Look at each paper you assigned to and verify that you do not have a conflict of interest (CoI) with any of the authors of those papers or their institution(s). You can have a conflict for any of the following reasons:
- you are from same institution as one of the authors (can't happen in this case) or you recently left that institution (could happen) [we will make a time limit on that of 1 year].
- you have a current or recent consulting or other financial arrangement with the institution of one of the authors (including having taken grant money from them recently).
- one of the authors is your former dissertation advisor or advisee (can't happen here) [this may have a time limit, typically something like 5 years, but sometimes, e.g., for NSF, this is deemed to apply for life].
- you have been a recent co-author or collaborator with one of the authors [we will apply a time limit of 2 years here].
- there is some other reason that makes you feel that you would find it hard to be fully fair and objective in judging the paper, or you would feel reluctant or awkward in some way in fully expressing your opinion about the paper due to some relationship you have with one of the authors or their institution.