Monthly Archives: February 2010

Journal: Transnational Legal Theory

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Hart Publishing has released Volume 1 of a new journal: Transnational Legal Theory

Transnational Legal Theory
TOC, Volume 1 Issue 1 2010
 
Articles
 
Pluralism in Postnational Risk Regulation: The Dispute Over GMOs and Trade         
Nico Krisch
                                                                                                           
Human Rights in the Emerging World Order  
Joseph Raz                                
 
Transnational Governance by Local Rules: How a Global Economic Policy Perspective Could Help    
Dan Danielsen                         
 
Reviews
 
Global Legal Pluralism and “Private” International Law           
Paul Berman
 
Jus in bello Through the Lens of Individual Moral Responsibility: McMahan on Killing in War           
David Lefkowitz
 
Human Rights qua Normative Practice – Sui generis or legal?
Samantha Besson         
           
The Pursuit of a Worthwhile Life: Griffin on Human Rights  
Terrance McConnell

Journal Description

The objective of Transnational Legal Theory is to publish high-quality theoretical scholarship that addresses transnational dimensions of law and legal dimensions of transnational fields and activity.

Central to Transnational Legal Theory‘s mandate is publication of work that explores whether and how transnational contexts, forces and ideations affect debates within existing traditions or schools of legal thought. Similarly, the journal aspires to encourage scholars debating general theories about law to consider the relevance of transnational contexts and dimensions for their work. With respect to particular jurisprudence, the journal welcomes not only submissions that involve theoretical explorations of fields commonly constructed as transnational in nature (such as commercial law, maritime law, or cyberlaw) but also explorations of transnational aspects of fields less commonly understood in this way (for example, criminal law, family law, company law, tort law, evidence law, and so on). Submissions of work exploring process-oriented approaches to law as transnational (from transjurisdictional litigation to delocalized arbitration to multi-level governance) are also encouraged.

Equally central to Transnational Legal Theory‘s mandate is theoretical work that explores fresh (or revived) understandings of international law and comparative law ‘beyond the state’ (and the interstate). The journal has a special interest in submissions that explore the interfaces, intersections, and mutual embeddedness of public international law, private international law, and comparative law, notably in terms of whether such inter-relationships are reshaping these sub-disciplines in directions that are, in important respects, transnational in nature. Other areas of interest for the journal include the interaction of systems or orders along such axes as the following examples: constitutional law theory on the reception of various forms of external law by states’ legal orders; jurisdictional theory on the external projection of states’ legal orders; public law theory on the evolution of regional legal orders; panstate religious normativity; and the theorization of law as “global” in preference or contradistinction to law as either international or transnational. Legal theory is understood broadly to encompass a variety of inter- and subdisciplinary theoretical approaches to law or to law-like normativity, including, to name only some, philosophy of law, legal sociology, legal history, law and economics, and international relations theory 

The objective of Transnational Legal Theory is to publish high-quality theoretical scholarship that addresses transnational dimensions of law and legal dimensions of transnational fields and activity.

Central to Transnational Legal Theory‘s mandate is publication of work that explores whether and how transnational contexts, forces and ideations affect debates within existing traditions or schools of legal thought. Similarly, the journal aspires to encourage scholars debating general theories about law to consider the relevance of transnational contexts and dimensions for their work. With respect to particular jurisprudence, the journal welcomes not only submissions that involve theoretical explorations of fields commonly constructed as transnational in nature (such as commercial law, maritime law, or cyberlaw) but also explorations of transnational aspects of fields less commonly understood in this way (for example, criminal law, family law, company law, tort law, evidence law, and so on). Submissions of work exploring process-oriented approaches to law as transnational (from transjurisdictional litigation to delocalized arbitration to multi-level governance) are also encouraged.

