About the Journal

ISSN: 0120-8942; eISSN: 2027-5366

Focus and Scope

Díkaion publishes uncirculated articles, critical studies and reviews on all aspects of the law.  Its focus goes beyond merely descriptive and legal texts in an effort to take a stand on the critical and fundamental elements of the topics in question.

Peer Review Process

Review Process: All articles submitted for consideration go through a review process that includes the following steps:

i)  First, the editor verifies compliance with the formal and substantive criteria for submitting articles for consideration. The editor also verifies whether or not the Affidavit of Originality has been received. The editor of Díkaion is selected by the Universidad de La Sabana in accordance with Regulation 38, which was adopted by the General Affairs Committee of the Governing Council as per Minutes No. 1362 dated October 4, 2012. Pursuant to that regulation, scientific journals should "have an editor who preferably is an active researcher, with articles published in journals that are listed in citation indexes, (...) and has more than two years of experience in scientific publishing."

The Editorial Committee is involved in this first stage as well. Its job is to verify compliance with the criteria stipulated in these instructions. If a text submitted for consideration does not meet any of those requirements, the editor will be advised according.  The editor, in turn, will notify the author or authors to that effect.

ii)  The next step involves anonymous and confidential arbitration by outside reviewers (at least two peer reviewers per article). They examine the rigor and scientific quality and methodology of the articles submitted for consideration. The peer reviewers may decide to accept an article, to reject it entirely, or to accept it with changes, which will be supervised by the reviewer, if so determined. During the course of the evaluation process, Díkaion and its reviewers follow the international ethical standards on scientific research that were adopted at the Second World Conference on Research Integrity held in Singapore on July 22-24, 2010.

iii) The results of the peer reviews and the decision reached by the Editorial Committee are conveyed to the author within a period of no more than three (3) months, as of the date the article was received by Díkaion.

iv)  After an article has been accepted, it is submitted for proofreading. The author’s particular style is respected during the proofreading processes and no changes are made in terms of content.  The authors of articles selected for publication will receive a proof copy of the text once the composition process is complete. It is for immediate correction, which may not take more than five working days. The author(s) will receive one copy of the edition of Díkaion in which the article appears.

v) Once an article is approved for publication, the author is required to complete and sign the following Declaration of Originality.

Publication Frequency

Annual. A single open volume and issue in continuous publication.

Open Access Policy

This journal offers free and immediate access to its contents based on the principle that making research available to the public without charge supports a greater global exchange of knowledge.

Declaration of Originality

Authors must accept and sign the following Declaration of Originality, which is to be sent by email to: revista.dikaion@unisabana.edu.co

Díkaion Journal

Statement of Originality

I hereby certify that I am/we are the original author(s) of the paper I am/we are submitting for publishing in the Universidad de La Sabana’s Díkaion journal since its contents are the result of my/our direct intellectual contribution.

All data and references to already published works are duly identified with their relevant citation and included in the references section and quotations used and, where required, I/we have the appropriate authorizations from those who own their economic rights.

Therefore, I/we declare that all works involved are free of copyright and I/we shall take responsibility for any intellectual property right-related litigation or claim and hold the Universidad de La Sabana harmless.

I/We further declare that this paper has not been previously published nor has been submitted to any other journal for peer reviewing and subsequent publishing. I/We also mark with an X whether the work I am/we are submitting derived from a:

( ) Master’s dissertation

( ) Doctoral dissertation

Having marked any of these options, I/we shall include the appropriate information of the base source as a footnote in the paper.

If the paper “<Name of the article / name of the paper / nome do artigo>” is approved for publishing:

A) As the author(s) and copyright owner(s), I/we hereby authorize the Universidad de La Sabana, without time restriction, to include this paper in Díkaion so that it can reproduce, edit, distribute, exhibit and disseminate it in the country and abroad by print, electronic, CD Rom, Internet, full text or any other means known or to be known.

B) I/We acknowledge the requirements of the journal and attach to this letter these basic data for the publishing of my/our work:

- ORCID of all authors of the paper

- Institutional mail of all authors of the paper or the corresponding author only

- If research was funded: all data of the funding institution and its relevant identification number.

- According to the citation style of the journal: official name(s) in the academic-scientific sphere for citations attributed to me/us in order to unify my/our name(s) in all databases and promote my/our citation. For example, following the style of the journal, I will write my complete name(s) and lastnames.

C) Despite the fact that the journal is open access and fully available online, I understand that the Universidad de La Sabana offers to send the corresponding author a single copy of the number in which the paper is published, only once and subject to the eventualities that may arise in the shipment. Therefore, I mark with an X that:

( ) I do require the shipment of a copy.

( ) I do not require the shipment of a copy.

If so, I/we will attach to this letter the exact information for shipment: full name, address with all details, zip code, city, country and contact telephone number. If it is a shipment to Brazil: CNPJ and IE/RG (tax number).

