Human rights have acquired such special significance in today’s world that they are considered to be the foundation of human life and coexistence. The doctrines of human rights are the ones upon which human dignity is endorsed. All human beings are supposed to enjoy equal dignity and rights. Undoubtedly, all human beings want to live in a developed world along with security, spirituality, law, and morality; a world free from violence, discrimination, inequality, oppression and tyranny. A world full of justice, peace, freedom, and tolerance. Human rights should seek to provide a world as such for all humanity. Therefore, the Journal of Human Rights was founded in 2006 by the Center for Human Rights Studies, to provide a forum for high-quality, original research papers demonstrating sound research methods so as to broaden the theoretical principles of human rights, and to pursue the goals of the center. Since the Journal of Human Rights was first published, it has been regarded as one of the best sources of research in the field.
The Journal of the Human Rights invites submission of high quality research papers on any aspects of human rights by professors, scholars, experts and those interested in the field to help us provide a venue for studies disseminating new perspectives on the theory and practices of human rights in the world.
General Information
The Journal of Human Rights is an international, fully open-access, academic, peer-reviewed journal and follows a double blind review policy. This journal is published and sponsored by the Center for Human Rights Studies at Mofid University, Iran. This Semi-Annual journal publishes high-quality, original research papers twice a year in both online and printed versions in English and Persian. The papers in Persian should include the Abstract and References in English. The processing and publishing of manuscripts are free of charge. The manuscripts are commonly peer-reviewed in, at least, an eight-week time-frame. The Journal of Human Rights is a member of the International Committee on Publishing Ethics (COPE). Therefore, all members of the journal and the authors of articles submitted to the journal are required to observe all the principles of publication ethics of this committee.
Journal Policies
1. The Editor-in-Chief is directly responsible for any complaints about the Journal. He personally investigates the case within a period of 1 to 3 months, and consults the editorial board, reviewers and experts just in case. The results of the investigations and the response to the complaint are personally written by the Editor-in-Chief. The Journal’s office is responsible for the announcement and publication of the notice.
2. The Editor-in-Chief ensures authors that the best reviewers are selected to review the manuscripts.
3. The Editor-in-Chief monitors the editorial board’s decisions to be on the basis of the content and quality of the manuscripts received and not to be effected by political and financial issues.
4. All decisions and declarations of the editorial board will be announced and enforced only by the Editor-in-Chief.
5. The editorial board ensures that all the journal processes in the office are done with transparency and accuracy. Articles are edited in the best possible way and the instructions are prepared according to the highest standards.
6. The editorial board guarantees that the existing systems in the Journal promote the best procedures and try to prevent the occurrence of any inappropriate action.
7. The members of the editorial board who are also a part of other journals’ editorial boards declare any possible conflict of interests before accepting the membership in the editorial board of the Journal of Human Rights.
8. The editorial board members and all staff members of the Journal are committed to keep all information about the authors and their articles completely confidential and not to disclose the information to a third party.
9. The relationship between the Editor- in-Chief/ editorial board members, the publishers and the owners of the Journal is based solely on the independence of the editorial board.
10. The editorial board members are committed to take the necessary steps to eliminate the mistakes in the published articles and to cooperate with other institutions in order to investigate the scientific malpractices.
11. The journal editors should consider retracting a publication if:
- It contains infringements of professional ethical codes, such as multiple submissions, bogus claims of authorship, plagiarism, fraudulent use of data, etc.
- It contains major errors (e.g. miscalculations or experimental errors) or the main conclusion is no longer valid or seriously undermined as a result of new evidence coming to light of which Authors were not aware at the time of publication.
12. In the following cases, the journal editors express their concern about a serious problem to the authors and the audience:
- If evidences of misconduct in the research and publication by the author are received.
- If there is a definitive and new evidence that the content of the article is unreliable.
13. In the following cases, the editorial board issues an amendment:
- If a small part of a published article which is completely reliable is misleading because of the author's mistake.
- If there is an unintentional mistake in the list of authors
14. Features of article retraction:
- The notice of retraction will be attached to the article.
- It will be published in both online and printed versions.
- It will be available for free to readers.
- The reasons for the compulsory retraction will be clearly outlined.
- The retracted articles are not deleted from the online and printed archive.
- If the retraction of a paper is due to the one of the authors' authorship, this will be indicated in the retraction statement.
