About the Journal

Focus and Scope

The main purpose of the Revista da Faculdade de Direito da UFMG is to publish articles from national and international collaborators as well as professors from the staff of Faculdade de Direito da UFMG and about researches that takes place there.
Therefore, we intend to not only propagate scientific effort but also enable its sharing with similar works developed around the world.

Peer Review Process

Submitted contributions evaluation process

Contributions sent to the Revista da Faculdade de Direito da Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais are submitted to Double Blind Peer Review. That enforces the suitability of the evaluation process, as the author's identity is not accounted in the analysis.

Once the submissions deadline is due, the publishing director, the publishing advisor and the publishing assistant, review all submitted articles on their adequacy to our editorial line and the formal criteria of the call for submissions. After this preliminary analysis, all articles that comply to those rules and weren't written by invited authors are sent, without any kind of identification, to two PhD Professors (linked to institutions from a different state than that of the author's institution) so they release a resoaned feedback for the acceptance or rejection of the article according to a specific previously sent form. If the two evaluators diverge about the acceptance of the article, it is sent to a third evaluator that will produce a final assessment. If the article is accepted with reservation, it is sent to the author so the suggested changes are made and then sent back to the peer reviewers that will analyze the changes and finally accept or reject the paper.

After that, the authors receive the feedbacks anonymously. There is no identification of authors throughout the evaluation process whereas the author does not know the evaluator identity either. Articles from invited authors and translations of foreign journals articles are not submitted to the evaluation process. We accept non-published articles presented in scientific events but they go to all the evaluation process like other articles. After the double blind peer review, the editorial board gather and decides which articles the journal will publish from those that had two positive feedbacks.

Criteria for submissions analysis include: a) appropriateness of title, abstract, introduction, final considerations and references considering the scientific nature of the text and its content; b) originality of subject and approaches in the text; c) language correctness; d) methodology adequacy to scientific methods; e) strict relevance of the article to the guidelines for collaborators of the Revista da Faculdade de Direito da UFMG.

We will only publish articles with positive feedbacks from the reviewers. In any case the decision from the editorial board is definitive.

Publication Frequency

The Revista da Faculdade de Direito is published semiannually, although we publish special releases occasionally.

Open Access Policy

The digital version of the Revista da Faculdade de Direito da UFMG intends to promote “open access”, understood as free, instant, persistent and total access to its scientific contents.

In fact, the use of electronic media for access and distribution of scientific knowledge is totally inserted in the daily work of researchers. Serving online versions of scientific journals is a reality that provided a significant growth of the access to this kind of literature in Brazil.

The gains of this process are countless. Increase of academic communications, overcoming the geographic and economical barriers ensure free appreciation - and refutation where it fits - of scientific work results all around the world.

Learn more about this subject in “Berlin Declaration on Open Acces to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities”.

Publishing Ethics and Publishing Malpractice Statement

This journal is committed to ethics and quality in publication, following international patterns of scientific publication. We support standards of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in publishing in our journal: the author, the journal editor, the peer reviewer and the publisher. We do not accept plagiarism or other unethical behavior. Thus, it follows the guidelines of the Elsevier and the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing of the Committee on Publication Ethics – COPE.

Duties of Editors:

Publication decision: The journal’s editor is responsible for deciding which of the articles submitted to the journal should be published. The editor is guided by the policies of the journal's editorial board and constrained by such legal requirements as shall then be in force regarding libel, copyright infringement and plagiarism. The editor may consult with editorial board or reviewers in decision making.
Fair play: The editor should evaluate manuscripts for their intellectual content without regard to race, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief, ethnic origin, citizenship, or political philosophy of the authors.

Confidentiality: The editor and any editorial staff must not disclose any information about a submitted manuscript to anyone other than the corresponding author, reviewers, potential reviewers, other editorial advisers, and the publisher, as appropriate.
Disclosure and Conflicts of interest: The editor must not use unpublished information in his/her own research without the express written consent of the author. The editor should recuse him/herself from considering manuscripts in which he/she has conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or connections with any of the authors, companies, or (possibly) institutions connected to the papers.

