Artificial Intelligence

Authors remain accountable for every argument, authority, quotation, citation, dataset and conclusion in their submission, including material developed with artificial intelligence tools.

Substantive AI assistance must be disclosed in a statement identifying the tool, version or access date where available, purpose and extent of use. If AI forms part of the research method, describe prompts, procedures, validation and limitations sufficiently for readers to evaluate the study. Routine spelling correction alone does not require a separate declaration.

Authors must verify legal authorities against reliable originals. Invented cases, statutes, quotations, references or findings are unacceptable. AI tools may not be listed as authors or used to conceal the origin of copied material.

Confidential manuscripts, privileged documents, personal data and reviewer reports must not be uploaded to external AI services without appropriate authority and confidentiality safeguards. Editors and reviewers must not delegate confidential assessments to a public AI tool.

Automated AI-detection scores are not treated as proof of misconduct. Concerns are assessed using the underlying evidence and authors are given an opportunity to respond.