Specialist multidisciplinary research (in risk intelligence and corporate responsibility) and advisory company Maplecroft, headquartered in Bath, England, has released its:
Cross-posted on Law Library Blog.
The U.S. Department of State today released its July-December, 2010 International Religious Freedom Report.
The Executive Summary of the report states, among other things:
This International Religious Freedom Report documents major developments with respect to religious freedom in 198 countries and territories from July-December 2010. The report reflects a broad understanding of universal religious freedom, one that includes the rights to hold private beliefs, including agnosticism or atheism, as well as the right to communal religious expression and education.
The International Religious Freedom Act of 1998 (IRF Act) defines five types of violations of religious freedom: arbitrary prohibitions on, restrictions of, or punishment for (i) assembling for peaceful religious activities, such as worship, preaching, and prayer, including arbitrary registration requirements; (ii) speaking freely about one’s religious beliefs; (iii) changing one’s religious beliefs and affiliation; (iv) possession and distribution of religious literature, including Bibles and other sacred texts; and (v) raising one’s children in the religious teachings and practices of one’s choice.
This report documents numerous ways in which governments and societies violate religious freedom, including:
- Active State Repression and Impunity
- Violent Extremist Attacks
- Apostasy and Blasphemy Laws
- Repression of Religious Minorities
- Anti-Semitism
- Restrictions on Muslim Attire and Expression
- Restrictions Derived from Security and Related Concerns
Universal Human Rights Conference: 500th Anniversary of Antonio de Montesinos
humanrights500.org
From the conference description and promotional materials:
On December 2-4, 2011, a coalition of universities and other institutions are hosting a conference and celebration in Washington, D.C. to assess what has been achieved in 500 years of human rights advocacy. The conference is scheduled to include Sunday, 4 December, the conventionally identified date in 1511 when Antonio de Montesinos, O.P. delivered a sermon in Santo Domingo calling for reform of Spanish policy toward the indigenous. That sermon launched a Spanish debate about the human rights of the Indians, which in turn contributed to advocacy of the universality of human rights. While concerned with the history of human rights, the conference will have as its focus current institutional and legal approaches to refine and enhance protections of human rights.
Working with international partners, Alma College’s Public Affairs Institute and Center for Responsible Leadership; George Mason University’s School of Conflict Analysis and Resolution; Georgetown University’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs; Justice for North America for the Dominican Family; Partnership for Global Justice; the Osgood Center for International Studies; the Washington Theological Consortium; the Aquinas Institute; and the Fundacja Centrum Solidarnosci are hosting a conference focused on assessing what has been achieved in 500 years of human rights advocacy. The conference will include Sunday, December 4, 2011, the conventionally identified date in 1511 when Antonio de Montesinos delivered a sermon in Santo Domingo calling for reform of Spanish policy toward the indigenous. That sermon launched a Spanish debate about the human rights of the Indians, which in turn contributed to later advocacy of the principle that human rights apply to all people, regardless of nationality. The new Spanish film Tambien La Lluvia (Even the Rain) has as its core purpose considering the legacy of Montesinos.
The conference is really a series of coordinated events that will bring together international scholars, graduate and undergraduate students, religious leaders, attorneys, civic leaders and workers in NGOs concerned with human rights (their history, definition, protection and enforcement). We will produce a “Proceedings,” collecting as many of the presentations as would be appropriate. Either as part of the “Proceedings” or in separate printed material, we anticipate assembling consensus documents that address contemporary human rights challenges.
We events will be held over the weekend of Friday, Dec. 2, 2011 through Sunday, December 4, 2011. The weekend will include the following parts:
Papers and panels are invited on the following topics:
The history and philosophy of universal human rights, while we anticipate special interest in the Americas and in imperial nations, we encourage wider perspectives;
The institutional structure and processes for protecting universal human rights (including the responsibility to protect), especially from Nuremberg to the ICC;
The relationship of human rights to issues such as sovereignty, migration, labor rights, gender, development, and security/terrorism;
The relationship of universal rights to different national, regional, historical, and indigenous cultures; and
Religion and human rights.