In witness whereof, this statement is signed on this _________ __, ____ in the city of __________.

 

Full name of author 1

Short name as cited in citable documents

Institutional e-mail

ORCID number:

Funding (if applicable):

Shipment data (if applicable):

Ethical Standards and Conflict of Interest

Díkaion adheres to the standards adopted by the Ethics Committee for Publications (COPE).

i) Authors:

• All authors publicly assume responsibility for the contents of the articles they submit for publication.

• When submitting an article to Díkaion, the authors take responsibility for having read and accepted the guidelines for contributing authors.

• As indicated by the Ethics Committee for Publications, prestigious authors should refrain from lending their name to support written work in which they have not participated.

ii) Reviewers:

• Shall refrain from issuing an opinion on articles submitted for review in the event of a conflict of interest (personal or academic) and shall expressly manifest this conflict to the editor.

• Shall maintain confidentiality when reviewing and evaluating an article.

• Shall not copy or retain the text delivered for review.

• Shall not use data, arguments or interpretations without permission from the authors.

• Shall issue precise, objective, polite and justifiable opinions.

• Shall contact the editor, in writing and confidentially, if they suspect improper conduct or plagiarism.

iii) Editor:

• Shall refrain from publishing articles in the event of a personal conflict of interest and/or conflicting loyalty that might influence or bias the quality of scientific information and the prestige of the journal.

• Shall keep all texts received for review strictly confidential.

• Shall decide to accept or reject an article for publication based on the relevance, originality, clarity and significance of the work in light of the journal’s field of competence.

• Shall not exclude studies with negative results.

• Shall take responsibility when a serious error is detected in an article that has been published, and shall correct the error quickly and noticeably.

• When the editor suspects inappropriate conduct on the part of the author(s), the author(s) shall be informed first, prior to contacting the directors of the institution with which the author(s) is (are) affiliated.

iv) Conflict of Interest:

Conflicts of interest arise when authors, reviewers or editors have interests that improperly influence research results and their publication.  Conflicts of interest may be personal, financial, political or academic.

In view of the foregoing:

• Authors and reviewers shall inform the editors of any conflict of interest that might arise.

• Editors shall inform their readers of any conflict of interest that might arise.

Inappropriate Conduct

Inappropriate conduct is understood as the intention to convince readers of something that is not true.  Accordingly, the editor of Díkaion, its Editorial Board and its peer reviewers shall reject articles that raise the possibility of inappropriate conduct.

Plagiarism

All sources must be cited. When extensive written texts or illustrations are cited, the author must request authorization and provide proof thereof.

The discovery of plagiarism in an article or manuscript constitutes grounds for rejection by Díkaion. In this case, the author(s) is (are) informed as to why the article has been rejected and a clear explanation of the evidence of plagiarism is provided

Content Permanence

CrossMark Policies

What is CrossMark?

It is a Crossref initiative identified with the brand’s flagship icon:

This method guarantees that the reader is accessing the current version of a publication, as long as it displays the CrossMark logo. Click on the logo to access the version history and find information regarding minor or major changes to the published versions. It is also linked to the DOI, ensuring the stability and permanence of updates over time.

In this journal, we upload the PDFs available to the public in two instances:

  1. when the editorial process ends, with the approval of the author and editorial team,
  2. when the last modifications are made to that PDF as a result of a design review for printing purposes.

Adding the CrossMark icon commits our journal to and makes it responsible for notifying and updating readers about any change in an article.

What kind of changes and updates are part of the CrossMark version history?

  • Addendum: Secondary documents that provide additional information about what has been published. It mainly presents other results. The content added will be specified.
  • Correction: New versions with minor changes that do not affect the meaning of the paper, such as typos or otherwise. Any version update due to this type of modification will be informed.
  • Duplicate: If a paper is already published in another medium or republished either due to technical errors or operational accidents, it will be clarified publicly. The appropriate files will be modified and updated in the CrossMark versions.
  • Erratum: Articles for which, after digital or physical publication, significant errors in the writing, images, tables, graphs, references, or otherwise are reported in the available version. The erratum will be specifically mentioned and corrected for the new version.
  • Rectification (corrigendum): When the author of the published article reports errata, the rectification and appropriate corrections will be explained.
  • Elimination: At the relevant authorized party’s request, all available content will be eliminated. Only the article’s citation information and an explanation will be included on the article page and the different means of accessing the content.
  • Retraction: At the relevant authorized party’s request, a statement of the retraction and, where applicable, the party’s note about the retraction will be posted on all the means of access to the article provided by the journal. The stipulated texts and the note will be retained on the article data page. The title will change to “Retraction: <article title>” and the PDF will have a watermark on all pages where the retraction is announced. The same applies to other versions in the reading formats that the journal may have (HTML, XML, ePub, etc.). For further information on the COPE policies we follow, click here.

Sources of funding

The journal is financed entirely by the Universidad de La Sabana.

