We’d love to hear from you.
Justice, Ecology, Law, & Place (JELP) welcomes original submissions of articles, essays, book reviews, and commentary.
We are a community of scholars, including students, professors, practitioners, and activists, writing on justice, law, ecology, and places that are in some way relevant to Canada. In particular, we encourage analysis, dialogue, and debate on issues at the interaction of these themes.
We publish on an open-access online platform and produce one issue per year while receiving submissions on a continual basis. We welcome special issue proposals from members at any time.
We also publish an Interactions forum of shorter opinion pieces, policy and law reform updates, book reviews and commentary. JELP especially welcomes student submissions to this section.
JELP is currently edited by Professors Deborah Curran (University of Victoria) and Dayna Nadine Scott (Osgoode Hall Law School, York University).
Article/Essay Submission Process
There are four steps to JELP’s publication processes. Each are discussed in more detail below:
1) The Initial “Editorial Read” and selection of peer reviewers
As soon as we receive submissions, a member of the JELP Editorial team will review it to see whether the piece meets the aims and purposes of the journal. If so, JELP will seek two external peer reviewers, based on suggestions from our Editorial Board. Authors will be notified that their paper has been sent for peer review at this stage.
2) The Peer Review Process
Peer reviewers will have four-six weeks to review articles, once received. While the Editorial Board reviewers focus on identifying any broad substantive issues with the article, external subject-matter peer reviewers focus on both larger and more detailed substantive and stylistic aspects of the article. The Editorial team will handle communications as between authors and reviewers.
3) Author revisions
Once all reviews have taken place, the author will be notified whether their article will be accepted for publication as is, or with required or suggested revisions, or if the article will not ultimately be published by JELP.
If an article is accepted pending revisions, the author will have between two-three weeks to make the required revisions and resubmit the article. When resubmitting the amended article, the author should send a draft of it with track changes as well as a clean version of the same document. The author should also include a table listing each suggested amendment from the reviewers, accompanied by a note detailing how it was addressed in the updated draft. The JELP Editorial reader for the article will ensure the changes made are sufficient.
4) Final draft
Irwin Law will be responsible for a final copy edit of the article and preparing it for publication online. Any requested edits at this stage will be minor and more technical in nature.
Commentary/Forum Submission Process
Commentary/blog posts for the Forum section should be under 1,000 words in length and provide analysis on current law and policy issues as they relate to justice, ecology, law, and place. Please use accessible language, and hyper-links to publicly available sources, rather than footnoting. Submissions are accepted by email to envlawjournal@uvic.ca.
Book Review Submission Process
The JELP welcomes concise book reviews (less than 800 words in length) that introduce, analyze, and evaluate a recent book-length contribution to scholarship in the areas of justice, ecology, law and place. We will also consider publishing longer book review essays on a case-by-case basis. Please send reviews and proposals to envlawjournal@uvic.ca.