Equally central to Transnational Legal Theory‘s mandate is theoretical work that explores fresh (or revived) understandings of international law and comparative law ‘beyond the state’ (and the interstate). The journal has a special interest in submissions that explore the interfaces, intersections, and mutual embeddedness of public international law, private international law, and comparative law, notably in terms of whether such inter-relationships are reshaping these sub-disciplines in directions that are, in important respects, transnational in nature. Other areas of interest for the journal include the interaction of systems or orders along such axes as the following examples: constitutional law theory on the reception of various forms of external law by states’ legal orders; jurisdictional theory on the external projection of states’ legal orders; public law theory on the evolution of regional legal orders; panstate religious normativity; and the theorization of law as “global” in preference or contradistinction to law as either international or transnational. Legal theory is understood broadly to encompass a variety of inter- and subdisciplinary theoretical approaches to law or to law-like normativity, including, to name only some, philosophy of law, legal sociology, legal history, law and economics, and international relations theory

Article: Enabling Free On-line Access to UK Law Reports: The Copyright Problem

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Enabling Free On-line Access to UK Law Reports: The Copyright Problem

Philip Leith and Cynthia Fellows

18 International Journal of Law & Information Technology   72 (Spring 2010)

Abstract

The history of publishing legal decisions (law reporting) in the UK has been that of a privatised system since its inception, and that history has encompassed several hundred years. The privatised nature of this has meant that the product (the law report) has been, except in limited cases, viewed as the property of the publisher, rather than the property of the court or public. BAILII is an open access legal database that came about in part because of the copyrighted, privatised nature of this legal information.

In this paper, we will outline the problem of access to pre-2000 judgments in the UK and consider whether there are legal or other remedies which might enable BAILII to both develop a richer historic database and also to work in harmony, rather than in competition, with legal publishers. We argue that public access to case law is an essential requirement in a democratic common law system, and that BAILII should be seen as a potential step towards a National Law Library.

Sudan Laws Online

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Sudan Laws Online is a database that offers a selection of  full-text Sudenese statutes. All documents and the search interface are in Arabic. The Web site also includes news and some commentary. The database has free materials and also subscription content.

Sudan Laws Online

http://www.sudanlaws.net

To access the statutes click on

قوانين السودان.

Sample Laws available:

Criminal Code

Code of Civil Procedure

Code of Crminal Procedure

Civil Transactions Law

Evidence Act

 Labor Relations Act

Code, Access to Knowledge and the Law: The Governance of Knowledge in the Digital Age

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“Code, Access to Knowledge and the Law: The Governance of Knowledge in the Digital Age“

by Antonios G. Broumas, University of Athens

Abstract:
“This paper endeavours to clarify the role of technology in the governance of knowledge in the networked information society. Its central argument is that modern technologies of control, deployed as they are by powerful actors, tend to indiscriminately exclude access to knowledge, and, as a result, impede the dramatic potential of the digital age. In the process of underpinning the above thesis, the patterns of interrelation between code and the law and their influence on the networked information society are examined. It is argued that the existing equilibrium between control and A2K is disproportionately disposed toward specific private interests, originating primarily from powerful market players of traditional industrial sectors, while generally disregarding other private interests, or indeed the interest of the public as a whole. The paper concludes by calling for more equitable and balanced equilibria between control and A2K, implemented in a model of governance more clearly orientated towards social and economic development.”

Source: Legal Information & Technology Abstracts, Vol. 2, No. 4 (2/9/2010)



Will Knowledge and People Converge?

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In today’s HuffPo, Paul Lippe (Legal OnRamp founder) interviews David Curle (legal information market analyst) in “Will Knowledge & People Converge?”

The interview moves through key trends and recent history in the legal information and publishing sector (including the latest improvements offered by the ‘big guys’ at Westlaw and Lexis).

Then the discussion shifts to the impact of Google Scholar‘s free case law on the legal information market:

“It’s revolutionary in the sense that the general public now has easy access to the law of the land, something that was surprisingly hard to obtain before.”

Curle mentions the FastCase iPhone app that allows free searching of its database.   The days of charging for ‘just access’ to primary legal materials are coming to a close.    And, welcome to the generation of data.gov and law.gov:

“Law.gov has the ambition of making all primary US legal material available in standardized, machine-readable formats that can be incorporated into new kinds of information products.”

. . . .

“open access to legal sources will spur the creation of new markets for legal information among consumers, and even more so among non-lawyer professionals who need to understand a narrow field of that they work with all the time. Expect to see new products and services built on top of the free legal information that will make the law more accessible to those new markets.”

And, speaking of new products building on free content.  Curle moves on to discuss SpindleLaw.