Involvement and cooperation in investigations: The editor should take reasonable responsive measures when ethical complaints have been presented concerning a submitted manuscript or published paper. In the event that a journal’s publisher or editors are made aware of any allegation of research misconduct relating to a published article in their journal, the publisher or editor will follow COPE’s guidelines (or equivalent) in dealing with allegations.
- All allegations must be sent to the journal's e-mail address (revista@direito.ufmg.br), where they will be forwarded to the editors-in-chief so that they can analyze the situation, notify the author of the accusation and, if necessary, determine the removal of the manuscript from the evaluation process or another consequence more appropriate to the case. The author's right to challenge the allegations is guaranteed, however the final decision rests with the editors-in-chief.

Duties of Reviewers:

Contribution to Editorial Decision: 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.
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.
Confidentiality: Any manuscripts received for review must be treated as confidential documents. They must not be shown to or discussed with others.
Standards of Objectivity: Reviews should be conducted objectively and referees should express their views clearly with supporting arguments.
Acknowledgement of Source: Peer reviewers should identify relevant published work that has not been cited by the authors. The peer reviewer should also call to the editor's attention any substantial similarity or overlap between the manuscript under consideration and any other published paper of which they have personal knowledge.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: Privileged information or ideas obtained through peer review must be kept confidential and not used for personal advantage. Reviewers should not consider manuscripts in which they have conflicts of interest resulting from competitive, collaborative, or other relationships or 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.
Originality and Plagiarism: The authors should ensure that they have written entirely original works, and if the authors have used the work and/or words of others that this has been appropriately cited or quoted. Plagiarism in all its forms constitutes unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Multiple or Redundant Publication: An author should not in general publish manuscripts describing essentially the same research in more than one journal or primary publication. To publish the same article in different journals without informing the editors and having their agreement constitute unethical publishing behavior and is unacceptable.
Acknowledgement of Sources: Proper acknowledgment of the work of others must always be given. Authors should cite publications that have been influential in determining the nature of the reported work. Information obtained privately, as in conversation, correspondence, or discussion with third parties, must not be used or reported without explicit, written permission from the source. Information obtained in the course of confidential services, such as refereeing manuscripts or grant applications, must not be used without the explicit written permission of the author of the work involved in these services.
Authorship of the Paper: Authorship should be limited to those who have made a significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, or interpretation of the reported study. All those who have made significant contributions should be listed as co-authors. Where there are others who have participated in certain substantive aspects of the research project, they should be acknowledged or listed as contributors. The corresponding author should ensure that all appropriate co-authors and no inappropriate co-authors are included on the paper, and that all co-authors have seen and approved the final version of the paper and have agreed to its submission for publication.
Disclosure and Conflicts of Interest: All authors should disclose in their manuscript any financial or other substantive conflict of interest that might be construed to influence the results or interpretation of their manuscript. All sources of financial support for the project should be disclosed.
Fundamental errors in published works: When an author discovers a significant error or inaccuracy in his/her own published work, it is the author’s obligation to promptly notify the journal editor or publisher and cooperate with the editor to retract or correct the paper.

Duties of the Publisher

Journal Management: The publishing team will work for the development and good management of the journal;
Information: The publishing team will inform reviewers and authors about the evaluation process (double-blind peer review) as well as answer questions and doubts.
Decision helping: The team will help the Publisher on decisions about the journal. The team will not allow that publiciness, reprinting or any source of income affect editorial decisions.

Copyright

Once they undergo the evaluation process and have their articles published, the authors transfer the copyrights referring to such articles to the Revista da Faculdade de Direito da UFMG. Only after publication on the Journal's official website, authors are authorized to reproduce the published articles, with due citation. Rejected or unpublished articles are returned to the authors.

The Journal of the Faculty of Law of UFMG adopts the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International license (CC-BY-NC); it is understood that every author, when submitting his/her article to the Journal, agrees to the use of this type of license. The CC-BY-NC license allows others to remix, adapt, distribute, and create derivative works from the published texts, as long as it is for non-commercial purposes and with proper credit.

Fees

The Revista da Faculdade de Direito da UFMG does not charge any fees for submissions, publishing, evaluation process, reviewing or downloads

Archiving

The Journal's electronic backup plan to safeguard its content consists of maintaining the website, even with the eventual end of publication, as well as making the content available on the website of the Faculty of Law of the Federal University of Minas Gerais.