Journal Policy
Open Access Information and Policy
Law & Society in Transition is committed to making legal scholarship freely accessible to readers, researchers, practitioners, students, policymakers, and the wider public. All articles published by the Journal are made immediately available online on an open access basis, without subscription barriers or embargo periods.
Open Access Commitment
All peer-reviewed articles published by Law & Society in Transition are freely accessible worldwide. Readers may:
· Access and download the complete text of published articles without charge.
· Read, share, and disseminate published research through lawful channels.
· Reuse published material in accordance with the terms of the applicable Creative Commons licence.
· Link to, index, archive, and otherwise facilitate access to published articles.
· Use lawfully available published content for research, educational, scholarly, and text- and data-mining purposes, subject to applicable copyright and licensing conditions.
The Journal considers open access an essential component of contemporary scholarly communication. Removing financial and access barriers enables legal scholarship to reach a wider and more diverse audience and promotes dialogue across jurisdictions and academic disciplines.
Licensing and Reuse
Unless otherwise stated on an individual article, articles published by Law & Society in Transition are made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence.
Under the CC BY licence, users may copy, distribute, display, adapt, translate, and otherwise reuse the published work, including individual portions such as figures and tables, provided that appropriate credit is given to the original author(s) and the Journal.
A proper attribution should ordinarily identify:
· The author or authors;
· The title of the article;
· Law & Society in Transition as the publishing journal;
· The year of publication and other relevant bibliographic information; and
· The applicable Creative Commons licence, where appropriate.
Reuse of published material does not constitute or imply endorsement by the author(s), editorial team, or publisher of the Journal.
Author Rights and Repository Deposit
Authors retain the right to disseminate and share their scholarly work in accordance with the applicable publishing and licensing terms.
No additional permission is required for authors to deposit or share permissible versions of their manuscripts in:
· Institutional repositories;
· Subject-specific repositories;
· University or research websites;
· Non-commercial scholarly platforms; and
· Other lawful research and knowledge-sharing repositories.
This policy applies, subject to the applicable licence and any third-party copyright restrictions, to the submitted manuscript, accepted manuscript, and published version of the article.
What Open Access Means
Law & Society in Transition understands open access in accordance with the principles reflected in the Budapest Open Access Initiative, Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing, and Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities.
Accordingly, the Journal's open access policy is based on three fundamental principles:
· Free access: scholarly articles are available to readers without subscription or pay-per-view charges.
· Immediate availability: articles are made openly accessible upon publication, without an embargo period.
· Permitted reuse: published material may be reused under the applicable licence, subject to appropriate attribution and recognition of the original source.
Open access therefore extends beyond simply allowing readers to view an article. It facilitates the lawful sharing, discovery, preservation, analysis, and further development of scholarly knowledge.
Discoverability, Linking, and Text and Data Mining
The Journal supports responsible technological and scholarly uses of its open access publications. Published articles may, subject to applicable technical and legal requirements:
· Be linked from external websites and scholarly resources;
· Be indexed by search engines and academic databases;
· Be archived in appropriate repositories;
· Be incorporated into lawful research and educational resources; and
· Be used in text- and data-mining activities permitted by the applicable licence and law.
The Journal believes that such accessibility strengthens the circulation of legal scholarship and encourages interdisciplinary engagement among law, society, policy, humanities, and related fields.
Third-Party Material
Open access applies to material for which Law & Society in Transition and/or the relevant author holds the necessary rights to grant the applicable licence.
Some articles—particularly review articles, comparative studies, case analyses, or interdisciplinary contributions—may contain photographs, figures, tables, extracts, datasets, artwork, or other material reproduced from third-party sources.
Such material may be identified by a separate copyright notice, credit line, licence statement, or other indication of restricted rights. Third-party material is not automatically covered by the Creative Commons licence applying to the article as a whole.
Where a proposed reuse is not permitted by the applicable licence, an individual wishing to reuse the third-party material should obtain permission directly from the relevant copyright holder or rights owner.
Benefits of Open Access for Authors
Open access provides authors with an effective means of increasing the reach and potential influence of their research.
Greater Accessibility: Because articles are freely available online, readers do not need institutional subscriptions or individual pay-per-view access to consult the research. This broadens access for researchers, legal practitioners, students, independent scholars, policymakers, and members of the public.
Greater Visibility and Discoverability: Openly accessible articles can be readily discovered, read, linked, and shared through search engines, scholarly networks, repositories, and other digital research infrastructure. This can increase the visibility of an author's work across disciplinary and geographical boundaries.
Wider Scholarly Engagement: Open access enables research to circulate beyond conventional academic audiences. Legal scholarship may consequently reach practitioners, courts and tribunals, policymakers, civil society organisations, educators, journalists, and researchers in jurisdictions where access to subscription-based publications may be limited.
Potential for Greater Research Impact:By removing financial barriers to access, open access can increase opportunities for an article to be read, discussed, cited, taught, and incorporated into subsequent research. Citation outcomes vary by field, article, and publication, and the Journal does not guarantee any particular citation level.
Timely Online Publication
As an online open access journal, Law & Society in Transition is able to make accepted scholarly work available without waiting for the production and distribution schedules associated with conventional print-only publishing.
Following completion of the Journal's editorial, peer-review, and production processes, accepted articles may be published online at the earliest practicable opportunity. The Journal does not, however, compromise the integrity of peer review, editorial assessment, copyediting, or publication-quality standards in order to accelerate publication.
Attribution and Responsible Reuse
Users reusing material published by Law & Society in Transition should provide clear and accurate attribution and should not remove or alter copyright, licensing, or attribution information.
Where material is adapted, translated, modified, or incorporated into another work, the nature of the modification should be indicated where appropriate. Users should also ensure that their proposed use complies with the applicable Creative Commons licence, copyright law, and any rights relating to third-party material.