About the Journal

Our Qualis and Commitment to Excellence

In the last quadrennial evaluation by CAPES (2017-2020), the Journal (which had a Qualis C until 2016) was upgraded to Qualis B4 in its primary field, Law. It is also evaluated as Qualis B4 in the areas of Philosophy, Political Science, and International Relations. Therefore, it presents itself as an excellent publication option for undergraduates, postgraduates, and professors in these areas (and related fields such as Forensic Medicine, Sociology, Anthropology, History, Public Administration, Psychology, and Literature).

The current management is committed to editorial standards of excellence, aiming to achieve an improvement in Qualis in the next evaluation period (2021-2024). In this regard, it boasts an efficient editorial process (an average of 4 months between submission and publication of approved works), is validated by various international indexers/repositories (such as Latindex 2.0, DOAJ, HeinOnline, ERIHPLUS), and prioritizes the maintenance of the periodicity and punctuality of its publications.

Ethical Guidelines

The CAAP Journal adheres to the ethical standards established by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), guided by the following core principles:

Authors’ responsibilities: Ensure originality and proper citation of sources; Do not submit previously published contributions; Clearly indicate individual intellectual contributions; Declare the reliability of the data used; Disclose any conflicts of interest at the time of submission; Provide information regarding ethical treatment of data, when applicable. Full authorship and intellectual property guidelines are detailed in the Copyright Policies and Author Fee Policy sections.

Reviewers’ responsibilities: Use objective and non-discriminatory criteria; Notify in advance if unable to review; Maintain confidentiality of the material received; Refrain from reviewing in case of conflict of interest; Identify uncited excerpts in the manuscript.

Editors’ responsibilities: Ensure objectivity, non-discrimination, and confidentiality of information; Do not use unpublished material without consent; Keep authors informed about the status of their submissions; Publish corrections when necessary; Reject reviews with conflicts of interest; Investigate allegations of unethical conduct by authors while preserving the right of defense. Editors are also responsible for managing retraction processes when necessary, in accordance with COPE guidelines, ensuring transparency, preservation of the scientific record, and authors’ right of reply. Final decisions are supervised by the journal’s executive management and supported by the Editorial Board when needed.

Conflicts of interest: When there are conflicts of interest that could potentially compromise the quality or impartiality of a manuscript, the editor must inform their peers at the beginning of the editorial process in order to ensure transparency and the integrity of the review process.

Complaints, appeals, errata, and retraction requests must be submitted to caap.revista@gmail.com. Cases involving the retraction of published works will be evaluated by the Editorial Board in accordance with COPE principles, and a formal retraction notice will be published on the journal website when applicable.

Focus and Scope

The CAAP Journal sees scientific research as an instrument for reflection and updating of legal experience, the formation of individuals, and the progress of society. In this sense, it focuses on topics related to Law, whether theoretical or practical. Works from related areas such as Philosophy, Political Science, International Relations, Sociology, History, Economics, Urbanism, Anthropology, etc., are also accepted.

Its main objectives are:

I – to awaken academic vocation in the student body of the Law School at the Federal University of Minas Gerais;

II – to encourage scientific production from undergraduate and postgraduate students at the Law School of the Federal University of Minas Gerais (CAPES: 7);

III – to disseminate scientific production from undergraduate and postgraduate students at the Law School of the Federal University of Minas Gerais, as well as from other educational institutions [It is worth noting that there is no priority or distinction between authors from UFMG and external authors];

IV – to establish networks of scientific production exchange in undergraduate and postgraduate studies between Law and Humanities courses;

V – to strive for excellence in scientific production, aiming to become a reference journal nationally and internationally;

VI – to be guided by impartiality and plurality in its entire institutional organization, with at least 25% women and at least 25% men in the composition of its Board and Associate Editors in its Editorial Board;

VII – to be a space for academic and editorial training for undergraduates, postgraduates, and faculty at UFMG, through active participation in the activities of the Journal.

Editorial Line

The CAAP Journal selects, through a public call, scientific articles, review articles, case studies, and, at the discretion of the Editorial Board, essays and interviews in Law and related fields. Articles in Portuguese, English, Spanish, Italian, and French are accepted, and they undergo a double-blind review. The Journal particularly aims to publish texts of a critical nature capable of addressing topics that require innovative approaches and perspectives.

Each issue consists of original and unpublished works. The Journal is open and entirely free, catering to the general public and the scientific community interested in legal and related works.

Maintained by students of the Faculty of Law at UFMG (as provided by Article 47 of the CAAP Statute), with technical support from the UFMG Periodicals Portal, the Journal has its own regulations and is managed by an autonomous Editorial Board that directs and administers it in the constant pursuit of academic excellence.

Periodicity

Publication of two issues per year, following a continuous publication model, with the aim of reducing the time between submission, approval, and publication of works.

Open Access Policy

The CAAP Journal provides open, free, immediate, and unrestricted access to its content, following the principle that freely sharing scientific knowledge with the public enhances the global democratization of knowledge.

