Information for Authors
Submission
Peer Review Process
Copyright Licence
Open Access
Ethics
Crossref Funding Data Registry
Advance Access citation
Data Policy
The Chinese Journal of International Law (ISSN 1540-1650; cite as Chinese JIL; covered in the SSCI) is an independent, peer-reviewed research journal edited primarily by scholars from the mainland of China, and published in association with the Chinese Society of International Law, Beijing; Chinese Institute of International Law, China Foreign Affairs University, Beijing.
The Journal aspires to be a general journal unlimited in scope or viewpoint, while attempting to present materials and viewpoints from and/or about China (about 60% of the space each year) and other parts of Asia and the developing world at large. Each volume normally but not always contains (1) Articles; (2) Editorial Comments (including Special Editorial Comments by invitation); (3) Comments and Review Essays; (4) Current Developments; (5) Chinese Practice; (6) Letters to the Journal; and (7) Book Reviews.
Please read the following policies carefully before submission.
Please note from March 2022 all submissions should be submitted and reviewed via the Journal’s online submission system (https://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/cnjil). The editor's mailbox doesn't accept submissions after 7th March 2022.
Submission
When submitting a manuscript, each author represents that the submission is original and does not contain any unlawful or plagiarized materials and, if the submission is accepted, assigns all copyrights to the Journal. The Journal does NOT require exclusive submission. If a paper is simultaneously submitted to other journals, the author shall inform the Editor-in-Chief of this fact. The review process can be very long. No royalty will be paid. Furthermore, each author represents that he or she has done a substantive check of all authorities and citations and that the submission is properly supported by these sources.
Articles. An Article should be rigorously written, and should normally range from 7,000 to 25,000 words in length, including footnotes, but the Journal is flexible regarding length. An abstract of fewer than 200 words summarizing the main points is required.
Editorial Comments. An Editorial Comment is either written or invited by the Editor-in-Chief. Those interested in submitting one should first contact the Editor-in-chief ([email protected]).
Comments and Review Essays. A Comment or Review Essay should be similar to an Article, but may be focused on a particular issue, and shorter in length.
Current Developments. A Current Development piece usually describes and briefly analyzes current events or reviews progresses in certain topics.
Chinese Practice. Included in this section are usually surveys on China’s practice in public and/or private international law in a particular year. Usually by invitation.
Book Reviews. To make arrangements, publishers should send an email with the name of the author, title and publication data, in all regular font, to the Editor-in-Chief ([email protected]). Potential reviewer should not contact the author of the book, but should follow Rule 3d in the Style Guide. The Journal does not promise to review any book or provide free copies to publishers of any books reviewed.
Letters to the Journal. A Letter to the Journal is a brief response to a paper published earlier in the Journal or a brief report on a current event or a case of interest to the Journal. See Standing Invitation for further information.
The placement of a submission in a particular section is at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief. The Journal prioritizes high quality in terms of content and aims to afford authors flexibility in terms of other aspects. Authors are requested to consult and follow the Journal's style guide before submission.
Figure accessibility and alt text
Incorporating alt text (alternative text) when submitting your paper helps to foster inclusivity and accessibility. Good alt text ensures that individuals with visual impairments or those using screen readers can comprehend the content and context of your figures. The aim of alt text is to provide concise and informative descriptions of your figure so that all readers have access to the same level of information and understanding, and that all can engage with and benefit from the visual elements integral to scholarly content. Including alt text demonstrates a commitment to accessibility and enhances the overall impact and reach of your work.
Alt text is applicable to all images, figures, illustrations, and photographs.
Alt text is only accessible via e-reader and so it won’t appear as part of the typeset article.
Detailed guidance on how to draft and submit alt text.
Peer Review Process
Chinese Journal of International Law is a peer-reviewed journal and follows a single-blind peer review process, meaning that the Authors identity is known to the Editor and to the Reviewers, but that the Reviewers’ identities are known only to the Editor and are hidden from the Authors. For full details about the peer review process, see Fair editing and peer review. If requested by the author or at the discretion of the Editor-in-Chief, the review may be conducted on a double-blind basis. Candidates for publication may be rejected through the screening process without being sent out for review.
All submissions including invited ones undergo peer review by experienced scholars who may be on the Board of Editors or of Honorary Editors, or unrelated to the Journal. Candidates for publication in the Articles section must receive two clear recommendations for publication from the reviewers. Candidates for publication in other sections may be accepted or rejected by one main reviewer. The Editor-in-Chief finally approves every paper for publication. The Journal aims to publish very good quality papers, but very good quality alone may not be enough; considerations regarding publishability, the characteristics and focus of the Journal, etc., may be reason to reject an otherwise good submission.
The Journal has observed since its early days a set of protocols to avoid conflicts of interest in the review process. The Editor-in-Chief does not act as a reviewer for works submitted by a full time staff member of his home university. Furthermore, all reviewers are reminded of our rules against conflicts of interest, prohibiting any blood or intimate relationships or immediate supervisor-supervisee relationships (professor-supervisee; boss-immediate subordinate) between the person reviewing a submission and the author of that submission; in case of a double blind review (where the author’s name and affiliation are removed), the reviewer is still asked to keep this rule in mind and avoid any conflict as far as possible. Needless to say, no editor (including the Editor-in-Chief or any honorary editor) may act as a reviewer of his or her own work.
The Journal aims to finish the first peer-review within 6-12 weeks, but the review process sometimes may take shorter, or longer, in some instances longer than 6 months, depending on the quality and shape of the submission.
