Submissions

Author Guidelines

TYPES OF ACCEPTED DOCUMENTS

The Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) accepts the following document types for submission:

• Original article.

 

AUTHORS’ CONTRIBUTIONS

At the end, articles should describe the contribution of each author using two minimum authorship criteria: (a) actively participate in the discussions of the results and the (b) review and final approval of the research. Manuscripts that fail to specifically describe this suggest that all authors discussed the results and reviewed and approved the final article. Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) recommends the CRediT Taxonomy.

 

PREPARATION OF THE MANUSCRIPT

Texts must be submitted free of charge on the journal’s website after registration as “AUTHOR” (https://periodicos.domhelder.edu.br/index.php/lacjlos/user/register), following the submission steps.

Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) charges no submission or processing fees.

The Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) publishes original articles authored by researchers holding PhD or master’s degrees in law and pertinent fields, provided that such submissions align with the Journal's editorial policy.

Co-authorship: The article may include a maximum of three authors, each of whom must possess at least a bachelor's degree. In this context, the primary author is required to hold a Master’s degree.

We publish texts in English, Spanish, Portuguese and French.

Each author can submit only one text per journal issue and, having had a text published, can only resubmit after the interstice of two volumes (two years).

Articles must use the third grammatical person (scientific writing).

All texts must be reviewed before being submitted, and it is recommended that, before submission, they are sent to a professional proofreader. Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) reserves the right to make normative, spelling, and grammatical changes to the originals to respect the cultured formal language, without, however, interfering in the style of the authors.

 

Open Science Compliance

Our editorial policy follows the Open Science communication modus operandi.

In line with good Open Science communication practices, Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) encourage the publication of reliable preprints on the following servers: SciELO Preprints, arXiv, bioRxiv, and medRxiv. The acceptance of preprints from other servers will be reviewed by the journal editors. In these cases, authors must indicate the link to the published version of the article and its DOI, if any. Importantly, in these cases the evaluation system changes from double-blind to single-blind by peers, in which the reviewers will know the authors of the article, but the authors will not know the identity of the reviewers. In such cases, Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) notes that reviewers may express a conflict of interest in their evaluation of such research.

In line with Open Science practices, Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) offers authors and reviewers options to open the peer review process (with or without identification of their names). For this, the authors must authorize the disclosure of their names at the time of submission of their article, whereas evaluators (if they allow their names to be disclosed) must fill out the Open Science Compliance Form. The final version of the approved article will be published with the name of the editors responsible for manuscript evaluation.

Finally, Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) encourages the sharing of analysis datasets, instruments, statistical analysis scripts, and additional materials by making them available in open online repositories, such as SciELO Data, Zenodo, Figshare, and OSF, if the articles do not include them. The manuscript must indicate this information. Manuscripts must be accompanied by a declaration of the data that were used and generated in the research below the texts.

 

Instructions to fill in the submission metadata

All authors’ full name, email address, affiliation, and biographical profile must be provided with their correct spelling when entering metadata during submission.

Affiliation is the author’s current academic bond. It must include the full name, acronym, municipality, state, and country of the institution.

In the “Biographical profile” field of each author (which must be filled in), the first mention of the authors’ titles and the institutions in which they were obtained must be informed in descending order, including the acronym of the institution in parentheses, followed by its municipality, state, and country. From the second mention of that institution onward, only its acronym is to be indicated. Next, authors must inform their current affiliation. Reporting past affiliations, that is, terminated bonds, is forbidden.

All authors and co-authors must inform the electronic address of their ORCID registration (which they must have) and the electronic address for their Lattes Curriculum, which is also mandatory for Brazilian authors or those linked to Brazilian educational institutions.

Example:

PhD in Law by Centro Universitário Dom Helder, Belo Horizonte/MG, Brazil. Bachelor in Law from Centro Universitário Dom Helder. Professor of the undergraduate course in Law at Centro Universitário Dom Helder.

 

Authors must not mention their publications in the “Biographical Profile.”

The link to each author’s Lattes curriculum must be provided at the end of the “Biographical Profile.”

If the metadata are incorrectly filled in, the author will be notified to correct it within two working days under penalty of having their article rejected.

It is requested that, before submitting the work, the data that identifies the authors by the reviewers be removed from the text, as well as the identifications on Word (in “File/Properties/Summary;” this path may vary depending on the version of Word used by the authors) to ensure double-blind peer reviews.

