Editorial Policies

1. Open Access Policy (Diamond Open Access)
UDA Law Review is a Diamond Open Access journal. This guarantees that all its content is freely, immediately, and permanently available to the public, without embargo periods. The journal does not charge article processing fees (APCs) to authors or subscription fees to readers or institutions. This policy seeks to eliminate economic barriers to the dissemination of legal knowledge, ensuring the transparency of its processes and the complete free access to its contributions through the Open Journal Systems (OJS) platform.

2. Authorship and Contribution Policy (CRediT)
The journal maintains an open authorship policy, encouraging the participation of students, academics, and legal professionals. The authorship criteria of the ICMJE (International Committee of Medical Journal Editors) are rigorously applied, requiring that each author has made a substantial contribution to the work. It is mandatory to detail the roles of each author using the Contribution Roles Taxonomy (CRediT). Authorship information must be accurately entered on the submission form, ensuring that the main manuscript remains anonymous for the peer review phase.

3. Copyright and Licensing Policy
Authors publishing in UDA Law Review retain their copyright and grant the journal the right of first publication under the terms of its editorial policies. All content is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This license allows third parties to share (copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format) and adapt (remix, transform, and build upon the original content) free of charge.

For these freedoms to apply, the user must comply with three conditions: (i) Attribution: give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made; (ii) Non-commercial: do not use the material for commercial or for-profit purposes; (iii) Share Alike: If you transform or build upon the material, your contribution must be distributed under the same license as the original. Authors agree that the journal will endeavor to give their work the widest possible dissemination through databases, scientific indexes, and academic networks. Authors are also authorized to enter into non-exclusive licensing agreements for the distribution of the published version (e.g., in institutional repositories), provided that the initial publication in UDA Law Review is explicitly acknowledged with a note similar to the following: "This text was originally published in UDA Law Review, Vol. [X], No. [X], [Year]."

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. 4. Pre-Publication Policy (Preprints)
UDA Law Review accepts submissions of works previously deposited on preprint servers (such as SSRN, LawArXiv, or institutional repositories), as well as theses and conference proceedings, without affecting the originality requirement. Authors are encouraged to disseminate their pre-publication versions to foster early scholarly exchange and enhance citations. When submitting, authors must inform the editors about the existence of any prior version available online and provide the corresponding link.

5. Post-Publication and Dissemination Policy
To maximize the impact of research, UDA Law Review reserves the right to produce a limited number of physical copies for institutional and courtesy purposes for distribution within academic settings and institutional libraries. These copies do not constitute a printed edition for editorial or bibliographic purposes. The electronic version will be permanently available on the OJS portal, as well as in digital repositories, international indexes, and scholarly social networks. Authors are encouraged to share the final published version of their work on their academic profiles (such as Google Scholar, Academia.edu, or ResearchGate) and personal websites. This practice enhances the benefits of open access, increasing the visibility and early citation rates of works published by the University of Azuay Press.
Upon publication, authors receive a free copy of the Journal in both electronic and print versions.

6. Integrity and Intellectual Property Protection Policy
The journal fully promotes academic honesty and best practices in research. Works containing copied, fabricated, or manipulated research are not accepted. Each manuscript is checked using the Turnitin® plagiarism prevention system, establishing a threshold.

A maximum of 20% similarity is permitted (excluding bibliography). Direct plagiarism, self-plagiarism, or fragmentation of research constitute serious offenses that will result in the immediate rejection of the manuscript and the application of the sanctions stipulated in our Code of Ethics.

7. Digital Preservation Policy
To ensure that the journal's content remains accessible long-term, UDA Law Review uses the LOCKSS and CLOCKSS systems through the OJS platform, enabling the creation of permanent and distributed archives. The journal is also part of the PKP Preservation Network (PKP PN) and performs regular backups on the technological infrastructure of the University of Azuay. The use of permanent identifiers (such as DOIs in the future) and storage in secure repositories guarantee information recovery in the event of any technological contingency.

8. Funding Sources and Independence
UDA Law Review is funded through the ongoing support of its sponsors, who contribute resources for logistics and institutional events, and through technical assistance from the University of Azuay Press. The journal maintains complete editorial autonomy: content selection is based exclusively on scientific rigor and blind peer review, without financial or institutional support influencing the decisions to accept or reject articles.