Editor, Associate Editor and Referee Ethical Principles

1. Both the content of a submitted paper as well as the fact that a paper is under review is confidential and should not be disclosed to individuals who are not part of the review process.
2. Editors, Associate Editors and Referees should refrain from handling papers authored by a departmental colleague or a current close collaborator.
3. The Editors should refrain from reviewing for other statistical journals, first to ensure that the Editors are able to have sufficient time and energy to edit the Annals properly and second, to allow Annals decisions on papers to be made independently of whether the paper was previously submitted elsewhere.
4. Authors should not be disadvantaged if they submit their papers elsewhere following a rejection by the Annals. Thus if an AE or referee has handled a paper rejected by the Annals, the AE or referee should refrain from subsequently disclosing the prior rejection and/or acting as a referee of this paper for another journal. (If invited to handle or referee the paper for another journal, they should decline without disclosing that they have seen the paper before.)
5. Similarly, if an Annals AE or referee has previously handled a paper for another journal, they should decline to handle it for the Annals if possible without disclosing that they have handled it previously.