Excerpt from the P.I.E. Guidelines for Reviewers – Outside influence

1 Any information obtained during the assessment may not be used for the reviewer’s advantage. This rule applies to giving information to another person or organisation in written, visual or audio format.

2 A reviewer is not permitted to use information obtained during review in order to discredit or disadvantage another person. Nor must the reviewer be influenced by the origins of the manuscript or allow themselves to be influenced by the nationality, religious or political beliefs, gender, disability or other characteristics of the author, or by commercial considerations.

3 A peer reviewer must offer objective, constructive comments and refrain from giving hostile, derogatory, accusatory comment likely to provoke a severely deleterious effect, or libel, whether the author views the comments or not. The review should not reflect negatively on another individual or make unjustified comment of a work mentioned by a competitor.