Ius Comparatum: Journal of Law Studies (ICJLS) is committed to protecting the integrity of the scholarly record. The editorial team values the effort authors put into every manuscript and respects the peer review process each submission goes through. Even so, a published article may sometimes need correction, withdrawal, or retraction for scientific or ethical reasons.

The journal does not take these actions lightly. Each case follows the Retraction Guidelines of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Authors and readers can review the full guidelines at https://publicationethics.org/retraction-guidelines.

This policy covers four separate actions: article retraction, article withdrawal, article correction, and article removal or replacement. Each action depends on the publication stage and the nature of the problem found.

1. Article Retraction

ICJLS retracts a published article when one or more of these conditions apply:

• The article contains a major scholarly error that invalidates its conclusions, whether from misconduct such as data fabrication or from honest error such as a flawed calculation or method.
• The article duplicates content already published elsewhere without proper cross-referencing, permission, or justification.
• The article contains plagiarized text, data, or ideas taken from another source without attribution.
• The article includes fraudulent authorship claims, such as ghost authors or contributors who did not take part in the work.
• The article reports research conducted without proper ethical clearance, where such clearance is required.
• The article breaches copyright, lacks required third-party permission, or violates other legal or ethical publishing standards.

Retraction Procedure

1. Someone, a reader, an author, a reviewer, or an editor, raises a concern and reports it to the Editor-in-Chief.
2. The Editor-in-Chief reviews the concern and may consult the editorial board or the original reviewers.
3. The editorial team notifies the author in writing and gives the author a chance to respond before any final decision.
4. If the team confirms the retraction, the article stays in the journal archive. The team does not delete it. Instead, the team:
   • Keeps the published PDF online but stamps "RETRACTED" as a watermark on every page.
   • Publishes a retraction notice in the next available issue, linked to the original article and its DOI.
   • States in the notice who requested the retraction, the reason for it, and the date of the decision.
   • Updates the original abstract page with a clear link to the retraction notice.
5. The journal keeps the original DOI. Retraction flags the record for future readers. It does not erase the record.

Copyright ownership does not give an author the right to retract a published article alone. The Editor-in-Chief makes the final decision on retraction, following COPE guidelines.

2. Article Withdrawal

Withdrawal only applies to a manuscript that has not finished the publication process. This includes manuscripts still under review, in production, or listed online without a final volume and issue number.

The journal discourages authors from withdrawing a manuscript during peer review, since withdrawal wastes the time reviewers and editors already spent on it. An author who still wants to withdraw a manuscript under review must send a written request with a clear reason to the Editor-in-Chief at icjls@upnvj.ac.id.

The editorial team can also initiate withdrawal before formal publication if it finds serious ethical violations, such as plagiarism, duplicate submission, fabricated data, or false authorship claims. In this case, the Editor-in-Chief sends the author a formal withdrawal notice that explains the reason.

Once the journal assigns a manuscript to a volume, issue, and page number, withdrawal no longer applies. Retraction becomes the correct mechanism instead.

3. Article Correction

ICJLS issues a correction when a small part of an otherwise sound article contains flawed or misleading information, usually from an honest error rather than misconduct. Common examples include an incorrect citation or a minor data entry error that does not change the article's overall conclusions.

The Editor-in-Chief decides whether the article needs a correction, sometimes after consulting reviewers or board members. The team contacts the author for clarification, but the Editor-in-Chief makes the final call on the correction and its form.

Once approved, the journal publishes a correction notice and links it to the original article. The original article stays online, with the correction clearly noted beside it.

4. Article Removal and Replacement

Article removal applies only to exceptional cases, such as when the published content poses a legal risk to the author, the faculty, or the university, or when a court order requires removal. In these cases, the journal keeps the title and author names but replaces the article text with a notice that explains the legal reason for removal.

Article replacement applies when a flawed article, if used by readers, could create a real risk, and the author wants to correct the record rather than have the article fully retracted. When the Editor-in-Chief agrees to this option, the journal replaces the flawed version with a corrected one. The retraction notice then includes a link to the corrected article and a full record of the changes made.

Authorship and Responsibility

If the journal retracts, withdraws, or corrects an article because of an error made by one author and not the others, the notice states this distinction clearly whenever the evidence supports it. ICJLS does not attribute misconduct to authors who played no part in it.

Every author listed on a submission must have genuinely contributed to the work and must share responsibility for its content, following the journal's Publication Ethics and Authorship Guidelines.

Contact for Retraction, Withdrawal, or Correction Requests

Authors and readers should direct any concern about a submitted or published article to:

Editor-in-Chief, Ius Comparatum: Journal of Law Studies
Faculty of Law, Universitas Pembangunan Nasional "Veteran" Jakarta
Jl. RS. Fatmawati, Pondok Labu, Jakarta Selatan 12450
Email: icjls@upnvj.ac.id

This policy follows the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) Retraction Guidelines and aligns with the retraction, withdrawal, and correction policies applied across journals published by the Faculty of Law, Universitas Pembangunan Nasional "Veteran" Jakarta.