Policies

Journal Sections

The Journal publishes the following forms of contributions: Feature Articles; Notes, Case Comments, Book Reviews, Editorial, Current Legal Developments, and Letters.

Feature Article

A feature/full-fledged article is an original scholarly piece based on extensive review and analysis of primary data and/or the latest literature and up-to-date legal developments with balanced presentation of arguments pertaining to the issue under discussion.

Note

Notes are concise yet still original contributions in which authors review, elaborate, analyze or comment on significant legal topics or latest developments in the law or legal literature or canvas their insightful, informed personal thoughts on legal and justice related issues of significance to the legal system.

Case Comment

A Case comment is a contribution in which the author comments on case(s) decided by courts at the federal or regional states, the House of Federation, administrative tribunals, arbitration centers, regional or international judicial or quasi-judicial organs and standout for their effect on jurisprudential development in the country.

Book Review

A book review provides readers an engaging, informative, and critical discussion of the book under review.

Current Legal Developments

Current Legal Developmentssection presents, with a focus on the federal jurisdiction, a descriptive/analytical summary of laws enacted and decisions rendered by the Cassation Division of the Federal Supreme Court as well as the House of Federation in the six months since the last issue of the Journal, along with an indication of the impact of the legislation/decision on the existing body of law.

Letter to the Editor

A Letter to the Editor is an opinion/comment in response to articles, notes, case and legislation comments, current legal developments and book reviews appearing in the Journal within the last year.

Editorial

Editorial presents the views and opinion of the editors of the Journal on legal and justice related issue of significance to the Ethiopian legal system.

Publication Frequency

Publication frequency of JEL has varied in the past. As of 2023 JEL is a bi-annual publication, its issues coming out in June and December.

Privacy Policy

Names and email addresses or other information received in processing manuscripts will be used exclusively for the stated purposes of theJournal and will not be made available for any other purpose or to any other party.

Media of Publication

The Journal of Ethiopian Law comes out both in print and electronically (online).

Language of Publication

The Journal publishes manuscripts submitted either in English or Amharic.

Peer-Review Policy

The Peer-review Process

Peer review is a fundamental element of the Journal of Ethiopian Law. The Journal adheres to a ‘double-blind’ peer review policy. The Journal strives to make the review process clear, objective, and fair.

Submissions passing initial screening undergo rigorous review.Feature articleswill be referred to two external anonymous reviewers to be selected having regard to their expertise on the subject matter of the manuscript. Other types of contributions will be reviewed in-house, i.e., by the Editor with expertise in the subject matter of the manuscript; in the absence of a suitable in-house assessor, the submission may be referred to an external assessor.

The Editor-in-Chief and the Managing Editor should adhere to the principle of “first come first served” in undertaking screening of a submission or referring it to reviewers or submitting the same to editorial consideration.

Complaints and Appeals

Where the author(s) have serious and reasonable objections to the reviews on their manuscripts, they can appeal to the Editor-in-Chief and the Editorial Board will assess whether the review is objective and whether it meets scholarly standards. If there is a doubt about the objectivity or quality of review and the decision, the Editor-in-Chief will assign additional reviewer(s). Additional reviewers may also be assigned when reviewers’ decisions (accept or reject) are contrary to each other or otherwise substantially incompatible. The Editorial Board has the final say on complaints and divergence of opinion among reviewers.

Publishing Ethics

The Journal of Ethiopian Law takes its duty of ensuring the integrity of the publishing process seriously. It follows a rigorous peer-review process together with strict publication ethical policies and standards to ensure the addition of high-quality research outputs to the body of legal literature. Where breach of ethics is suspected or alleged, we are committed to investigating and taking the necessary actions to maintain the integrity of the body of legal literature.

In addition to the general ethical standards and procedures set out in the Journal’s Editorial Policy, the Journal uses the codes of conduct and best practice guidelines on publication ethics formulated by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) as the standard of expected ethical behavior for all parties involved in the act of publishing as well as to address reported or suspected misconduct.

Copyright Policy

The School of Law holds copyright over individual manuscripts appearing in the Journal as well as in the collective work. Authors should be aware that by submitting a manuscript for publication in JEL they are assigning their copyright to the School of Law in the event of the publication of the manuscript. However, authors have the right to reprint their manuscripts elsewhere with permission from the Managing Editor of the Journal.

Open Access Policy

The electronic (online) version of the Journal of Ethiopian Law is an open access publication. All its contents are available free of charge.

End User License

The contents of the Journal, except for third party works incorporated by permission,are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND). Exceptions may be granted at the discretion of the School of Law.