 

Requirements for the articles

Author:

Single authors are required to hold at least a Master's degree.

Co-authorship:

The Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) accepts articles with a maximum of three authors, of whom at least one must possess a minimum of a Master's or PhD degree. The highest-ranking author will be recognized as the principal author, while the other contributors, who must hold at least a Bachelor's degree, will be designated as co-authors. Undergraduate students are explicitly prohibited from participation.

 

ARTICLE SUBMISSION FORMAT

Graphic presentation of texts

Texts must be submitted on a Word format, A4 size, “portrait” orientation, font 12, Times New Roman, with 1.5 spacing and the following margins: 3.0 cm top and left and 2.0 cm right and bottom.

The first line of each paragraph should be spaced 1.5 cm apart from the left margin.

Citations with more than three lines must have an indentation of 4.0 cm, font 10, and single line spacing.

The texts will be formatted according to the graphic standard of the journal.

Articles must have a minimum of 40,000 and a maximum of 60,000 characters, including spaces. These values refer to the main text, excluding the pre-textual elements (title, abstract, keywords, and their translations) and the list of references. Larger texts may be authorized based on the editorial board evaluation. The registration of such request must be made as an observation in the submission.

 

Structure of the articles

Articles must follow the following sequence:

• Title
• Abstract
• Keywords
• Introduction
• Text with subtitles and footnotes
• Conclusion/Final considerations
• References

 

Title

The title must be no longer than 8 words and presented in its original language. If the article is in Portuguese, Spanish, or French, include both the original title and its English translation.

Automatic translations from the web will be rejected. If the translation is found to be inaccurate, the text will be returned to the author for correction within three working days under the penalty of rejection.

 

Formatting of titles and subtitles

TITLE OF THE ARTICLE (CENTERED, UPPERCASE, BOLD)

TITLE OF THE ARTICLE IN ENGLISH (CENTERED, UPPERCASE, BOLD)

 

1 Primary section (left-aligned, upper-lowercase, bold)

1.1 Secondary section (left-aligned, lowercase, bold)

1.1.1 Tertiary section (left-aligned, lowercase, italics)

1.1.1.1 Quaternary Section (left-aligned, lowercase, italics, bold)

1.1.1.1.1 Quinary section (left-aligned, lowercase, no bold, no italics)

 

Abstract

An abstract in the original language must accompany articles. If the article is in Portuguese, Spanish, or French, it should also include an English translation of the abstract, containing the same content, clearly and concisely, and including:

• the research theme
• its objectives
• the methodology
• and its conclusions.

It is required that the abstract span from 150 to 200 words.

Automatic translations from the web will be rejected. If the translation is found to be inaccurate, the text will be returned to the author for correction within three working days under the penalty of rejection of their article.

 

Keywords

In a minimum of three and a maximum of five lowercase words in alphabetical order (except when the use of capital letters is indispensable, as with proper names) and separated by semicolons, the authors are to indicate the content of their article. They should preferably be chosen from a catalog of controlled vocabulary if a thesaurus in their research area exists.

Keywords must be presented in the original language of the article. If the article is written in Portuguese, Spanish, or French, it must also include keywords translated into English.

Automatic translations from the web will be rejected. If the translation is found to be inaccurate, the text will be returned to the author for correction within three working days under the penalty of rejection.

 

Introduction

The Introduction should only introduce and delimit the subject of the article, description of the objectives of the research and other elements needed to situate the theme of the article. It must therefore contain no direct or indirect quotations. The Introduction should neither copy nor paraphrase the abstract.

 

Conclusions/Final considerations

The conclusions/final considerations should only describe the considerations corresponding to the objectives and/or hypotheses of the article. They should neither summarize the discussion of the article nor constitute a version of the Introduction in another verbal tense.

 

Article Structure:

Articles must adhere to the following sequence:

• Title in the article's original language.
• Title translated into English (if the article's language is not English).
• Abstract and its translations.
• Keywords and their translations.
• Introduction
• Text with subtitles and footnotes
• Conclusion
• References

 

Observations

• The items Introduction, Conclusion/Final considerations, and References should not be numbered. The other titles must use sequential Indo-Arabic numbering.