15. All information of the authors and articles (accepted / printed / rejected / in the process of reviewing) are kept confidential in the office of the Journal, except for the time a manuscript is in the process of reviewing and in the cases where the Editor-in-Chief decides to share the information with the Editors-in-Chiefs of other journals so as to solve problems related to a scientific misconduct. The Editor-in-Chief shares this information when he has not received a response from the author, or the author's response is not satisfactory, and when more than one journal is likely to be affected by this misbehavior. The shared information is the real content of the articles.
16. The author of an article refers to a person or persons who directly have been involved in the research process, writing or compilation of an article. The page editor, collaborator, or a person providing help in the research process are not considered as an author. A co-author refers to a person who has had a significant role in the process of research, writing and editing of the manuscript.
17. Conflicts of interest have different circumstances and can occur between different people with different positions and in various cases. But in general, conflict of interest in any financial form or personal relationship, directly or indirectly, or other circumstance creates a wrong and unilateral decision making. These interests can influence the process of reviewing and even can affect the writing of the text and its results in a way that it contradicts between those interests and the scientific nature of conducting a piece of research.
18. Plagiarism means using words, ideas, documentations and claims of others without mentioning or refereeing to the main or secondary sources or without appreciation of the original creators, intentionally or unintentionally. It does not mean only copying and pasting other people's words. Plagiarism also includes translating, summarizing or paraphrasing of others’ words without giving any references.
19. If any type of plagiarism is noted and proven, the manuscript will be withdrawn from the publication process. If the plagiarism is encountered after the article is published, an explanatory notification will be published about the case in the following Issue, and the article will be removed from the online archive of the Journal. Moreover, authors submitting plagiarized materials will enter a black list and the affiliated institutions will be notified of the plagiarism. Plagiarism is considered as one of the serious misconduct and undeniable publication ethics violation.
20. In order to adhere to the highest level of transparency and publication ethics:
- The editorial board decisions are based only on the quality of the articles and the opinions of the reviewers. These decisions will not be affected by political, financial, or affiliate issues.
- Attempts are made to follow ethical issues and adhere to transparency in the process of the Journal management and in all the activities done by the editorial board, authors, and reviewers.
- The management of the Journal will provide the financial needs of the Journal to guarantee its independence.
21. In the process of reviewing articles, the office of the Journal makes contact all of the authors involved. In other words, correspondence is not limited only with the main author.
22. The Journal’s policies on how to deal with disputes and demands, conflict of interests, misunderstandings in ethics, and dealing with issues which might happen after the publication of the articles are mentioned in the author’s guideline.
23. The Journal’s policies on the intellectual property are mentioned in the authors' guideline.
24. The Journal of Human Rights is committed to review articles with financial sponsors as it reviews other articles. These articles are only reviewed on the basis of their scientific content, and the review and adoption of these articles will not be affected by the financial issues.
25. Source of our instruction and legal advisor are reachable for Plaintiffs.
26. Having good grounds for suspicion about plagiarism these instructions (one - Two) will be followed.
27. The Journal of Human Rights is indexed by Scopus, Noormags, Magiran, Civilica, Ensani.ir, OJS system of the Journal, DOAJ, HeinOnline, and Index Copernicus. Journal of Human Rights is also a member of COPE since 2021. If the website of the Journal gets unavailable, readers can refer to one of these databases and receive our articles.
28. The Center for Human Rights Studies at Mofid University provides all the financial needs of the Journal of Human Rights.
29. The Journal of Human Rights do not accept any kind of advertisement in the favor of a person or institute which requires a financial contract.
30. If there is a financial sponsor for an article, the name of the sponsor must be clearly mentioned at the beginning of the article. The authors are required to inform the office of their financial sponsors.
31. Acceptance and rejection of papers are based on the importance, originality, transparency, validity and relevance of the article with the values of the Journal.
32. The retraction / correction instructions are based on COPE guidelines and flowcharts.
33. The Journal office will not ensure accepting and reviewing an article in a very short time.
34. When a manuscript is submitted to the Journal of Human Rights, the editors and/or section editors first review it to see if it conforms to the basic requirements (e.g., that it fits the mission and scope of the Journal and it is double- blinded and properly formatted) that it is of sufficient quality to merit external review. Manuscripts that do not meet these requirements are not sent out for further review, and will be sent back to the author(s) for revision.
35. We ensure authors that all the manuscripts received will undergo a fair and unbiased assessment of the strengths and weaknesses, away from unscientific considerations.