. They must not disclose their job.
2. They must objectively evaluate the article content.
3. They must notify editors any problem encountered in the articles.