Please submit paper or panel proposals by OCTOBER 17, 2011.
The Governance and Social Development Resource Centre has put together a nice document library of citations and summaries of book chapters, reports, and journal articles arranged by keyword and by country. Links are provided to documents that are freely available on the Web. This site will help make up for the recent demise of the Intute portal.
From the Web site’s description:
“The document library is an up to date collection of the most credible publications available on governance, conflict and social development issues. It includes brief, policy-oriented summaries of each document highlighting the major findings and implications in an easy to read format, plus links to the full text online or by document delivery.
We monitor a wide range of publication sources weekly, including donors, NGOs and research institutes. Materials are carefully selected by our researchers to ensure that they are relevant to our topic area, demonstrate good practice or significant insight and represent a range of perspectives. Only the most credible and policy-relevant research, toolkits, analyses and case studies are included.”
Governance and Social Development Resource Centre Document Library
http://www.gsdrc.org/go/document-library
Each G-20 meeting has created its own Web site of documents, with varying degrees of comprehensiveness. No central repository exists of G-20 documentation, but some recent initiatives might help.
Bloomberg Law has started a G-20 Declarations library under the “Global Law” tab. It includes declarations from the G-20 summits since 2008.
http://www.bloomberglaw.com
Search > Global Law > World Organizations > Group of 20 > Declarations
An open access repository is being created at Archive-It. In addition to final proclamations, it should include preliminary documents and reports from experts and working groups.
http://www.archive-it.org/public/collection.html?id=2592
Diplomat’s Handbook for Democracy Development Support 2nd ed.
http://diplomatshandbook.org/_resource.html
http://diplomatshandbook.org/pdf/Diplomats_Handbook.pdf
Table of Contents
Preface by President Vaclav Havel
Ministers’ ForewordChapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: The International Context
Chapter 3: The Diplomat’s Toolbox
Chapter 4: Conclusions
CASE STUDIES:
Cuban Exceptionalism
Egypt: Will Democracy Succeed the Pharaoh
China’s Fifth Modernization: the Enduring Hope for Democratic Governance
South Africa: “The Long Road to Freedom”
From Independence to Real Democracy – Ukraine’s Orange Revolution
The Fall and Rise of Chilean Democracy: 1973-1989
Belarus: Europe’s Last Dictator?
The Suffering of Burma/Myanmar
Zimbabwe: From Hope to Crisis
Tanzania’s Road to Multi-Party Democracy: Focus on a Single Mission’s Efforts
Found online at http://www.diplomatshandbook.org/Tanzania
Sierra Leone: Belated International Engagement Ends a War, Helps Consolidate a Fragile Democracy. Found online at http://www.diplomatshandbook.org/SierraLeone
Resource List: Donor Organizations, Other Democracy Support Organizations and Election Assistance and Observation Organizations
Annex: International Human Rights Law
From the description:
The Diplomat’s Handbook is a project commissioned by the Community of Democracies, and produced by the Council for a Community of Democracies (CCD). The First Edition was produced with the financial support of the International Center on Nonviolent Conflict, Freedom House, the Princeton Project on National Security, the US Department of State, the Governments of Chile, India, and Morocco, and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade of the Government of Canada.
The Handbook project was conceived by Ambassador Mark Palmer. Preparation of the Handbook has been a partnership between Project Head, Ambassador Jeremy Kinsman (jeremykinsman@diplomatshandbook.org), who has been principally responsible for the text of the Handbook itself, and the Director of Research, Kurt Bassuener (kurtbassuener@diplomatshandbook.org), who has been principally responsible for producing the Handbook’s case studies
The text which follows and the case studies benefit from the generous contributions and advice of many former and current diplomatic practitioners, scholars, members of policy centers and nongovernmental organizations, and development experts. The case study on China was drafted by Chantal Meagher, the case study on Cuba by Jeremy Kinsman, and the case study on Egypt by a variety of experts, including Stephen McInerney, Moataz El Fegiery, Michele Dunne and Issandr El Amrani. The Belarus and Ukraine case study updates were undertaken with the assistance of Iryna Chupryna of the Democratization Policy Council.