 

DIGITAL ASSETS

General

Tables, charts, graphs, and figures cannot occupy more than 25% of the total text, and must be numbered with Arabic numerals and referenced.

 

Tables

According to NBR 14724/2024, tables must be mentioned in the text, following the passage that mentions them as closely as possible. Tables should be standardized according to the standards of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE).

Tables must contain numerical/statistical/quantitative data.

All tables must contain a title that describes the gathered data. The title should be above the table.

The referenced source must follow NBR 10520/2023.

If the authors of the article produce the table, the source must contain: “prepared by the author(s).”

Tables must be formatted in font size 11 with simple spacing.

Tables should contain no external vertical grids.

Example table:

 

Table 1 – Global piracy and armed robbery indicators (IMB), 2022–2024

Indicator	2024	2023	2022
Total incidents reported	116	120	115
Vessels boarded	94	—	—
Attempted attacks	13	—	—
Vessels hijacked	6	—	—
Shots fired	3	—	—
Crew taken hostage	126	73	41
Crew kidnapped	12	14	2
Crew threatened	12	—	—
Crew injured	1	—	—
Incidents involving firearms	26	15	—
Incidents involving knives	39	42	—

Source: ICC – Commercial Crime Services

 

 

Charts

Charts should follow the passage in the text that mentions them as closely as possible.

Charts must contain textual/qualitative data.

The title of the chart should be above it.

The searched source must follow NBR 10520/2023.

If the authors of the article produce the chart, its source must contain: “prepared by the author(s).”

Charts must be formatted in font size 11 with simple spacing.

Charts must only have closed grids.

Example chart:

 

Chart 1. Environmental laws in Piauí

State law	Syllabus
Law no. 6.947/2017	Establishes directives for state environmental licensing, sets deadlines and procedures for issuing licenses, declarations, and authorizations, and provides other measures.
Law no. 6.565/2014	Provides for Environmental Education, establishes the State Policy for Environmental Education, and provides for other measures.
Law no. 6.140/2011	Establishes the State Policy on Climate Change and Poverty Reduction (PEMCP) and other provisions.
Law no. 5.959/2009	Institutes the Piauí State Environmental Control and Inspection Fee (TCFA/PI).

Source: elaborated by the authors.

 

Graphs and figures

The images (figures and graphs) in the articles must be inserted in the body of the text and individually submitted as “Supplementary Documents” during submission. The format to submit images via “Supplementary Documents” must be “.jpeg.” The images must have a high resolution. In addition to the images, the authors must send an authorization of use from the copyright holder of the image via “Supplementary Documents.”

In the case of images without the required resolution, the authors will be notified to provide a new image within two working days. If the new image is not provided and the absence of it harms the content of the text, the article will be rejected by the editorial board and/or team.

If the authorization of use is not sent via “Supplementary Documents,” the authors will be notified to provide such authorization within two working days. If the authorization is not provided and the absence of it harms the content of the text, the article will be rejected by the editorial board and/or team.

Images must be mentioned in the text, following the passage that mentions them as closely as possible.

The title should be below the image.

The searched source must follow NBR 10520/2023.

If the authors of the article produce the images, their source must contain: “prepared by the author(s).”

Images must be formatted with font size 10 and simple spacing.

Example figure:

 

Figure 1. Global incidents of piracy and armed robbery recorded by the IMB in 2025.

Source: ICC – Commercial Crime Services.

 

Example graph:

 

Graph 1. Number of occurrences per year associated with illegal logging.

Source: elaborated by the authors.

 

CITATIONS AND REFERENCES

Citations

• All references in the text must use the footnote system, following the OSCOLA (Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities) guidelines. Ex.: (Yoshifumi Tanaka, The International Law of the Sea (4th edn, CUP 2023)).
• It's important to note that pagination should be provided for both indirect and direct citations (whether quoting exactly or translating freely), except when the source text lacks pagination.
• In the case of direct quotations (transcriptions) that are translated from other languages, after indicating the page(s) of the quoted excerpt, “tradução livre”/“free translation”/“traducción libre” must follow in the reference. Moreover, the citation in the original language must be included in a footnote.