“They are building, in a kind of collaborative, Wiki-like way, a database of the legal rules that lawyers find in court decisions and in legislation. Their idea is that it’s pretty inefficient to get to those rules by searching and reading long court opinions. They are extracting and organizing the rules with links to the legal sources. They have a long way to go to prove that the concept works, but I like the way they are trying to turn the research process on its head.”

These are very interesting times.

Daniel Webster Congressional Clerkship Act – Empirical Support

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The Daniel Webster Congressional Clerkship Act is again winding its way through Congress (H.R. 151 and S. 27).   This legislation would create a law clerk program in Congress much like judicial clerkships for recent law school graduates.

In the Washington University Law Review, Dakota S. Rudesill, who has written on this topic before, argues for this legislation with new empirical support.

In “Closing the Legislative Experience Gap: How A Legislative Clerk Program Will Benefit the Legal Profession and Congress,” Rudesill writes:

“[T]his legislation may die in the Senate as it did last session, unless the legal profession and Congress come to a better and more broadly held understanding of a congressional clerkship program’s potential benefits.

One is that over time it would begin to correct the profound comparative lack of legislative work experience among the legal profession’s leaders that my empirical research has identified. Here, I present new data demonstrating that the incidence of legislative work experience among the profession’s top 500 lawyers, as ranked by Lawdragon.com, trails badly behind experience working for courts, government executive bodies, in private practice, and in academe. These empirical findings supplement my study in this publication in 2008, which focused on federal appellate jurists and law professors at Top 20 law schools.

I argue that closing the legislative experience gap ultimately will benefit the profession and Congress by helping both of these key legal players better understand-and take more seriously-an under-appreciated reality: legislative work is legal work. I conclude by refuting objections, and encouraging lawyers to engage with Congress in support of the bill.”

The comment has some fascinating statistics.  For example, “less than 4 percent” of the “legal superstars” (from lawdragon.com) have worked inside a legislature.   “Academic experience is more than four times as common, private practice and judicial experience are nearly six times as common, and executive branch government experience is nearly seven times as common.”

The article closes with a plea to contact your Senator and ask for their support of S.27, along with a single page download that summarizes the legislation.

Book – Greening Justice: Creating and Improving Environmental Courts

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The University of Denver has posted an online version of the following book on environmental courts in foreign countries.

Greening Justice: Creating and Improving Environmental Courts

George Pring and Katherine Pring

Access Initiative, 2009

http://www.law.du.edu/documents/ect-study/greening-justice-book.pdf

Book description:

Over the last three decades judicial institutions in some

countries have responded to environmental challenges

in innovative ways. Perhaps the best example is the

Green Bench of the Supreme Court of India that hears

public interest environmental cases filed by citizens.

In other countries, Governments have set up specialized

environmental courts and tribunals. The Land and

Environment Court of New South Wales, Australia, is a

leading example of a specialized court. Over 350 specialized

environmental courts and tribunals have been

established in 41 countries.

Nevertheless, most citizens still lack adequate access to

justice. Comparative research to help us with a deeper

understanding of the capabilities and impact of these

institutions is almost non-existent. Greening Justice:

Creating and Improving Environmental Courts and Tribunals

seeks to fill this knowledge gap in the hope that all

those involved in creating or improving these specialized

institutions will have the benefit of a growing body

of global experiences.

George and Catherine Pring, a professor at the University

of Denver Sturm College of Law and a professional

mediator, respectively, from Colorado, authored this

volume based on field research they completed over the

last two years. They have interviewed judges, lawyers,

litigants, officials, and civil society representatives in

dozens of countries to unravel the key characteristics —

the “building blocks” — which contribute to making

environmental courts and tribunals effective in providing

citizen access to justice in environmental matters.

They identified 12 such characteristics and present them

with examples of successes and failures from around

the world. For those involved in creating or improving

environmental courts and tribunals, one of the most

useful aspects is the examples of best available practices

relating to each of the 12 characteristics. The volume

also provides a framework against which to assess existing

or proposed institutions.

Book: French-American Network for the Internationalization of Law

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The Januray 28th issue of Recueil Dalloz includes an interview in French with Professor Mireille Delmas-Marty discussing her work with the French-American Network for the Internationalization of Law; there are also Franco-Brazilian and Franco-Chinsese networks. In the interview she mentions a book she edited with Justice Stephen Breyer.

