Copyright & Licensing Policy

The Africa Journal of Health and Environmental Law (AJHEL) is committed to protecting the intellectual property rights of authors while promoting the responsible dissemination, accessibility, and reuse of scholarly research in health law, environmental law, public health, environmental protection, governance, human rights, and related fields.

Copyright

Copyright in articles published by the Africa Journal of Health and Environmental Law (AJHEL) remains with the respective author(s), unless otherwise expressly stated.

By submitting a manuscript to AJHEL, authors retain ownership of the copyright in their work while granting the journal the necessary non-exclusive rights to publish, reproduce, distribute, archive, index, and make the article publicly accessible in electronic and other scholarly formats.

AJHEL is published by Prime Crest Publishers.

Licensing

Unless otherwise indicated, articles published by AJHEL are distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Licence.

The CC BY 4.0 licence permits users to:

  • Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format.
  • Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, including commercial purposes.

Users must provide appropriate credit to the author(s) and AJHEL, provide a link to the applicable licence, and indicate whether changes were made.

Author Rights

Authors retain the right to:

  1. Share their published articles through personal websites, institutional repositories, and recognised academic platforms.
  2. Use their articles for teaching, research, conference presentations, and other legitimate scholarly purposes.
  3. Deposit copies of their published work in institutional and subject repositories.
  4. Reuse portions of their published work in subsequent books, theses, dissertations, and other scholarly publications, provided appropriate acknowledgement is given.
  5. Retain the moral right to be identified as the author of their work.
  6. Develop, extend, and build upon their published research in subsequent scholarly works.

Third-Party Materials

Authors are responsible for obtaining the necessary permissions for copyrighted materials belonging to third parties, including photographs, figures, tables, illustrations, substantial quotations, datasets, maps, and other protected materials.

Third-party materials subject to separate copyright restrictions are not automatically covered by the CC BY 4.0 licence. Users wishing to reuse such materials must obtain permission from the relevant copyright holder where required.

Attribution and Responsible Reuse

Anyone reproducing, distributing, or adapting an article published by AJHEL must provide appropriate attribution, including:

  • The name(s) of the author(s);
  • The title of the article;
  • Africa Journal of Health and Environmental Law (AJHEL);
  • Relevant publication details;
  • A link to the original article; and
  • A link to the applicable Creative Commons licence.

Any substantial modification, adaptation, or translation must be clearly identified and must not misrepresent the original work or imply endorsement by AJHEL, its authors, or Prime Crest Publishers.

Copyright Infringement

AJHEL does not permit plagiarism, unauthorised reproduction, copyright infringement, fraudulent attribution, or other unlawful use of published materials.

Where a credible copyright or intellectual-property complaint is received, the journal will investigate the matter and may take appropriate corrective action, including publication of a correction or notice, removal of material, or retraction of an article where warranted.

Copyright Notice

The recommended copyright notice for articles published in AJHEL is:

© [Year] The Author(s). Published by Prime Crest Publishers on behalf of the Africa Journal of Health and Environmental Law (AJHEL).

Where an article is published under the CC BY 4.0 licence, subsequent reuse and distribution are governed by the terms of that licence.

Commitment to Authors and Scholarly Communication

The Africa Journal of Health and Environmental Law (AJHEL) supports open and responsible scholarly communication while respecting the intellectual property, legal, and moral rights of authors, copyright holders, and other contributors.

The journal seeks to ensure that scholarly research concerning health, environmental protection, law, governance, human rights, and sustainable development is disseminated responsibly and remains accessible to the wider academic and professional community.