In response to the earthquake that devastated Haiti on January 12, 2010, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) stayed deportations of people with criminal convictions. On December 9, ICE lifted that ban.  According to the Center for Constitutional Rights, 89 Haitian nationals were arrested and detained last week. ICE officials claim the deportations will begin in January.

The Center for Constitutional Rights has joined forces with the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti, and Alternative Chance, to denounce ICE’s decision to deport Haitian nationals during the current conditions in Haiti, which include a cholera outbreak. The International Red Cross claimed that the epidemic has reached Haitian jails, and that at least 10 people had died from cholera as of November 29, 2010.

According to the civil rights groups, “Sending Haitian nationals to be detained in facilities deemed deplorable before the earthquake where exposure to cholera could lead to death is a violation of the U.S. government’s obligations under the Convention Against Torture (CAT). The Convention Against Torture prohibits the United States from deporting someone when it can be shown that "more likely than not that he or she would be tortured if removed to the proposed country of removal." 8 CFR 1208.16.

Has exposure to a life-threatening disease ever been considered torture under CAT?  You could plug 8 CFR 1208.16 into Lexis or Westlaw and check the citations from courts and administrative agencies.  You might want to take a look at this book on Defining Torture.  You can always use a periodicals index to narrow the focus of your periodicals search to just articles dealing with the Convention against Torture, and then narrowing your search to articles that include definitions, or articles that mention disease.

                      -Ryan Harrington

For over 40 years legislation on food and agriculture was collected and disseminated by Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) through a publication called Food and Agricultural Legislation.

Since the advent of the digital in formation age, the FAO Legal Office has taken up the challenge to provide its user community with an accessible, more comprehensive and up-to-date legal information service through its online database, FAOLEX.

FAOLEX contains treaties, laws, and regulations on food, agriculture, and renewable natural resources from all over the world. Most of the material comes from the official gazettes sent by FAO's Member Nations pursuant to Article XI of the FAO Constitution. Upon receiving such material, the FAO Legal Office selects, indexes, and summarizes in English, French, or Spanish significant texts pertaining to FAO’s mandate, i.e. legislation on agriculture, livestock, environment, fisheries, food, forestry, land & soil, cultivated plants, water, and wild species & ecosystems. Records are provided in either English, French or Spanish or the language of communication used by the originating country.

The Legal Information Institute of India (LII of India) is now open for public access prior to its formal launch in India in early 2011.

LII of India at present has 50 databases, including over 300,000 decisions from 37 Courts and Tribunals, Indian national legislation from 1836, over 800 bilateral treaties, law reform reports and about 500 law journal articles. The LawCite citator tracks case and journal article citations. Further case law, and State and Territory legislation, will be added by the time of the formal launch.

LII of India has been developed through cooperation between four leading Indian Law Schools (NALSAR University of Law, Hyderabad; National Law School of India University, Bangalore;  National Law University, Delhi, and  Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law, Indian Institute of Technology - Kharagpur) in partnership with AustLII. The technical hub of the project will be NALSAR in Hyderabad, with initial development and ongoing support from AustLII.

Prof VC Vivekanandan of NALSAR is the Director. Funding support has been provided primarily by AusAid, with additional support from the Australian Research Council and the Commonwealth Secretariat.

There is an Outline of the project and a User Guide.

Many system features will be familiar to users of WorldLII, AustLII (Australian LII), SAFLII (Southern African LII), etc.

The Ninth Session of the Assembly of States Parties (ASP) to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC) will be held at the United Nations in New York this week December 6th to 10th 2010.

Representatives from the 113 States Parties to the Rome Statute will gather to discuss various issues and decide on the Court's operational matters. The Ninth Session follows the Kampala Review Conference which concluded in June of this year with parties adopting a resolution on a definition and framework for the prosecution of the crime of Aggression.

Historical treatises and primary sources on ICC jurisprudence are located on L1 of the law library with call number KZ6310.

December 1^st marks World AIDS Day, commemorated annually since 1988. Events will take place around the world. The day is seen as one promoting human rights, and the campaign slogan is universal access and human rights. There is a major rights campaign under the banner of Light for Rights. According to the World Health Organization, as of 2009, there were 33.3 million people living with HIV, including 2.7 million children. In 2009, 2.6 million people were newly infected with HIV, and 1.8 million died because of the disease.

Sub-Saharan Africa is the area most affected by the virus. In 2009, it accounted for 67% of the infections worldwide, 68% of new infections among adults, and 91% among children. It also accounted for 72% of the world’s AIDS related deaths. 

