William Laurance and his colleagues (Nature http://doi.org/h5f; 2012) identify four of their paper's authors as deceased and confirm that all had previously verified that they wanted to be co-authors. Without such indication, there is a risk that deceased authors might be included on questionable grounds — for example, as little more than a dedication.

Increasingly, authors' contributions to papers have to be explicitly justified. Although opinions of what constitutes enough to warrant authorship can vary between individuals and journals, most would endorse your journal's policy that “all the listed authors [must] have agreed all of the contents” of the final version of the submitted paper (see go.nature.com/qnanep).

Because this criterion may not be fulfilled for a deceased author who has genuinely contributed to the work, journals should not only denote authors who died before submission but also specify the date of their death and the contribution they made (see, for example, go.nature.com/pymlxb and go.nature.com/jxqr8n). The author list should not include unwarranted names of the deceased, for whom a dedication can be included in the acknowledgements.