 

References

References must be arranged in alphabetical order by the first author's SURNAME, at the end of the article and strictly follow, in all details (formatting, punctuation, order of elements, etc.), OSCOLA (Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities), as in the examples:

• Book:

Footnote citation:

Yoshifumi Tanaka, The International Law of the Sea (4th edn, CUP 2023)

Bibliographic Reference:

Tanaka Y, The International Law of the Sea (4th edn, CUP 2023).

 

• Book chapter:

Footnote citation:

Edward J Goodwin, 'Marine Living Resources' in Donald R Rothwell and others (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Law of the Sea (OUP 2015).

Bibliographic Reference:

Goodwin EJ, 'Marine Living Resources' in Donald R Rothwell and others (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the Law of the Sea (OUP 2015)

 

• Journal article:

Footnote citation:

Alan E Boyle, ‘EU Unilateralism and the Law of the Sea’ (2006) 21(1) The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law 15, 15-31.

 

Bibliographic Reference:

Boyle AE, ‘EU Unilateralism and the Law of the Sea’ (2006) 21(1) The International Journal of Marine and Coastal Law 15

 

• Articles and reports available online:

– Text with authorship identification:

Footnote citation:

Arsenio Dominguez, ‘Applying the Law of the Sea to Protect International Shipping’ (UN Chronicle, 28 February 2024) https://www.un.org/en/un-chronicle/applying-law-sea-protect-international-shipping. Accessed 26 September, 2025.

Bibliographic Reference:

Dominguez A, ‘Applying the Law of the Sea to Protect International Shipping’ (UN Chronicle, 28 February 2024) https://www.un.org/en/un-chronicle/applying-law-sea-protect-international-shipping. Accessed 26 September, 2025.

 

– Text without author identification:

General Assembly Adopts Two Resolutions on Oceans, Highlighting Mounting Threats to Marine Resources, Need to Tackle Rising Sea Levels, Damage to Ecosystems' (United Nations Press Release, 5 December 2023) https://press.un.org/en/2023/ga12569.doc.htm. Accessed 26 September, 2025.

 

• Legislation:

Brazil, Environmental Crimes Law [Lei nº 9.605] of 12 February 1998 http://www.planalto.gov.br/ccivil_03/leis/l9605.htm accessed 26 Semptember 2025.

 

• Jurisprudence:

Footnote citation:

Dispute concerning delimitation of the maritime boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives) (Judgment) [2021] ITLOS Case No 28.

 

Bibliographic Reference:

International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), Dispute concerning delimitation of the maritime boundary between Mauritius and Maldives in the Indian Ocean (Mauritius/Maldives)(Judgment) [2021] ITLOS Case No 28.

 

Notes:

• Do not use dashes (______) for repeated SURNAMEs. Repeat the last name.
• Other types of references, not covered in the examples shown here, should be consulted in OSCOLA (Oxford Standard for Citation of Legal Authorities), which must be strictly followed.
• The accuracy and adequacy of references to works cited in the text are the responsibility of the authors.
• The works used in the preparation of the work must be national and international, representative of the chosen theme, and up to date. The absence of foreign works, outdated works, or lack of representativeness of the works used may result in the rejection of the article by the reviewers and/or the editorial team.

 

 

SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENTS

What should be sent as additional documents:

• Figures and graphs, as mentioned above.
• Content underlying the manuscript, i.e., additional analyses and references or any content that may serve as additional content.

 

FUNDING STATEMENT

Articles resulting from research supported by funding agencies must be duly identified by a footnote in the title of the article, specifying the funding agency and its notice.

Important: only legal entities should be nominated. Individuals who supported the research may be listed separately in the “Acknowledgments” section of the approved version of the article.

 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

All approved works will receive their respective Digital Object Identifier (DOI) at the time of their final publication in Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS).

Code of Conduct and Core Practices

The journal Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) follows the guidelines of the Code of Conduct and Core Practices of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE). Submissions must meet these guidelines. We also adopt the Guidelines on best practices for strengthening ethics in scientific publication.

 

Evaluation process

Articles submitted via the journal website will undergo two phases of evaluation: the first one will be carried out by the editorial team to evaluate compliance with the Guidelines for Authors. In case of approval, the article will be sent for a blind peer review (the second phase of their evaluation), in which the article may be approved, approved with mandatory corrections, or rejected.