It does not receive advertising, nor does it have a subscription modality.

Author Contribution Statement according to CRediT

CRediT (Contributor Roles Taxonomy) aims to recognize each author’s individual contribution to a submitted manuscript. This practice seeks to prevent authorship disputes that may arise during the editorial process with the journal.

Additionally, it avoids the addition of any author who was not previously listed, since the journal will understand that this statement reflects the full list of authors who participated in the preparation of the manuscript.

Through CRediT, authors provide a detailed description of their specific contributions to the manuscript being published, offering transparency to the journal’s editorial team.

Who is responsible for submitting this information?
In the Open Journal Systems (OJS), the author who created the submission account is considered the corresponding author (CA). The CA is responsible for submitting all final information in a PDF file along with the rest of the submission materials.

Which categories are recognized by CRediT?
There are fourteen (14) categories, and each author may be credited with one or more:

  1. Conceptualization: ideas; formulation or evolution of overarching research goals and aims.
  2. Methodology: development or design of methodology; creation of models.
  3. Software: programming, software development; designing programs; implementing code and algorithms; testing code components.
  4. Validation: verification, whether as part of the activity or independently, of the reproducibility/replicability of results, experiments, or other research outputs.
  5. Formal analysis: application of statistical, mathematical, computational, or other formal techniques to analyze or synthesize study data.
  6. Investigation: conducting the research process, including experiments or data/evidence collection.
  7. Resources: provision of study materials, reagents, patients, lab samples, animals, instrumentation, computing resources, or other tools.
  8. Data curation: annotation, cleaning, and maintenance of research data (including software code) for initial and future reuse.
  9. Writing – Original draft: preparation, creation, and/or presentation of the initial draft of the published work (including substantive translation).
  10. Writing – Review & editing: critical review, commentary, or revision of the published work at any stage.
  11. Visualization: preparation, creation, and/or presentation of data visualizations.
  12. Supervision: leadership and oversight in the planning and execution of the research, including mentoring.
  13. Project administration: management and coordination of the research activity.
  14. Funding acquisition: acquisition of financial support for the project leading to this publication.

Example of a contribution statement:
Sergio Roncallo-Dow: investigation, methodology, writing – original draft; Nicolás Mejía-Torres: formal analysis, data curation, visualization, resources; Lilu Dallas: writing – review & editing, project administration.

Ethical Commitment and Use of Artificial Intelligence Policy

The journal upholds a strong commitment to publication ethics, academic integrity, and transparency throughout all stages of the editorial process for any type of document submitted to the scientific journals of Universidad de La Sabana. In alignment with the cases and guidance from the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), we have adopted an explicit policy on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in the editorial, peer review, and scientific writing processes.

We recognize that AI tools can support tasks such as grammar checking, text analysis, information structuring, or data analysis suggestions. We promote responsible use of such tools, always grounded in the authors’ critical thinking.

The journal does not accept manuscripts in which the writing or analysis has been entirely delegated to AI systems. Furthermore, authors are required to explicitly and transparently disclose any significant use of these tools.

This commitment reflects our mission to safeguard the reliability of published knowledge and ensure that every scientific contribution meets the highest standards of quality and ethics.

Journal Policy on the Use of Artificial Intelligence

The journal publicly declares the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools to support specific tasks within the editorial and dissemination processes, in line with its commitment to transparency, scientific integrity, and editorial efficiency.

 

Institutional Use of AI

Our editorial team uses AI systems—including language models such as ChatGPT—to support processes such as:

  • Drafting and improving communications with authors, reviewers, and collaborators (e.g., informational messages or reminders).
  • Organizing, normalizing, and standardizing data for publication metadata (e.g., author names, affiliations, ORCID, keywords, among others).
  • Suggesting keywords in Spanish, English, and Portuguese based on disciplinary thesauri and content analysis of the article.
  • Assisting in the creation of short descriptions or promotional texts for institutional channels.
  • Producing support materials such as automated podcasts (derived from scientific articles) using AI-generated voice synthesis tools.

Transparency in Derivative Products

When the journal produces derivative content (such as podcasts, audio summaries, images, or social media posts) involving the use of generative AI, it will be explicitly stated that such content was created with the support of these technologies. This disclosure will be included on the website, in the content description, or in the corresponding promotional materials.

Limitations and Human Oversight

In all cases, AI is used as a complementary tool under the supervision and editing of members of the editorial team. No content is published or disseminated without prior human review to ensure its accuracy, relevance, and quality.

This policy is aligned with the recommendations of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and will be periodically reviewed to adapt to technological developments and the needs of the academic community.

Channel of request, complaint, claim, congratulation or thank you

Although the journals have their OJS, where it is expected to have all the correspondence of the submissions, it is the responsibility of Universidad de La Sabana to provide them with an institutional space called “Communicate with us: channel of request, complaint, claim, congratulation or thanks” to contact this system of the University.