For further information on the Journal’s review process or a manuscript’s progress, please contact the Editor-in-Chief ([email protected]).
Copyright Licence
It is a condition for publication in the Journal that authors grant an exclusive licence to Oxford University Press. This ensures that requests from third parties to reproduce articles are handled efficiently and consistently and will also allow the article to be as widely disseminated as possible. As part of the licence agreement, authors may use their own material in other publications of which they are authors or editors, provided that the Journal is acknowledged in writing as the original place of publication and Oxford University Press as the publisher. Upon receipt of accepted manuscripts at Oxford Journals authors will be invited to complete an online copyright licence to publish form.
Please note that by submitting an article for publication you confirm that you are the corresponding/submitting author and that Oxford University Press ("OUP") may retain your email address for the purpose of communicating with you about the article. You agree to notify OUP immediately if your details change. If your article is accepted for publication OUP will contact you using the email address you have used in the registration process. Please note that OUP does not retain copies of rejected articles.
Third-party copyright
In order to reproduce any third party material in an article (including tables, figures, or images), authors must obtain permission from the copyright holder and be compliant with any requirements the copyright holder may have pertaining to this reuse. When seeking to reproduce any kind of third party material authors should request the following:
- non-exclusive rights to reproduce the material in the specified article and The American Journal of Comparative Law;
- print and electronic rights, preferably for use in any form or medium;
- the right to use the material for the life of the work; and
- world-wide English-language rights.
It is particularly important to clear permission for use in both the print and online versions of the Journal. We are not able to accept permissions which carry a time limit because we retain Journal articles as part of our online Journal archive.
Further guidelines on clearing permissions can be found.
Third-party content in Open Access papers
If you will be publishing your paper under an open access licence (see below), but the paper contains material for which you do not have open access re-use permissions, please state this clearly by supplying the following credit line alongside the material:
Title of content.
Author, Original publication, year of original publication, by permission of [rights holder]
Permissions regarding reuse of OUP material
Please see: Rights and Permissions
Open Access
The Chinese Journal of International Law offers the option of publishing under either a standard licence or an open access licence. Please note that some funders require open access publication as a condition of funding. If you are unsure whether you are required to publish open access, please do clarify any such requirements with your funder or institution.
Should you wish to publish your article open access, you should select your choice of open access licence in our online system after your article has been accepted for publication. You will need to pay an open access charge to publish under an open access licence.
Details of the open access licences and open access charges.
OUP has a growing number of Read and Publish agreements with institutions and consortia which provide funding for open access publishing. This means authors from participating institutions can publish open access, and the institution may pay the charge. Find out if your institution is participating.
Ethics
Authors are expected to observe high standards with respect to publication ethics as set out by the Commission on Publication Ethics (COPE). Falsification or fabrication of data; plagiarism, including duplicate publication of the authors’ own work without proper citation; and misappropriation of someone else’s work are all examples of unacceptable practices. Any cases of ethical misconduct are treated very seriously and will be dealt with in accordance with the COPE guidelines. Further information about OUP’s ethical policies is available.
Conflict of Interest
Any financial interests or connections, direct or indirect, or other situations that might raise the question of bias in the work reported or the conclusions, implications, or opinions stated—including pertinent commercial or other sources of funding for the individual author(s) or for the associated department(s) or organization(s), personal relationships, or direct academic competition—should be disclosed. For further information see the FAQ.
If one or a few authors have a conflict to disclose, further to that statement, there should be an additional statement for those remaining authors who do not have any conflicts of interest.
Crossref Funding Data Registry
In order to meet your funding requirements authors are required to name their funding sources in the manuscript. For further information on this process or to find out more about CHORUS, visit the CHORUS initiative.
Advance Access citation
Articles in this journal are now assigned a Digital Object Identifier (DOI). A DOI is a unique identifier of an article and can be used either to link to the online version of the article, or as additional information in a citation. Unlike a standard URL, the DOI of an article never changes, and so will work in perpetuity. To use a DOI as a link to the online version of an article, prefix the DOI with http://dx.doi.org/ or go to the dx.doi.org website and enter the DOI.
Papers published in Advance Access are citeable using the DOI and publication date. An example of an Advance Access citation is given below:
Davies, M., Takala J. P. and Tyrer J. 'Sentencing Burglars and Explaining the Differences Between Jurisdictions: Implications for Convergence', British Journal of Criminology Advance Access published May 7, 2004, 10.1093/bjc/azh035.
The same paper in its final form would be cited:
Davies, M., Takala J. P. and Tyrer J. 'Sentencing Burglars and Explaining the Differences Between Jurisdictions: Implications for Convergence', British Journal of Criminology, 44(5), pp. 741-758. First published May 7, 2004: 10.1093/bjc/azh035.
Toll-free link. No royalty will be paid for any article. All contributors of published articles will have free online access to the PDF and HTML version of their article. You will receive a link to this site from the Production office when your paper has been accepted for publication in the journal.
Data Policy
Availability of Data and Materials
Where ethically feasible, The Chinese Journal of International Law strongly encourages authors to make all data and software code on which the conclusions of the paper rely available to readers. We suggest that data be presented in the main manuscript or additional supporting files, or deposited in a public repository whenever possible. Information on general repositories for all data types, and a list of recommended repositories by subject area, is available here.
Data Citation
The Chinese Journal of International Law supports the Force 11 Data Citation Principles and the recommendations of the FORCE11 Software Citation Implementation Group. When data and software underlying the research article are available in an online source, authors should include a full citation in their reference list.
For details of the minimum information to be included in data and software citations see the guidance on Citing research data and software.
