Guidelines

As part of the submission process, authors must confirm compliance with all of the items below. Submissions that do not meet these requirements may be returned to the authors for correction before peer review.

The policy applies equally to all authors, regardless of country, affiliation or funding. There is no charge for expedited review, and no premium services. Please be wary of any message asking for payment on behalf of the journal and report it to the Editorial Office.

* Word counts include notes and exclude the reference list. Longer manuscripts may be considered when justified in the Letter to the Editor.

• Title: concise and informative (up to 15 words), in the language of the manuscript.
• Structured abstract (maximum 250 words): Purpose, Method/Approach, Findings/Argument, and Contribution/Implications.
• Keywords: 4 to 6, separated by commas, in lower case except for proper nouns.
• Introduction: problem, research question, relevance and contribution, and structure of the article.
• Theoretical/legal framework and literature review.
• Method (for empirical, comparative and doctrinal studies): sources, corpus, selection criteria and analytical procedure.
• Results/Analysis and Discussion, organized with APA-style headings.
• Conclusion: main findings, limitations and avenues for future research.
• Declarations (before the references): ethics, conflict of interest, funding, data availability, AI use, author contributions (CRediT), if not placed on the title page.
• References: in APA 7 format; every work cited must be listed and vice versa.

Use the official manuscript template on the Submissions page: A4, 12-point serif font (for example Times New Roman), double spacing, 2.54 cm margins, page numbers, and no author-identifying information.

Because the journal uses double-blind review, submit two files:

• Headings: up to five levels, as in APA 7 (Level 1 centered, bold, title case; Level 2 flush left, bold; Level 3 flush left, bold italic). Do not number headings.
• In-text citations: author–date format. One or two authors: (Silva, 2024) and (Silva & Costa, 2024); three or more: (Silva et al., 2024). Direct quotations require page numbers (p. 12). Quotations of 40 words or more go in a block quote without quotation marks.
• Reference list: alphabetical, hanging indent, double-spaced. Provide the DOI as a URL (https://doi.org/…) whenever available. List up to 20 authors; for more, give the first 19, an ellipsis and the last author.
• Journal article: Author, A. A., & Author, B. B. (Year). Title of the article in sentence case. Title of the Journal in Title Case, volume(issue), pages. https://doi.org/xxxx
• Book: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the book in sentence case (ed.). Publisher.
• Chapter in an edited book: Author, A. A. (Year). Title of the chapter. In E. Editor (Ed.), Title of the book (pp. xx–xx). Publisher.
• Non-English sources: keep the original title and add an English translation in square brackets, for example Lei anticorrupção [Anti-corruption law].
• Language and numbers: use bias-free, precise language (APA Chapter 5). Spell out numbers below 10, except in statistics, measurements and percentages.
• Italics and abbreviations: define abbreviations at first use; avoid footnotes except for brief explanatory notes.

Primary legal sources (judicial decisions, statutes, regulations, constitutions, treaties) follow APA 7 legal references, which are based on The Bluebook. In the text, cite the name of the case or act and the year; in the reference list, give the full legal citation.

For materials from other jurisdictions (for example Brazil, Portugal or the European Union), keep the official citation elements of the original source (court, number, date, official publication), add a bracketed translation of the title when helpful, and apply the APA author–date logic consistently. Provide a stable URL for official texts when available.

• Number tables and figures consecutively (Table 1, Figure 1). Place each with a short title and, where needed, a note, at the end of the manuscript or in the text, as indicated in the template.
• Tables must be editable (not images), without vertical lines, in APA table format. Mention each one in the text.
• Figures must be at least 300 dpi (JPG, PNG or vector) and legible in grayscale. Add alternative text for accessibility.
• Reproduced or adapted material requires written permission and a full credit line (author is responsible for copyright).

• Author contributions (CRediT): describe each author’s contribution using the Contributor Roles Taxonomy.
• Conflict of interest: declare any relationship that could be seen as influencing the work, or state “The authors declare no conflict of interest.”
• Funding: name funders and grant numbers, or state that there was none.
• Ethics approval and consent: studies involving human participants or personal data must state the approving committee (or the legal basis for exemption) and the consent obtained, in line with applicable law, including data protection law.
• Data availability: state where the data, case-law datasets, codes or materials can be accessed, or explain restrictions (FAIR principles encouraged).
• Preprints: allowed; declare the DOI/URL at submission and update the record after publication.
• Misconduct: plagiarism, data fabrication, duplicate submission and authorship manipulation are handled under COPE guidelines (see Editorial Policies).

AI tools cannot be authors. Authors remain fully responsible for the content, including checking every reference and quotation produced or suggested by an AI tool (fabricated references are common).

Upload a Letter to the Editor (maximum one page) as a Supplementary File, explaining:

• the scientific relevance of the manuscript;
• its originality and contribution to Law, Governance, Integrity or Anti-Corruption Studies;
• whether it derives from a conference presentation and what substantial improvements were made in relation to the previous version;
• any request for exception (length, number of authors, language).

• Copyediting, typesetting and proofs: authors review the galley proofs within the deadline set by the Editorial Office; only corrections of errors are accepted at this stage.
• Articles are published under CC BY 4.0 as continuous publication, with a DOI, and may first appear in Early Access.
• Authors retain copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication. A signed Publication Agreement Form is required.
• Accepted manuscripts are free of charge: no fees are due at any stage.