Call for Papers | International Review of Law Special Issue on Accountability in the Age of Algorithms (e-ISSN 2223-859X)

The International Review of Law (IRL) is a peer-reviewed, open-access law journal issued by the College of Law, Qatar University, and published twice a year by Qatar University Press (Online ISSN 2223-859X; Print ISSN 2710-2505). Launched in 2012, it publishes original legal scholarship in Arabic, English and French, with a particular focus on comparative and international legal studies.

The journal lists itself as indexed or registered in Crossref, DOAJ, ARCIF, Dar Al-Mandumah, Google Scholar, EBSCO Discovery Service, ProQuest, Westlaw Gulf, HeinOnline, EastLaws, ScienceOpen and ROAD. Special issues run alongside the two regular issues and follow the same authorship policy, writing standards and peer-review procedure.

The special issue is titled “Accountability in the Age of Algorithms: Comparative Perspectives on Legal Liability and Emerging Frameworks for Artificial Intelligence”. As AI has become structurally and systematically ubiquitous, traditional legal doctrines face pressure to adapt. The issue examines four accountability challenges:

• The innovation and control dilemma
• Jurisdictional and regulatory fragmentation
• The diffusion of responsibility
• The limits of explainability and transparency

IRL wants rigorous comparative analysis drawn from a diversity of jurisdictions, focused on the legal analysis of accountability issues arising from algorithmic decisions and practices, and proposing workable legislative and regulatory solutions to emerging liability challenges.

Papers should fall within one of the following topics:

• Cybersecurity and Incident Liability
• Digital Finance and Smart Contracts
• Agentic AI and Autonomous Governance
• Civil and Criminal Liability Frameworks
• Cross-Border Regulatory Compliance
• Algorithmic Bias and Human Rights
• Intellectual Property and Data Rights
• Transparency and Explainability Standards
• Consumer Protection and Product Liability
• Statutory Intersection with Ethical Rules
• Sector-Specific Regulatory Oversight

• The call is open and does not restrict authors by country or category, so Indian researchers may submit.
• Papers are accepted in Arabic, English or French.
• Co-authored papers are accepted. Every co-author must have made a real research contribution and must approve the final version. Thesis supervisors qualify only as co-authors, and only with a clear major contribution.
• An article drawn from a master's or doctoral thesis may be considered. This must be disclosed in the Author Declaration form and acknowledged in the first footnote.

• Original research articles of 6,000 to 10,000 words, including footnotes, references and appendices, not published or under consideration elsewhere.
• Microsoft Word file with the article title, author names (in order), abstract and keywords in both Arabic and English.
• Citation style: Bluebook or OSCOLA (Turabian for French-language articles). Arabic references must be romanised in Library of Congress style.
• Times New Roman 12, 1.15 line spacing, 1-inch margins on all sides.
• Attach a signed Author Declaration and Consent Form and the CV of each author.
• Suggested structure: introduction, research hypotheses, methodology, discussion and analysis, and conclusion, with numbered headings (1., 1.1., 1.1.1.).

There is no fee. IRL charges no article processing charge, submission fee or publication fee. Papers go through double-blind peer review. Authors agree to revise in line with reviewers' comments. They also agree not to withdraw the paper during the initial review or peer review, and the journal reserves the right to seek compensation for costs if they do.

Register or log in on the IRL platform and submit through the journal's submission page, completing the submission checklist and uploading all required documents. Authors may instead email the paper to LawJournal@qu.edu.qa using the journal's New Submission Cover Letter form, which carries the same standards. The deadline is 31 December 2026.