Law virtually touches on all things, and it is not surprising that the Yale Law Library’s collection includes numerous books on law as it relates to AIDS. A few recent examples of books especially bearing onAIDS and  human rights are the following:

• Jones, Peris S., AIDS Treatment and Human Rights in Context
• Dwasi, Jane A., The Human Right to Work in the Era of HIV and AIDS
• Engh, Ida-Eline, Developing Capacity to Realise Socio-Economic Rights: The Right to Food in the Context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa and Uganda
• Human Sciences Research Council, Associates for Development, International Center for Research on Women, Women’s Property Rights HIV and AIDS and Domestic Violence: Research Findings From Two Districts in South Africa and Uganda
• Mapetia, Matseliso, Gender, HIV/AIDS, and the Law in Lesotho: Embracing Rights-Based-Approach to Promote Women’s Sexual and ReproductionRights

 There is also a great webpage that can lead you to the HIV/AIDS laws of the world: HIV/AIDS Laws of the World.

                                                                                                         ----- Daniel Wade

The Doing Business Law Library is the largest free online collection of business laws and regulations. Created by The Worldbank, the database links to official government sources wherever possible. Translations are not official unless indicated otherwise. The collection is updated regularly but cannot guarantee that laws are the most recent version.

The Doing Business Gender Law Library is a collection of national legal provisions impacting women's economic status in 183 economies. The database facilitates comparative analysis of legislation, serves as a resource for research, and contributes to reforms that can enhance women’s full economic participation. The laws are not always the most recent version, nor is the library exhaustive, and the translations are not official unless indicated.

-- Thanks to Camilla for bringing this database to my attention some time ago!

Seeking to create its own version of Silicon Valley, the Russian government is building a new "technology incubator" zone.  In September 2010, President Dmitri Medvedev signed a new law to establish the Skolkovo Innovation Center, located 20 kilometers west of Moscow.  It will provide incentives for private companies to engage in research and development and commercial application of new technologies, focusing on information technology (IT), space research, nuclear energy, environmental protection and energy-saving. 

A special commission will consider applications for participation; over 40 companies have already submitted proposals.  The Russian authorities also plan to provide top-notch infrastructure and facilities, andthey have already allocated over $133 million to the project.

Under the new legislation, companies accepted as "members" of the Center will be entitled to a variety of special privileges, including a 10-year holiday from income, value-added, and property taxes; reimbursement of customs duties for certain imported equipment; and rights to operate under streamlined accounting and technical regulations.  There are even plans for a new court to be located in the Center that will handle intellectual property disputes, with the goal of reducing IP infringement.  From: Russian Law News.

                                                                                                                       ----- Barbara Olszowa

Poland's Justice Ministry estimates the number of online registered and reviewed court cases in Poland this year to be at half a million. More than 300,000 e-cases were filed by September, something not many had expected. There are speculations that some 100,000 people would take advantage of this solution, as altogether Polish courts reviewed 1.2 million cases last year. It turns out that almost half that number will be referred to e-courts this year. This novel way of seeking court arbitration was introduced in Poland on January 1, 2010. Fees for online reviewed cases are three times lower than for traditional court room proceedings. From, Poland's e-courts gain popularity.

                                                                                                            ----- Barbara Olszowa

The European Convention on Human rights turned 60 this month.

In celebration of this event, the European Court of Human Rights has devoted a page to demonstrating the Convention in video and pictures. The page even has illustrations of the specific articles of the convention, such as the right to a fair trial:

Today the Court released ten judgments, and will release ten more on November 23^rd, and then 17 more on the 25^th.

Today's judgments included a ruling in Boutagni v. France, about a Moroccan national who argued that his expulsion from France would subject him to degrading treatment and torture. Recent judgments have included Alexseyev v. Russia  (violation of peaceable right to assembly by a gay rights activist).

A subject heading search in Morris for the European Convention On Human Rights will redirect you towards Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (1950) where you will find hundreds of books in our collection.

                                                                                                           ----- Ryan Harrington

For an overview of the Singapore legal system, other than consulting the Foreign Law Guide and the law library Country-by-Country Guide, these open-source research guides are helpful. See here, here and here.

The primary law of Singapore consists of its Constitution, statutes, subsidiary legislation, and case law.  The law library does not subscribe to the fee-based database on Singapore law, LawNet, yet much of the recent primary law of Singapore is available freely on the web.

Statutes     Singapore Statutes Online includes major constitutional documents and recent statutes but does not include subsidiary legislation. The Singapore Parliament website covers bills from 2002, selective committee reports from 2004, and parliament reports/debates.

