Open Access Policy
The International Journal of Legal Science and Innovation is a fully open access, double-blind peer-reviewed journal. Every manuscript published in IJLSI is immediately and permanently available to any reader anywhere in the world — free of charge, without subscription, paywall, login, or embargo. Open access has been the Journal's founding commitment since VidhiAagaz established it in June 2018, and it applies to all past and future published content.
What readers and authors can do with published legal scholarship
“By 'open access' to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself.”
Creative Commons CC BY-NC 4.0
All manuscripts published in IJLSI are distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution–Non Commercial 4.0 International Licence (CC BY-NC 4.0). This licence permits readers and researchers to freely read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, and share the published work for any non-commercial purpose, provided the original work is properly cited and attributed to the authors and to IJLSI as the original publication venue.
Commercial use of published content — including reproduction in commercial publications, resale, or use in for-profit training materials — requires prior written permission from the journal. Authors and third parties wishing to seek permission for commercial reuse may contact the editorial team at submission@ijlsi.com.
The full text of the CC BY-NC 4.0 licence is available at creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0.
Copyright policy
Upon acceptance of a manuscript for publication, copyright vests with the International Journal of Legal Science and Innovation. Authors are required to sign a copyright transfer agreement as part of the pre-publication formalities.
Notwithstanding the copyright transfer, authors retain the following rights without needing to seek permission from the journal:
Self-archiving and repository deposit policy
IJLSI supports the principle of open scholarly communication and permits authors to make their work available through personal websites, institutional repositories, and academic networks. The table below summarises what is permitted at each stage of the publication process.
| Version | Personal / Institutional Website | Academic Networks (SSRN, Academia.edu etc.) | Condition |
|---|---|---|---|
| Submitted Manuscript (preprint) | ✓ Permitted | ✓ Permitted | Must note that the manuscript is under review at IJLSI |
| Accepted Manuscript (post-peer review, pre-publication) | ✓ Permitted | ✓ Permitted | Must state: "Accepted for publication in IJLSI [ISSN 2581-9453]" |
| Published Version of Record (final PDF) | ✓ Permitted | ✓ Permitted | Must include full citation, a link to the Version of Record, and attribution to IJLSI as original publisher |
| Commercial repository or paid distribution | ✗ Not permitted | ✗ Not permitted | Requires prior written permission from the IJLSI editorial team |
The Article Processing Charge model
IJLSI operates as a Gold Open Access journal. Because no revenue is generated from reader subscriptions, the cost of maintaining the journal's editorial operations, indexing presence, platform, and open access infrastructure is met through a one-time Article Processing Charge (APC) paid by authors whose manuscripts are accepted for publication.
There is no charge at the time of submission. The APC becomes payable only after formal acceptance following double-blind peer review and plagiarism screening through Turnitin / Drillbit. Manuscripts that are not accepted do not incur any charge.
This model ensures that the legal scholarship published in IJLSI remains freely accessible to all readers globally — including students, advocates, courts, and institutions that cannot afford subscription access — while enabling the journal to sustain its editorial and publication standards.
How to cite IJLSI publications
When citing a manuscript published in the International Journal of Legal Science and Innovation, authors and readers should follow a recognised legal citation style — typically the Bluebook (Uniform System of Citation) or the OSCOLA / ILI conventions adopted by their institution — using the permanent Version of Record URL as the primary locator.
In all cases of reuse — whether sharing, adapting, distributing, or building upon a published manuscript under the CC BY-NC 4.0 licence — the following elements must be included in the attribution: