I wonder if there exists, at least in plans, a centralized system that examines editors' decisions in journals, a kind of "appellate court" in peer-review publishing.
Recently I have been trying to publish a paper which tends to support a hypothesis heavily counter to the prevailing view in the field. I had to try eight journals before it was accepted. In most of those trials the paper was rejected without going to peer-review, but editors didn't point out specific flaws. Instead, they used general statements like "your paper is certainly interesting, but we get so many even more interesting papers, so unfortunately we cannot publish yours". In one journal the editor simply replied that the paper is out of the journal's scope, which is plain-out false (the paper deals exactly with one of the major topics of the journal). In another journal the editor passed the paper to peer review. In two months it was rejected "in view of reviewers' comments". But - amazingly! - all reviewers recommended publication, with certain revisions. I tried to contact the editor, but he did not respond. Clearly, this is utterly unethical, with respect both to the author and reviewers (at least, the editors could reject it right away, why stealing two months?).
Now I am going to submit a follow-up paper, but I am sure I will face the same difficulties and lose a lot of time. Could anyone give any recommendations as to how to safeguard oneself against unethical situations like those described above?
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