The CAAP Journal adopts the Budapest Open Access Initiative (BOAI) declaration and provides open, free, and immediate access to all published content. Users can read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of articles, track them for indexing, or use them for any other lawful purpose without prior permission from the publisher or the author, provided they respect the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license used by the journal.

Authorship Fee Policy

There will be no charge of any kind for the submission and publication of articles.

Digital Preservation Policy

The CAAP Journal is integrated into the Brazilian Network of Digital Preservation Services (Cariniana) and receives technical support from the UFMG Periodicals Portal for storage, file backup, and other preservation strategies.

Self-Archiving Policy

Authors are encouraged to self-archive the final approved version of their articles on personal webpages or in institutional or thematic repositories, provided that the original publication is cited and proper credit is given.

How are the submitted works evaluated by the Journal?

The editorial process of a submission to the CAAP Journal takes an average of 4 (four) months.

Submissions to the CAAP Journal are received by the Editor-in-Chief and Deputy Editor, who assess whether the works align with the journal's editorial proposal, fall within its scope, contribute innovatively, and are unpublished. Additionally, the formal aspects necessary for submission are checked. Only works deemed relevant to the community and, especially, to the readers of the journal proceed to the next evaluation stage, where a member of the Editorial Board is assigned to continue the process. Furthermore, the works undergo plagiarism checks using the Anti-Plagiarism software provided by the UFMG Portal of Scientific Journals. 

The second stage involves peer review, where the works are sent for evaluation by two reviewers from the evaluation board. These referees are preferably professors from institutions outside UFMG, holding a minimum doctoral degree. The system used is double-blind review, ensuring critical impartiality and the preservation of intellectual freedom for both authors and reviewers — essential elements for the sciences. Evaluation criteria include the relevance of the topic, originality of contribution within the journal's thematic areas, clarity of the text, adequacy of bibliography, structure, and theoretical development, employed methodology, as well as conclusions and contributions to advancing knowledge in the field. By filling out this form, the peer reviewers have the option to approve the work (with possible suggestions), approve with mandatory corrections (to be sent to the authors), or reject publication.

If there's a disagreement in the assessment between the two referees, the Editorial Board refers the work to a third evaluator, whose deciding vote will settle the matter.

The Editor sends the reviews of the accepted manuscripts to the authors so that they can make the necessary corrections, address any suggestions from the reviewers, and resubmit them to the Editor within a maximum period of one week. Authors are prohibited from making changes to the manuscripts beyond those indicated in the reviews. Once the revised version is approved by the reviewers, the article undergoes a general review, after which it receives the final approval of the Editor-in-Chief for publication on this institutional website. Print publication is subject to the availability of financial resources. Manuscripts rejected by the reviewers may be declined based on a final decision by the responsible editor

After publication, errata and retractions can be submitted to the Journal's email (caap.revista@gmail.com). Once received and pre-evaluated by the editorial board, the Editorial Team will deliberate on the requested demand, especially in cases involving the inclusion or removal of information larger than a paragraph. Files published by mistake, spelling errors, layout adjustments, text formatting, ORCID changes, and author name/surname alterations can be corrected through a summary procedure without the need for a vote.

The rejection rate of the CAAP Journal is 21%.

About DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers)

Since 2023, the CAAP Journal has assigned DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) to published articles at no cost to the authors, aiming to meet the best editorial standards recommended by Qualis and international indexing databases.

This assignment typically occurs between 2 to 5 months after the publication date, depending on the availability of resources provided by the UFMG Journal Portal or the UFMG Law Graduate Program.

Journal's History

Founded in 1908, the Academic Center Afonso Pena (CAAP), an association representing the student body of the Law School at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG), performs not only the functions of political representation but also activities fostering research, teaching, and extension within the Law School of UFMG.

The CAAP Academic Center Journal – CAAP Journal – is explicitly provided for in the CAAP's Statute (Article 47, c), last amended in 1987, with the aim of promoting student scientific production, awakening students to academic life, disseminating scientific production of undergraduate and postgraduate courses, as well as establishing networks of scientific production between law faculties.

Through the historical archive of CAAP – now cataloged by Project República, a UFMG extension project – it is known that the first edition of the CAAP Journal was published in 1921. Starting from 1995, the journal began to be published regularly, with at least one issue per year. Since 2008, the Journal has achieved a biannual frequency, publishing an issue at the end of each semester.

In 2023, the Journal underwent restructuring, incorporating a new set of rules, remodeling its visual identity and website, while also being integrated into UFMG's Periodicals Portal. Still this year, adopted continuous publication flow and was included in important repositories, directories, and indexers, such as: Scopus (Netherlands), DOAJ (Sweden), ERIH PLUS (Norway), Latindex 2.0 (Mexico), EuroPub (England), EZB - Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek (Germany), HeinOnline/Law Journal Library (USA), Google Scholar (USA), Rede Cariniana, Sumários e Diadorim (Brazil). 

With nearly three decades of periodic publications, CAAP Journal continues to excel in pursuit of becoming a reference periodical both nationally and internationally. It also adheres to impartiality, plurality, and diversity throughout its institutional structure.