Case Law     LawNet, hosted by the Singapore Academy of Law, provides free access to the current three months of decisions and judgments rendered by the Subordinate Courts and the Supreme Court. The Academy website also includes Law Reform Reports.  Singapore Law Reports which cover selective Supreme Court decisions are available in Lexis.  Singapore Academy of Law Annual Review of Singapore cases, basically a discussion of cases selected from the Singapore Law Reports, is available in HeinOnline and in print.

EGov Portal     EGazettes, the electronic version of the Singapore Government Gazette, is published daily and available for free public viewing for 5 days. The government information portal provides links to government departments and selective current legislation.

Current Awareness     Singapore Law Watch, managed also by the Singapore Academy of Law, provides links and RSS feed subscription to legislative updates, recent judgments and commentaries. CommonLII covers selective legislation, judgments and secondary sources including the Singapore Yearbook of International Law.

For the law library print collection, treatises relating to the law of Singapore are shelved in the Lower East Side foreign law collection with the call number KPP.

A recent blog posting on website of the International Vision Collective, dedicated to promoting universal values awareness, tells us of child worker exploitation in the cocoa-growing industry in Ghana and the Ivory Coast by the Hershey Company, the largest American candy producer and a purveyor of many Halloween treats from Almond Joy to Kit-Kat. See, Fair Trade Chocolate Trumps Hershey's this Halloween.

Tulane University Law School’s Payson Center for International Development recently reported on the use of child labor in the cocoa sector in West Africa, citing Hershey as one company that needs to more closely supervise its supply chain.  In response, many NGOs have called upon Hershey to undertake fair trade practices and the abolition of child labor in the cocoa industry. Hershey is alleged to be the only U.S. chocolate manufacturer that has failed to adopt any type of labor certification, i.e., to have their labor practices monitored by an organization that screens for the abuse of labor rights.

In recent months the Yale Law Library has been increasing it collection of materials dealing with global food issues. Examples of books recently added to the collection include: Ensuring Global Food Safety: Exploring Global Harmonization edited by Christine Boisrobert; The New Regulation and Governance of Food: Beyond the Food Crisis by Terry Marsden; and, Food Crises and the WTO: World Trade Forum by Baris Karapinar and Christian Haberli.

A quick search of Labordoc, a bibliographic service of the International Labour Organization (ILO), brought up a report from 1996 entitled, Child labour and cocoa production in West Africa: The case of Côte d'Ivoire and Ghana,  and another from 2007, Rooting out child labour from cocoa farms.

                                                                                                                            ---- Daniel Wade

Finding cases from Canada has gotten much easier in recent years with the addition of online resources.  Both the Bluebook (19th ed.) and the Canadian Citation Committee now require a neutral citation if one exists.  Neutral citations are in the format of case name, year [no brackets], court abbreviation (no periods), and document number.  The court abbreviation is chosen by the court, and most Canadian courts have chosen their neutral citation abbreviation.  Document number is usually a chronological number assigned to the decision.  Parallel citations may follow the neutral citation if one (or more) exists.  For example, Canada (Prime Minister) v. Khadr, 2010 SCC 3, [2010] 1 S.C.R. 44.  This citation can easily by found on CanLII and can lead you to the proper neutral citation (SCC) and a parallel print citation (S.C.R.).

There are still plenty of print reporters to wander through as well. Cases from the Supreme Court of Canada can be found in two reporters in order of Bluebook preference:

• Canada: Supreme Court Reports (S.C.R.) - KE140 .A21971
  
• Dominion Law Reports (D.L.R.) - KE132 .A216

Other Federal Court cases are generally found in these reporters:

• Federal Court Reports (1971 - current) - KE138 .A21971
  
  • from 1971 - 2003, the abbreviation is F.C.
    
  • beginning in 2004, the abbreviation is now F.C.R.
    
• Exchequer Court Reports (1875 - 1971) - Canada 36 Ex241

Many of the Canadian cases are online, free, and official. 

• Judgments of the Supreme Court of Canada (S.C.R.) - give the neutral citation and the reporter citation
  
• Federal Court Reports - these are digital versions of the print F.C. and F.C.R. volumes; you can open the entire volume for proper pagination
  
• Federal Court of Appeals - this is the neutral citation and document
• CanLII - gives the full-text opinion with the neutral citation, CanLII citation, and any parallel citations
  

CanLII is extremely helpful for sourcecites and bookpulls because it gives not only the neutral citation but also parallel citations. See, for example, Canada (Prime Minister) v. Khadr, 2009 FC 405 (April 23, 2009), 2009 FC 405 (CanLII), [2010] 1 F.C.R. 34, 188 C.R.R. (2d) 342, 341 F.T.R. 300.

