Publishing Plan: AI Governance & Law

"AI Governance and Law" is broad enough to need a sharper working title before drafting begins - for example, how Indian courts and regulators are responding to AI-generated evidence and deepfakes, how the legal profession itself is being asked to self-regulate AI use (a theme already covered on this site via the BCI digital-ethics circular), or a comparative look at India's emerging approach against the EU AI Act. Cybersecurity and Law remains a strong adjacent option - particularly data-breach liability, the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, and its interaction with AI systems - if the AI angle proves too crowded once the literature review is done.

A publishable law paper needs to say something a reader cannot already get from an existing article - so the literature review's job is to map what has already been written (regulatory-approach papers, comparative surveys, sector-specific studies) and locate the specific gap the paper will fill. A good gap is current and interesting, but not so newly trending that several journals already have similar pieces in press, and narrow enough to be argued properly in the target word count rather than surveyed superficially.

Most Indian and international law journals expect broadly the same skeleton: an abstract (150-250 words), an introduction that states the problem, thesis, and roadmap, a literature review, a doctrinal or comparative analysis section (case law, statutes, regulatory instruments), a discussion of implications or a proposed framework, and a conclusion with recommendations. For an AI-governance paper specifically, a dedicated section mapping the current regulatory landscape - India's approach, the EU AI Act, and any relevant judicial pronouncements - is usually expected by specialist reviewers even if it is not the paper's main contribution.

Decide the citation style early since it shapes footnote-heavy legal writing from the first draft: Indian journals mostly expect Bluebook (20th/21st edition) or their own house style (NUJS and others publish a specific citation standard), while some international and comparative-law journals prefer OSCOLA. Run a plagiarism/similarity check before submission - most Indian law journals expect a similarity index under roughly 10-15% excluding quotations and the reference list, and several now require a Turnitin or Urkund report to be attached at submission.

The UGC formally announced in a letter dated 11 February 2025 that it would stop maintaining the UGC-CARE journal list, which Indian academic institutions had used for years to validate journal quality for faculty recruitment and promotion (API scoring). As of today there is no official replacement benchmark, which means "good standing" has to be assessed on a mix of factors instead: whether a journal is peer-reviewed and has a genuine, identifiable editorial board; whether it is indexed in Scopus or Web of Science (a much smaller, more reliable circle for Indian law journals specifically); its track record and citation pattern; and, practically, whether your own institution has a current internal policy on what counts for promotion now that UGC-CARE is gone. That last point is worth confirming directly with your institution before committing significant time to any single target journal.

IJLT, published by the National Law School of India University, Bengaluru, is the first Indian law journal devoted exclusively to the interface between law and technology, and accepts submissions on a rolling basis rather than a fixed deadline - a strong practical advantage. It expects work that is novel and analytical rather than a restatement of existing literature, in MS Word format, with articles running 5,000-12,000 words (essays 3,000-5,000; notes and reviews 2,000-5,000), all exclusive of footnotes, and requires that the piece not be under review anywhere else simultaneously.

NUJS Law Review, a quarterly from the West Bengal National University of Juridical Sciences, accepts rolling submissions and typically reverts with initial comments within three to four weeks - unusually fast for a law journal. It requires an abstract of no more than 200 words, author qualifications and institutional affiliation stated up front, Times New Roman with 12pt body and 10pt footnotes, and strict conformity with its own citation and style standard. Christ University Law Journal (ISSN 2278-4322) is a peer-reviewed general journal open to articles, case comments, legislative notes, and book reviews, and would take an AI-governance piece framed as constitutional, administrative, or comparative law analysis rather than a purely technical one.

Jindal Global Law Review, published with Springer, is one of only three Indian generalist law journals indexed in Scopus (alongside the Indian Journal of Law and Justice and the Taylor & Francis-published Indian Law Review) - making it the strongest India-based option if Scopus indexing matters for your institution's current standards. JGLR is curated as a themed dossier twice a year, uses double-blind review, and has previously floated a special issue specifically on AI & Law - worth checking Springer's JGLR page or Lawctopus directly for any live call for papers, since themed windows open and close on their own schedule rather than accepting continuously.

Artificial Intelligence and Law (Springer) is indexed in both Scopus and Web of Science/SCIE and is the most direct scope match for an AI-governance paper, welcoming both formal/computational studies and socio-legal work on AI's ethical and legal implications, under double-blind review with a hybrid open-access option. Computer Law & Security Review (Elsevier, Scopus-indexed) covers the broader IT-law and cybersecurity field - a strong fit if the paper leans toward the cybersecurity-and-law angle - and accepts submissions only through its Editorial Manager portal under double-anonymized review. AIRe - the Journal of AI Law and Regulation (Lexxion) - is a newer, specialist quarterly covering AI's intersection with privacy, IP, anti-discrimination, human rights, and consumer protection law, worth a direct look at its current guidelines given how new and fast-moving the title is.

Treat this as a reach/target/safety spread: JGLR or the Springer/Elsevier international titles as reach (Scopus/WoS standing, longer odds), IJLT and NUJS as target (strong fit, realistic timelines), and CULJ as a dependable safety option.

Beyond the manuscript itself, most journals want a cover letter naming all authors, their institutional affiliation, and the paper's title; a plagiarism/similarity report; a statement that the work is original and not under simultaneous review elsewhere; and, for co-authored work, confirmation that every co-author consents to the submission. International Elsevier and Springer titles route everything through a portal (Editorial Manager or Springer's own system) rather than email, while most Indian student-run journals still accept direct email submissions to a dedicated address.

Turnaround varies widely: NUJS Law Review typically reverts with initial comments in three to four weeks, while themed or Scopus-indexed titles like JGLR or the Springer/Elsevier international journals can take several months given formal double-blind review and revision cycles. Expect at least one round of reviewer comments before acceptance; a paper that comes back with a "revise and resubmit" rather than an outright rejection is a genuinely good sign, not a setback, and should be treated as the norm rather than the exception for a first submission in this field.

Predatory publishers - estimated at roughly a third of all nominally open-access journals - solicit unsolicited submissions by email, charge a publication fee without genuine peer review, list editors with unrelated or unverifiable credentials, and often cover an implausibly wide range of unrelated subjects in one title. Every journal named in this note has a verifiable institutional publisher (NLSIU, WBNUJS, Christ University, Springer, Elsevier, or Lexxion) and a real editorial board - as a general rule, verify any unfamiliar journal the same way before submitting: check the publisher, the editorial board's actual credentials, and whether it is genuinely indexed where it claims to be.

AI governance is one of the fastest-moving areas in law right now, which cuts both ways for a first-time author in the field: the gap is easy to find, but the literature is also aging quickly, so a paper that takes too long to write risks being overtaken by new regulation or case law before it is even submitted. A realistic, journal-matched plan - rather than aiming for the single most prestigious title first - gives the paper the best chance of actually reaching print while the topic is still current.