Regards croises sur l’internationalizaation du droit: France-Etat-Unis

Paris : Société de législation comparée, 2009

ISBN: 978-2-908199-79-6
http://www.lgdj.fr/colloques-etudes-rapports/229059/regards-croises-internationalisation-droit-france-etats

 Interview citation:

Le réseau internationalisation du droit: entretien trois questions a Mireille Delmas-Marty.

Recueil Dalloz 2010 #4/7409  page 248.

Librarians’ obituaries as inspiration

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I became interested in librarians while researching my first book, about obituaries.  With the exception of a few showy eccentrics, . . . , the most engaging obit subjects were librarians.  An obituary of a librarian could be about anything under the sun, a woman with a phenomenal memory, who recalled the books of her aging patrons read as children — and was also, incidentally, the best sailor on her stretch of the Maine coast — or a man obsessed with maps, who helped automate the Library of Congress’s map catalog and paved the way for wonders like Google Maps.

There were visionaries like Frederick Kilgour, the first to combine libraries’ catalogs in one computerized database back in the early seventies.  This was a great act in the history of knowledge — its efficient and useful multiplication.  Under Kilgour’s direction, what began as a few dozen college libraries in Ohio sharing their catalogs soon snowballed into a world catalog, the Online Computer Library Center.  Now anyone can go to WorldCat.org, the OCLC’s catalog of a gazillion library records, and find many libraries that carry the item you need; WorldCat has made very computer a portal to institutions from the Library of Congress to the Tauranga (New Zealand) District Library.  Kilgour lived to an age of ninety-two and taught until he was ninety. . . .

I met Judith Krug, another visionary librarian, in the course of my research.  Krug fought censorship for four decades while running the Office for Intellectual Freedom in the Chicago headquarters of the American Library Association (ALA).  She was tiny, beautifully turned out, and ferociously clear about the librarian’s role in fighting censorship.  I didn’t realize until I read her untimely obituary that Krug had launched Banned Books Week back in the eighties, a bold and pointed celebration of everything from Huckleberry Finn to trash and political incitement.  The banners flying in my public library the last week of September each year had been dreamed up by her.

But the first in a long list of memorialized librarians who made me want to inhabit this world was Henriette Avram.  She beckoned from the obits page, with her mysterious, knowing smile, the chain-smoking systems analyst who automated the library records of the Library of Congress and wrote the first code for computerized catalogs (MARC — Machine Readable Cataloging), a form of which is still used today.  She inspired a generation of women to combine library work and computers.  Her intellectual daughters and sons met after she died to pay her tribute, wearing giant buttons edged in black ribbon, bearing the image of their gray-haired heroine and the legend Mother of MARC.

Whether the subject was a community librarian or a prophet, almost every librarian obituary contained some version of this sentence:  “Under her watch, the library changed from a collection of books into an automated research center.”  I began to get the idea that libraries were where it was happening — wide open territory for innovators, activists, and pioneers.

From:

Author: Johnson, Marilyn, 1954-
Title: This book is overdue! : how librarians and cybrarians can  save us all / Johnson, Marilyn.
Edition: 1st ed.
Imprint: New York : Harper, c2010.
  Physical Description: xii, 272 p. ; 22 cm.
                  Note: Includes bibliographical references (p. [267]-272).
              Contents: The frontier — Information sickness — On the ground
                        — The blog people — Big brother and the holdout
                        company — How to change the world — To the ramparts!
                        — Follow that tattoed librarian — Wizards of odd –
                        Gotham city — What’s worth saving? — The best day.
          Subject (LC): Librarians–Anecdotes.
          Subject (LC): Libraries and society.
          Subject (LC): Library science.
                  ISBN: 9780061431609 : $24.99
                  ISBN: 0061431605 : $24.99

LAW CALL NUMBER                                               
   1)Z682 .J63 2009        

Librarians have always been my heroes.

Researching Chilean Law

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Julienne Grant, FCIL librarian at Loyola University Chicago, has created a wonderful research guide to Chilean Law, in Libguide format. The guide concentrates on English language sources, but also includes many important Spanish language resources. The guide includes books, journals, databases, Web links, and translation resources.

Many thanks to Julienne for building this excellent useful tool.

Researching Chilean Law

http://lawlibguides.luc.edu/content.php?pid=85136