Daily Archives: June 11, 2009

Report on Climate Change and Migration

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The UN University, Care International, and Columbia University have published the following report online:

In Search of Shelter: Mapping the Effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement

http://www.care-international.org/Download-document/388-In-Search-of-Shelter-Mapping-the-effects-of-Climate-Change-on-Human-Migration-and-Displacement

Abstract:

Unless aggressive measures are taken to halt global warming, the consequences for human migration and displacement could reach a scope and scale that vastly exceed anything that has occurred before. Climate change is already contributing to migration and displacement. All major estimates project that the trend will rise to tens of millions of migrants in coming years. Within the next few decades, the consequences of climate change for human security efforts could be devastating. These are amongst the key findings of a new report entitled, “In Search of Shelter: Mapping the effects of Climate Change on Human Migration and Displacement”. The report was authored by UN University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), CARE International and Columbia University’s Center for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN). It was released to the media today during the Bonn Climate Change Talks under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).

The exact number of people that will be on the move by mid-century is uncertain. The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates that there may be 200 million environmentally-induced migrants by 2050. “While human migration and displacement is usually the result of multiple factors, the influence of climate change in people’s decision to give up their livelihoods and leave their homes is growing” says Dr. Charles Ehrhart, CARE International’s Climate Change Coordinator and one of the report’s authors.

The Decline and Fall of the Dominant Paradigm: Trustworthiness of Case Reports in the Digital Age

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The latest issue of the New York Law School Law Review just crossed my desk, with many interesting articles,  including this one by William R. Mills, associate librarian and professor of Legal Research:

New York Law School Law Review

Volume 53 2008/09

William R. Mills

The Decline and Fall of the Dominant Paradigm: Trustworthiness of Case Reports in the Digital Age

Professor Mills’s conclusion:

The foundation of trust that underpins our system of case law reporting has now been undermined. Cases posted to many mainstream Internet legal research sources, other than Lexis or Westlaw, appear with no strong guarantee of accuracy or authenticity. Scrupulous legal researchers who wish to independently verify the accuracy of the case reports they cite from Internet sources are met with the burden of comparing the electronic reports against print versions, which are the only ones that courts deem to be official. On a large scale, this burden can prove insurmountable. Furthermore, readers of modern legal literature, when encountering citations from the National Reporter System, have good reason to harbor doubt that the authors who wrote those citations actually consulted the editions that they cited. Moreover, if the authors did not actually consult the National Reporter System, or its established electronic counterparts Lexis or Westlaw, then there is no assurance that the sources they did consult were reliably accurate.

In the digital age, the foundation of trust in our case law reporting system, and in legal citation generally, must be rebuilt. Such a rebuilding effort cannot succeed by utilizing the technology of printed books. Today’s legal researchers are increasingly abandoning print sources in favor of their Internet-based counterparts. The rebuilding of trust in the case reporting system must take place in the realm of digital technology. It must focus on implementing digital safeguards within the process of dissemination of case law databases to better ensure the accuracy and security of information found in those databases.

While court systems and other government entities will obviously play major roles in this rebuilding effort, the legal profession would be naive to expect the government alone to accomplish this work. The government, after all, has never succeeded in creating an efficient case reporting system that served the needs of lawyers nationwide.  Rather, the rebuilding of the American case reporting system for the digital age must be an effort undertaken jointly by government, professional groups, and private enterprise.  The corporate proprietors of Westlaw and Lexis, as the inheritors of the West paradigm, ought not to resist this effort, but instead join in to facilitate its speedy success. Cooperation among all parties is essential, and private enterprise would be an ultimate beneficiary. The companies that market databases of case reports to lawyers have nothing to lose and much to gain from an improved system that bolsters the trustworthiness of these products.

Practitioners Beware…Research on Westlaw / Lexis is a Necessity in Texas?

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Just happened across the recent St. Mary’s Law Journal (Vol. 40, #3, 2009) and the following article by Andrew T. Solomon caught my attention, “Practitioners Beware: Under Amended TRAP 47, “Unpublished” Memorandum Opinions in Civil Cases are Binding and Research on Westlaw and Lexis is a Necessity.”

Anything that states that using Westlaw and Lexis is a necessity is going grab a law librarian’s attention.

The article discusses the 2003 and 2008 amendments to the Texas Rule of Appellate Procedure (TRAP) 47, which deal with the citation and precedential weight of unpublished and memorandum opinions.  Solomon writes:

“The 2003 amendment was seemingly designed to make the law more readily available by prohibiting the issuance of unpublished opinions in civil cases and and authorizing memorandum opinions in place of unpublished opinions.  Despite this intention, the 2003 amendment has failed to make the law in civil cases more readily available because the newly created memorandum opinions are only available electronically via Westlaw, Lexis, and the court websites, even though these opinions are designated for publication.  Also, the 2008 amendment has now made memorandum opinions issued in civil cases since 2003 fully precedential.  As a result, to completely research binding law in civil cases, Texas attorneys must now have access to Westlaw or Lexis because the court websites lack sophisticated search engines necessary to conduct competent legal research.”

[ARGH!]

“The amendment is flawed because it makes memorandum opinions precedential even though those opinions are only readily available on Westlaw and Lexis.  This has occurred in an era when only 60% of attorneys use fee-based online research services (i.e., Westlaw or Lexis) for state case law research.”

Solomon makes a number of recommendations, including “making all opinions readily available on a sophisticated, widely available, and unified website for the Texas courts of appeals.”

As it goes in the state song of Texas, “boldest and grandest, withstanding ev’ry test,” so an accessible, complete website for the courts in Texas seems only right.