In all cases, the editorial decision and evaluations will be sent by email to the authors—in case of co-authorship, to the co-author who registered in the submission as the main contact. In the case of approval with mandatory corrections, the author will have five working days (a period that may be extended depending on the complexity of the requested corrections) to send the corrected version of their article via the journal system, which will be checked by the editorial team. If the corrections are unsatisfactory, further adjustments may be necessary or, as the case may be, the article may be rejected. Lack of response from the authors to the request for corrections may also cause the rejection of the article.

 

Exogeny

To comply with the requirement of the Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personnel (CAPES) regarding the exogeny of articles, Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) avoids publishing articles whose authors are linked to institutions in Minas Gerais, except for those linked to Centro Universitário Dom Helder.

 

Plagiarism Detection

All articles submitted to Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) will be previously analyzed by the Plagius plagiarism detector. Plagiarism is considered the appropriation of ideas, processes, results, or words of others without giving them due credit. A paragraph without proper citation is enough for the manuscript to be returned to the author(s). For cases of self-plagiarism, Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) allows a maximum of 10% for articles or 50% when the manuscript is the result of a master’s dissertation or PhD thesis. Additionally, the manuscript is returned to the authors, who can make the necessary changes and resubmit their article to the journal.

Cases of plagiarism reported to the journal after the publication of the articles will be analyzed by the editorial committee and, if the complaint is confirmed, the article will be withdrawn from the journal immediately. Penalties may also be applied to the perpetrators.

 

Detection of use of artificial intelligence resources

All articles submitted to Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) will be previously analyzed on Plagius, which detects the use of Artificial Intelligence resources.

Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) is studying the possibility of adopting artificial intelligence in its editorial policy.

 

Publication priority

The following articles will enjoy publication priority:

• Articles in which at least one of the authors is exclusively linked to a foreign high education institution;
• Articles from research supported by funding agencies;
• Articles written in co-authorship with a permanent professor of a high education institution Program from Brazilian Federation Units other than Minas Gerais.

 

Compliance with the guidelines for authors

The editorial board and team reserve the right in the pre- or post-evaluations to point out necessary corrections and complements in the received articles, returning them to the authors for due adaptation to the standards of this journal. After the check-list and pre-evaluation by the editorial team, if approved, the articles will go to external evaluators.

All evaluated texts that indicate mandatory corrections, pointed out in an opinion and/or comments, must be reviewed by the authors and returned for further evaluation by the editorial team within five working days (or more depending on the complexity of the requested corrections). s

 

Right to appeal against editorial decisions

Authors are guaranteed the right to appeal against all editorial decisions.

The appeal must be sent to the email of this journal ([email protected]), with the complete identification of the article (submission number and full title) and the authors, appeal grounds, and other relevant documents.

The decision on the appeal will be forwarded to the appellant within seven working days.

 

Ethics

Latin American and Caribbean Journal of the Law of the Sea (LACJLOS) mainly aims to produce solid scientific knowledge based on an editorial process that involves controlling, evaluating, and reviewing manuscripts via parameters of scientificity and integrity in line with national and international bodies and institutions focused on scientific publishing.

 

Ethical conditions for the publication of articles

1. The intentional inclusion of questionable references to manipulate impact factors or increase the probability of acceptance of the manuscript constitutes an ethically unacceptable practice.
2. Authors have an ethical responsibility to report any evidence that contradicts their point of view. Moreover, the evidence to support their positions must be methodologically sound.
3. Authors have an ethical obligation to report all aspects of their research that may be relevant to the independent reproducibility of their research.
4. Only people who have significantly contributed to the research deserve authorship in manuscripts. Significant contributions include conducting experiments, participating in the elaboration of experimental planning, result analysis, or elaboration of the manuscript. Borrowing equipment, obtaining funding, or general supervision alone fail to justify the inclusion of new authors (but should be mentioned as acknowledgements).
5. Collaboration between professors and students must follow the criteria above. Supervisors should certify that the authorship of articles include no students with little or no contribution to them or exclude those with active participation in them. Phantom authorship constitutes an ethically unacceptable practice in science.
6. All authors are responsible for the veracity and competence of their research. The first and corresponding authors have full responsibility for their articles, and the other authors are responsible for their individual contributions.
7. Authors must be able to describe their personal contribution to their research if requested.
8. All research, whether with animals or with human beings, must follow ethical standards.