Together with my Stanford Law School colleague George D. Wilson and our friend and Danish legal scholar Henrik Spang-Hanssen, we have just published the third edition of our legal research book, a revision of Legal Research Methods in the U.S. and Europe, 2nd Edition. But with the inclusion of short but good (in my opinion) chapters on legal research in China and Russia and some other materials, we have changed the title to Legal Research Methods in a Modern World: A Coursebook.
The book, now weighing in at 453 pages (and bargain priced at $ 55.00), is rich with illustrations and peppered with legal research tips. My contribution is mainly Chapter 5, about legal research methods in the United States, and it is based upon and follows the advanced legal research class that I co-teach here at Stanford. New to this edition, in addition to other updates, is the inclusion of research exercises that we have found most useful from the class. I did not include the answers — because I hope to continue to use these exercises — but I would be very happy to share the answers and my thoughts on approaches with other instructors of legal research.
The legal world is certainly getting smaller, and it is our shared belief that this would be handy book for any attorney to have as he or she deals with lawyers from other countries and their legal cultures.
The book should be available from Amazon.com; but if not, or if you want to order copies in mass quantities, the U.S. distributor is International Specialized Book Services. For other countries, the distributor is Marston Book Services.
We also have a corresponding website here.
The English language site of the Constitutional Court of South Korea provides links to supreme and constitutional courts of individual countries arranged by continent.
There are also links to a few selected international tribunals and five Korean government Web sites that provide resources in English, including the Ministry of Government Legislation (Korea Law in English)
http://english.ccourt.go.kr/
Click on “Legal Links” from the homepage.
Court Interpretation of Indigenous Agreements: Database
The Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy (CEPMLP) – University of Dundee (Scotland)
http://www.dundee.ac.uk/cepmlp/mining/indigenous/
From the database description:
This database has been compiled from over 200 cases and articles from courts/tribunals in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States of America. The decisions collated for the database are those that interpret or apply documents involving indigenous parties. The database records, for each decision:
- a brief summary of the decision (including URL where available);
- the details of the document(s) involving indigenous parties; and
- a summary of the court’s/tribunal’s engagement with that document.
The database’s search function allows users to focus and find decisions and articles according to particular need. For example, if researching the relevance of fiduciary obligations in relation to indigenous agreements, the database allows quick collation of all materials relevant to that.
The Strategic Studies Institute at the U.S. Army War College at Carlisle Barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania has recently published a 183-page paper:
Lessons Learned from U.S. Government Law Enforcement in International Operations
The paper, which — among other things — considers 3 case studies — of Panama, Columbia and Kosovo – is available for free download.
Its brief synopsis states:
Law enforcement (LE) aspects have been an increasingly prominent feature within the U.S. Government’s (USG’s) commitment to international operations. Beyond the deployment of police personnel to interim policing missions, LE agencies may also be involved in international operations to enforce U.S. domestic law; for capacity building; and/or in support of U.S. military forces. This analysis examines lessons from three operations: Panama (1989-99), Colombia (1989-Present), and Kosovo (1998-Present). This analysis was supported by an extensive range of interviews and in-country field research in Colombia and Kosovo. The lessons learned were developed and validated in a series of workshops with subject matter experts. The results show the pervasive and complex role that law enforcement and related issues have played in contemporary international operations. Despite the unique circumstances and history of each operation, there were key findings that are common to all operations considered and have implications for broader USG law enforcement efforts in support of current and future international operations.
Hat tip to DocuTicker.com.