• C.R.R. is the Canadian Rights Reporter - KE4381.5 .A45 C36
• We have the Federal Trial Reports (F.T.R.) in print up to 2008 - KE144 .A23

Other online resources for finding Canadian cases are:

• Quicklaw (subscription)
• Westlaw and Lexis (passwords)

As always, please do not hesitate to see a librarian for assistance!

Cases from the UK are published in many reporters, both official and unofficial, and online in several databases.  The new Bluebook (19th ed.) gives the names of the reporters considered authoritative and a list of acceptable online services.  In fact, for cases after 2001, a neutral citation from BAILII, the British and Irish Legal Information Institute, is required (T2.42, p.408).  An example of a neutral citation is, Glasgow Corp. v. Central Land Board, [1955] UKHL 7.  

Cases from England and Wales are often sought after for sourcecites and general research.  As explained in the Bluebook (T2.42.1, p.414), cases after 1865 are published in and should be cited to the official Law Reports, which consists of many different sets of reporters including

• Appeal Cases (A.C.) - KD275.4
  • Related earlier reporters in this series are: 
    
    • English and Irish Appeal Cases - KD275 .L39
      
    • Scotch and Divorce Appeals - KD275.2 .L39
      
    • Privy Council Appellate - KD275.3 .L39
      
• Chancery Division (Ch.) - KD276.3 .L39
  
• Queen's Bench (Q.B.) - KD277.7 .L39
  
• King's Bench (K.B.) - KD277.7 .L39 (same as above, but when a King reigned)
• Probate Division (P.) - KD279.3 .L39
• Family Division (Fam.) - KD279.4 .L39 (replacing Probate Division in 1972)

If the case cannot be found in Law Reports, you can use the following reporters, in order of preference:

• Weekly Law Reports (W.L.R.) - KD282
  
• All England Law Reports (All E.R.) - KD288 .A64

There are still more print reporters that can be used if needed, such as:

• Lloyd's Law Reports (L.L.R.) - KD1815 .A2 .L57
• Human Rights Law Reports - UK Cases (H.R.L.R.) - KD4080 .A38 H86
• UK Human Rights Reports (U.K.H.R.R.) - we do not have
• International Law Reports (I.L.R.) - KZ199 .I58
  

Finally, you can find cases from the United Kingdom in several databases:

• BAILII (free)
• Lawtel (subscription)
• Justis (subscription) - also includes access to International Law Reports (I.L.R.)
  
• Westlaw and Lexis (Passwords)

As always, please feel free to see a librarian for assistance in this complicated quest.  Also see this research guide.

The New York Times today has an excellent article about the effects of foreclosure laws in Spain.  In Spain, foreclosure and eviction do not terminate the debt, so after losing their homes, many people owe the remainder of the mortgage.  According to the article, people cannot escape the debt through bankruptcy either, because mortgage debt is specifically excluded from the bankruptcy laws. 

You can find the laws in the official gazette of Spain, the Boletín Oficial del Estado.  We also have access to a database called vLex, where you can research legislation and caselaw as well as secondary sources.  The Foreign Law Guide's chapter on Spain (also a subscription database) is an excellent introduction to the Spanish legal system.  More Spanish resources can be found using the Country-by-Country guide.

If you are looking for the laws in English you can consult the book Butterworths International Insolvency Laws.   The book will also allow you to compare laws in Spain to laws in several other European countries.  Other books and secondary sources on this subject can be found here, in Morris.

                                                                                                                                                         ----- Ryan Harrington

A gazette is an official government pulication that conveys government business, news, and laws as they are passed to the public.  Most countries have a gazette and many are available free online.  The regularity of publication of gazettes varies by country as do their official names, naturally, as they are published in the vernacular.  For example, the gazette of Peru is called El Peruano; it is in Spanish, publshed daily, and available online.

The gazette of South Korea is the Gwanbo; it is in Korean and also published online.

You can find a complete list of gazettes on our Country-by-Country Guide to Foreign Legal Research.  This portal also has research guides for each country to help you get started researching the law of foreign nations.

We are pleased to report that our print Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire (Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiˇiskoˇi Imperii), 1649, has been in significant use by our patrons.

PSZRI is the complete collection of legislation of the Russian Empire and is considered one of the most monumental collections in Russian imperial law. The collection is arranged in chronological order and should not be confused with Polnyĭ  svod zakonov Rossiĭskoĭ imperii, a 16-volume set of laws published in 1911, in which many of the laws were systematically consolidated into topical codes rather than in chronological order.

