Authorship and Contributorship

Each author must make a substantial intellectual contribution to the work, participate in drafting or substantive revision, approve the final version and accept responsibility for its integrity. All contributors meeting these requirements should be included.

Authors should supply a contribution statement describing the work performed, such as conceptualisation, legal analysis, methodology, data collection, analysis and writing. The corresponding author coordinates communication and confirms that all authors have approved the submission.

Funding, supervision, administrative assistance or language editing alone does not establish authorship. Such contributions may be acknowledged with the contributor’s permission. Paid or unpaid substantive assistance must be disclosed accurately.

Gift, guest, purchased and undisclosed ghost authorship are not permitted. Authorship is not transferable for payment. Artificial intelligence systems cannot be authors.

A request to add, remove or reorder authors must explain the reason and include agreement from every affected author. Editors may pause consideration during a dispute and ask the relevant institutions to resolve it. Published authorship changes require a transparent correction where warranted.