The journal editors are the responsible persons who ensure the observance of the provisions of publishing ethics throughout the cycle of a manuscript review. Adherence to the principles of the publishing ethics should help ensure the Principles of Transparency and Best Practice in Scholarly Publishing (COPE) and high-quality publications. Adherence to the high ethical standards should ensure the credibility of the materials published in the journal, and minimize the risks of falling into the academic discourse of low-quality publications.
The editors form an editorial board by inviting international experts in the journal’s research areas (space law (public international space law, private and public international law); ownership in outer space, its identification, legalization and protection; philosophy of cosmos; sociology of the right of space exploration; psychology of the right of space research and space exploration; theological right according to space research and space exploration; space legislation; legal safeguards in outer space; link between space law and space technology; legal regulation of cosmic companies; legal and illegal international and national coercion in outer space).
The editors are responsible for adhering to the principles of academic integrity by the members of the editorial board, through following the Ethical guidelines for peer reviewers (COPE).
The editors of the journal must adhere to the principles of copyright and intellectual property. The information about the manuscripts and their authors, which are being reviewed, must remain confidential.
The editors submit manuscripts for review only after checking for plagiarism. The editorial office uses the UNICHECK system to detect plagiarism. Articles containing plagiarism are excluded from consideration in accordance with the Text recycling guidelines for editors (COPE).
The editors provide an objective review of all manuscripts submitted to the journal, according to the double-blind peer review model. The editors have the right to reject articles without submitting them for review if the articles do not correspond to the subject of the journal, have significant design flaws, contain propaganda of violence and discrimination, etc.
If journal editors and manuscript authors work in a joint research discourse, ethical principles prohibit editors from using in their own research the ideas, empirical data, any other information contained in the manuscripts submitted for consideration.
The editors are responsible for the reviewers’ compliance with the deadlines for reviewing manuscripts (ten weeks) and timely informing the authors of the review results. The editors provide communication between authors and reviewers in the process of finalizing the article in response to reviewers’ comments.
If there is a significant difference in the results of the double-blind peer review, the editors of the journal may involve a third reviewer, which is notified to the author of the manuscript with the appropriate adjustment of the terms of consideration of the manuscript by the editors.
The editors in their activities prevent any form of discrimination against authors (on gender, race and other grounds).
The editors are responsible for resolving conflicts related to the retraction of articles in accordance with the Retraction guidelines (COPE). To resolve conflicts related to authorship issues, the editors are guided by How to handle authorship disputes: a guide for new researchers (COPE). If editors suspect plagiarism, fabricated data, conflict of interest, redundant (duplicate) publication, they follow the COPE Flowcharts for resolving such cases.
The editors are responsible for meeting journal deadlines, posting them on the journal’s website in a timely manner, sending paper copies to libraries, and submitting data to databases that index the journal in a timely manner.
The editors of the journal may in some cases (force majeure, illness, etc.) delegate the rights of the editor to other members of the editorial board, in agreement with the founder of the journal (International Society of Philosophy and Cosmology (ISPC)).
The editors have the right to make minor changes to the text of manuscripts, which relates to formatting, elimination of shortcomings in the design of literature, design of graphic elements and tables, to carry out proofreading by the editors, and so on. The editors, however, do not have the right to interfere in the content of the manuscript, empirical data, which may affect the principles of the manuscript and the achievements of the authors of the manuscript.
In case of preparation of special issues by the journal, the editors have the right to involve guest editors. Permanent editors should acquaint guest editors with the journal’s ethics in order to comply with them in the process of preparing special issues.
The editors are responsible for the journal’s open access policy, and timely publication of journal issues, effective dissemination of research results contained in manuscripts.
The editors are responsible for the journal’s adherence to the free of charge policy and to prevent subjective review of manuscripts by reviewers.
If the manuscript is approved for publication, editors must ensure that the manuscript is submitted for publication to all co-authors stated at the time of submission, minimizing the risk of falsification by participants in the publication process. The editors are responsible for verifying the affiliations of authors, e.g. their ORCID numbers, in order to ensure quality data processing of materials published by the journal.
