About the Journal
OBJECTIVE
DALPS (Animal Law-Animal Legal and Policy Studies) is a journal of legal thought dedicated to Animal Law and related disciplines, with interdisciplinary and global vocation, dedicated to encouraging and providing with a place in the editorial field a renewed conception of animal studies, and to critically analysing the human-animal relationship. The legal perspective of the journal allows to integrate the rigorous work of all the liminal sciences that put animals in the horizon of their analysis, both in the historical, ethical, political-social field, as well as in the Sciences of Animal Welfare.
DALPS is committed to quality, critical thinking and intellectual reflection without any thematic or methodological boundaries.
The journal DALPS firmly believes that the consolidation of an emerging branch of Law, such as Animal Law, requires a firm commitment to the education of new generations of jurists, so in our editorial horizon there is also room for both studies on teaching Animal Law and the research work of young scholars, whose production is subjected to the same review processes that are the journal’s distinctive mark.
Another aspect of this commitment is the speed and periodicity of publication, which responds to legal developments and change processes of social significance. This allows us to respond to two urgent needs, such as timely information on developments - essential for legal operators - and debates of high intellectual level, necessary for the consolidation of critical thinking in our field of studies.
Our objectives can be summarized in three terms, which are, at the same time, the commitments we assume with our readers: plurality of debates, originality of content and interdisciplinary vision.
FREQUENCY AND SPECIAL ISSUES
DALPS is an annual journal published throughout the month of June. Occasionally an extraordinary monographic issue may be published.
The journal DALPS (Derecho Animal-Animal Legal and Policy Studies) accepts proposals for the publication of monographic volumes at the initiative of guest editors. The monographic volumes are special issues of DALPS, which deal with relevant and current topics in the thematic field of the journal, in a complete and exhaustive way. The aim is to offer -within the same volume- articles by authors who deal with different aspects of the proposed monographic theme with total freedom of approach and methodology. The acta of a congress, seminar or scientific meeting are not subject proposal to publish a monographic issue in DALPS, unless the meeting has dealt with a specific topic since its convening. Manuscripts on a variety of topics, which have been presented at a congress, seminar, or scientific meeting, may be submitted for publication in the annual volume of DALPS. The manuscripts that make up the monographic volume must be conformed to the DALPS Author Guidelines and will be subjected to the same process of submission through the journal, peer review and editing as the other ordinary DALPS volumes.
The guest editors interested in formulating a proposal should address it to the Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Dr. Marita Giménez-Candela: [email protected]
The proposed monographic volume should detail the following aspects: 1) name and affiliation (academic/professional) of the guest editor(s); 2) short BIO of the proposer, or proposers if there is more than one; 3) summary of the monographic topic and justification of its interest; 4) list of authors who have agreed to participate in the monographic volume, with the academic/professional affiliation of each one; 5) provisional title and abstract, in Spanish and English, of the articles; 6) timetable for the preparation of the monographic issue, specifying the date on which the monographic volume will be sent to be subject to the mandatory evaluation and editing.
The submitted proposal will be subject to a first review by the DALPS Editorial Team, which will communicate, within a maximum period of 15 days, whether the monographic volume proposal is accepted, rejected or modifications are suggested. The acceptance of the proposal for a monographic volume does not exclude that the manuscripts that make it up may be subjected to the usual suggestions for modification or integration made by the anonymous reviewers appointed by the Editorial Board, during the peer review process. The DALPS journal, within this peer review process, may reject any of the submitted manuscripts, as a sign of the search for excellence and quality of the contributions published by DALPS, as established by its own objectives and quality standards.
QUALITY STANDARD
The journal is published under a licence Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en), edited by the legal publisher Tirant Lo Blanch, which thus reaffirms its pioneering vision of supporting Animal Law, as evidenced by the collection Animals and Law since 2015 (https://editorial.tirant.com/es/colecciones/animales-y-derecho).
This journal uses the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN), which employs LOCKSS technology to ensure the digital preservation and permanent access to our published content.
STRUCTURE AND SECTIONS
The journal has a simple and recognizable structure, divided into sections (Articles, Contributions, Documents, Case notes, Legislative News, Book Review), as is usual in the rest of the large legal journals, whose quality has been accredited over the years.
In this sense, our purpose and ambition has always been to provide Animal Law with the same quality standards as legal journals of already consolidated specialties (civil, criminal, procedures, administrative, labour) and Animal Welfare (ethology, nutrition, therapies). The main reason that moves us is the search for dignity and demand in the treatment that should be dispensed to animals, also in the field of scientific publications. They deserve nothing less.
The journal is bilingual (Spanish-English), as it reaches the entire Ibero-American space, as well as Europe, Asia and the Common Law countries, in which the publication also have recognition.
PEER REVIEW PROCESS
The works submitted to DALPS (Derecho Animal-Animal Legal and Policy Studies) will be evaluated and rigorously reviewed first by the Editorial Team. If they pass this first phase, the manuscripts will be sent to external reviewers, according to the "peer review" method, which is a transparent process starting from the moment the manuscript is submitted. The author can follow up on their submission and request clarifications to the observations and proposals, which the reviewers have made through the OJS platform.
The Editorial Team of the journal is responsible for selecting the most competent reviewers in the subject matter of the research. Reviewers are given a "Certificate" accrediting the work done.
All works submitted to DALPS (Derecho Animal-Animal Legal and Policy Studies) will be evaluated by peers using the double-blind method. This system of arbitration relies on a team of external evaluators. The identity of both the author and reviewer will keep hidden.
The revision aims to ensure the quality of the edited works and, occasionally, offer advice for improvement. The revision process consists of using the double-blind method of analysis to assess the validity of ideas, the originality, the clarity of reasoning, the effects and the scientific impact of the works.
In the first phase, the Editorial Team will carry out a general revision of the quality and thematic suitability of the piece, with the ability to directly reject it without prior external evaluation if it is of a low standard or does not contribute sufficiently to the themes of the journal.
The articles that get beyond this first examination will be sent to external evaluators - specialists in the subject or line of investigation of the piece. In cases of discrepancy between the distinct evaluations, or where, for any reason, it becomes necessary, the Editorial Team can send the text to a third evaluator.
The reviser submits to the editor the review report he has been sent. The outcome of the revision can include suggestions for improvement - of structure as well as substance – referrals to literature or sources, as well as recommendations on possible advantages to re-examining the piece before publication. In any case, the final decision lies with the Editorial Team, based on the evaluation received.
Depending on the reports of the evaluators, the Editorial Team can make any of the following decisions, of which the author will be informed:
- ready for publication as it is (or with slight modifications);
- ready for publication following revision;
- for reassessment (not ready for publication but could become so if rewritten and resubmitted);
- not publishable.
The reviewers undertake to produce a critical, constructive, and impartial evaluation of submissions and to complete their review in the shortest time possible, to ensure the deadline of the evaluation process is met.
The reviewers are assigned to a manuscript only if they have the necessary expertise in the relevant field and are not affected by any conflicts of interest.
The reviewers will submit a full and thorough report, complete with the necessary references, in compliance with the terms of the evaluation process and any applicable public standards, particularly when rejecting a submission.
The reviewers' evaluation of the article will focus on its interest to the scientific community, the novelty of its contribution to existing knowledge of the subject matter, the accuracy of the relationships it establishes with other work, the critical judgement displayed, the bibliographic references used, the quality of writing and presentation of the manuscript, and other standard considerations. Where necessary, recommendations will be made as to how the manuscript can or should be improved.
The reviewers must notify the editors of any part of the manuscript that has already been published or is under consideration for publication in another journal.
