A journal's formal policy regarding a submitting or publishing author's conflict of interest.
Conflicts of interest occur when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that are not fully disclosed and may influence their decisions on what is published.

Reviewers
To ensure that the review process is conflict-free:

When there is a conflict of interest with an author, editors should choose a guest editor. Editors should ensure that reviewers have no conflicts of interest with the author.

Before reviewing an article, reviewers should contact the editorial office.

Authors
When submitting their article, all authors and co-authors must disclose any potential conflicts of interest in their Submission.

Editor
When handling a manuscript as a member of a journal's Editorial Board, you must be acutely aware of the possibility of conflict.

Editor may have conflicts of interest if a manuscript is submitted from their own academic department or institution; they should have explicit policies in place to manage it.

Animal and human rights

All research must have been conducted within a suitable ethical framework. If editors suspect that work was not done within an appropriate ethical framework, they may reject the manuscript and/or contact the author(s)' ethics committee. If the Editor has serious concerns about the ethics of a study, even if approval from an ethics committee has been obtained, the manuscript may be rejected on ethical grounds.

Animal and clinical study articles must include a statement in accordance with the animal and human ethics committee.
Research should be conducted in such a way that animals are not harmed unnecessarily.
All clinical trials require registration.

Informed consent
Images of a specific person should not be allowed in the International Journal of Clinical Images and Medical Reviews without the patient's permission. Authors should inform these patients whether any potentially identifiable material will be available after publication on the Internet as well as in print.
Conflicts of interest occur when authors, reviewers, or editors have interests that are not fully disclosed and may influence their decisions on what is published.