Double-blind peer review is not a new idea, and it is sometimes treated as a formality rather than a real safeguard. In practice, it continues to do a specific job that newer review models have not fully replaced: keeping the evaluation focused on the manuscript rather than the person who wrote it.

When a reviewer does not know who the author is, they cannot weigh a submission by institutional reputation, prior publication record, or seniority. The manuscript is assessed on methodology, clarity, originality, and contribution — the things a review is actually meant to measure. The same protection runs in the other direction: an author cannot infer who rejected or criticized their work and respond to the reviewer rather than the review.

This does not make double-blind review perfect. Author identity can sometimes be inferred from writing style, citation patterns, or a niche research area with few active researchers. But an imperfect safeguard that reduces bias in most cases is still meaningfully better than no safeguard at all, and the alternative — fully open review, where identities are known throughout — introduces its own pressures, particularly for early-career researchers reviewing more senior colleagues' work.

For an international, interdisciplinary journal, this matters more, not less. Submissions arrive from researchers working in very different institutional and national contexts, and a review process that can be influenced by affiliation risks quietly favoring whichever contexts reviewers find most familiar.