Conflict of Interest

Jurnal Bina Mulia Hukum requires all parties involved in the publication process, including authors, reviewers, and editors, to disclose any conflict of interest. Transparency about competing interests protects the objectivity of peer review and allows readers to assess the work fairly. The journal follows the guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

1. What Is a Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest exists when financial, institutional, personal, or other interests could influence, or could reasonably be seen to influence, a person’s judgment in writing, reviewing, or making decisions about a manuscript. A conflict of interest is not in itself misconduct. Failing to disclose one is.

Examples relevant to legal research include:

  • Financial: research funding, honoraria, consultancy fees, shares, or other payments from parties who have an interest in the subject of the article.
  • Professional: acting as legal counsel, expert witness, or advisor in a case, dispute, or regulatory process discussed in the article.
  • Institutional: affiliation with a government body, company, law firm, or organization whose interests are affected by the article’s analysis or recommendations, for example an author who was involved in drafting the law being analyzed.
  • Personal: a family relationship, close friendship, or rivalry with someone whose work or interests are affected by the manuscript.
  • Intellectual or advocacy: strong public commitment to a particular position, or active involvement in an advocacy group, related to the subject of the article.

2. Obligations of Authors

  • Authors must disclose all potential conflicts of interest in a Conflict of Interest Statement at the end of the manuscript, before the References.
  • Authors must state all sources of funding for the research in a Funding Statement, together with the role of the funder, if any, in the research and writing.
  • If there is no conflict of interest, authors must still include a statement saying so.
  • Authors who become aware of a conflict of interest after submission or publication must inform the editors immediately.

Example statements:

Conflict of Interest: The author declares no conflict of interest.

Conflict of Interest: The author served as legal counsel for one of the parties in the case discussed in this article. This involvement has been taken into account in the analysis and did not affect the conclusions.

Funding: This research was funded by [name of funder] under grant number [number]. The funder had no role in the design of the research, the analysis, or the decision to publish.

3. Obligations of Reviewers

Reviewers must decline an invitation to review, or inform the editors immediately, if they:

  • have a close professional, personal, or financial relationship with any of the authors,
  • have co-authored with, supervised, or been supervised by any of the authors within the last three years,
  • work in the same department or research unit as any of the authors,
  • have a direct interest in the case, dispute, or regulation discussed in the manuscript,
  • are unable to assess the manuscript objectively for any other reason.

Reviewers must not use information from a manuscript under review for their own benefit or the benefit of others.

4. Obligations of Editors

  • Editors must not handle any manuscript in which they have a conflict of interest. Such a manuscript is assigned to another editor who has no conflict.
  • Manuscripts submitted by members of the editorial team go through the same peer review process as all other manuscripts. The editor who submitted the manuscript is excluded from all stages of handling it and has no access to information about its reviewers or the editorial decision.
  • Manuscripts from authors at the Faculty of Law, Universitas Padjadjaran, the publisher of the journal, are assigned wherever possible to editors and reviewers from other departments or institutions, so that the review stays independent.
  • Editorial decisions are based only on the quality, originality, and relevance of the manuscript. They are not influenced by the author’s affiliation, nationality, gender, religion, or political views, or by commercial considerations.

5. Undisclosed Conflicts of Interest

If a conflict of interest that was not disclosed is discovered during review or after publication, the journal will handle it according to its policy on Allegations of Research Misconduct. Depending on how serious the case is, the journal may ask the author to add a statement, publish a correction, or, where the undisclosed conflict undermines the validity of the work, retract the article.