Sir
Your News Feature “Peers under pressure” (Nature 413, 102–104; 2001) makes me glad that I work in “geology ... [where] complaints are few and far between”. I sign all of my reviews, positive and negative, and people still talk to me.
Some of the cited examples of foul play by reviewers have obviously had major implications for tenure, patent rights and so on. No wonder, then, that some are tempted to seek a legal solution to some of the injustices that the peer-review system has enabled the less scrupulous to perform.
Problems could doubtless arise in the process of separating genuine complaints from the paranoid or vindictive, and the accused might launch countersuits and writs. But a few successful prosecutions might well encourage wrongdoers to consider changing their ways.
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Donovan, S. Peers under review. Nature 413, 669 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1038/35099731
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/35099731