PSZRI was begun through the efforts of Emperor Nikolas I and in 1826 entrusted to the second branch of His Imperial Majesty’s Chancellery. The set was published under the guidance of M. M. Speranskii, from 1839-1873.

As part of the project designed to establish the National Digital Library in Russia, NLR enriched its library by digitizing the Complete Collection of the Laws of the Russian Empire. Currently, all readers have open-access to the complete texts of the first, second and third collections.  Comments and suggestions on the use of this resource can be sent to the NLR webmaster.

This is part of one of the digitized volumes (pdf) of the Complete Law which contains beautiful illustrations of Russian crests.

                                                                                                                      ----- Basia Olszowa

On post-Lisbon EU:

A guide to European Union law : as amended by the Treaty of Lisbon / by P.S.R.F. Mathijsen. London : Sweet & Maxwell, 2010.
KJE947 .M38 2010

The regimes of European integration : constructing governance of the single market / Shawn Donnelly. Oxford : Oxford University Press, 2010.
JZ1570 .D67 2010

On international environmental law:

International judicial control of environmental protection : standard setting, compliance control, and the development of international environmental law by the international judiciary / Yasuhiro Shigeta. Alphen aan den Rijn : Kluwer Law International ; Frederick, MD : Aspen Publishers [distributor for North, Central, and South America], c2010.
K3585 .S53 2010

On international arbitration:

Handbook on international commercial arbitration / Peter Ashford. Huntington, N.Y. : JurisNet, LLC, c2009.
K2400 .A984 2009

On conflict of laws:

Intellectual property in the global arena : jurisdiction, applicable law, and the recognition of judgments in Europe, Japan and the US / edited by Jürgen Basedow, Toshiyuki Kono and Axel Metzger.
Tübingen : Mohr Siebeck, c2010.
K7550 .I583 2010

The private international law of non-contractual obligations according to the Rome-II regulation : a comparative study of the choice of law rules in tort under European, English and German law / Claus Wilhelm Fröhlich. Hamburg, Germany : Kovac, 2008.
KJC979.T67 F76 2008

On discrimination in employment:

Pregnant pause : an international legal analysis of maternity discrimination / Anne-Marie Mooney Cotter. Farnham, Surrey, England ; Burlington, VT : Ashgate, c2010.
K1770 .C684X 2010

We have free trials right now for:

• Brill International Law & Human Rights / eBooks bundle – through November 19 - IP Access 
  
  
• Trade Law Guide – through October - IP Access 
  
  
• BNA Tax Treaties – through October - IP Access 
  
  
• IBFD - International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation (foreign and International tax – through October -  password access (contact Teresa for a password)) 

It is very important for us to hear whether you believe we should license any of these databases.  So please use these databases and provide feedback to Teresa. Thank you!

October 5^th marks Raoul Wallenberg Day. This is the day he was awarded United States citizenship in 1981, posthumously. (The second person to receive this honor after Winston Churchill). Part of 15th Street, SW in Washington, D.C., the section where the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is located, is named Raoul Wallenberg Place.

Raoul Wallenberg (1912-1947) was a Swedish diplomat who worked in Budapest, Hungary, during World War II to rescue Jews from the Holocaust; he saved tens of thousands of them. The Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law located in Lund, Sweden, is an independent academic institution named in his honor. The mission of the institute is “to promote universal respect for human rights and humanitarian law by means of research, academic education, dissemination and institutional development.”

One of the important human rights resources in the Yale Law Library is the Raoul Wallenberg Institute Human Rights Library. A recent example from this monographic series is International Human Rights Monitoring Mechanisms: Essays in Honour of Jakob Th. Moller.   In conjunction with Martinus Nijhoff, the Institute publishes four serials: the Baltic Yearbook of International Law, the Chinese Yearbook of Human Rights, the Nordic Journal of International Law,  and the International Journal of Minority and Group Rights.

                                                                                                                                     ----- Daniel Wade

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has filed the first sexual orientation-based discrimination case before the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.  The IACHR published the following press release:

IACHR TAKES CASE INVOLVING CHILE TO THE INTER-AMERICAN COURT

Washington, D.C., September 20, 2010 – The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) filed an application with the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in a case involving Chile.

On September 17, 2010, the IACHR filed an application in the Karen Atala and daughters, which concerns the discriminatory treatment and arbitrary interference in the private and family life Karen Atala experienced due to her sexual orientation. In the Merits Report 139/09, the Commission concluded that the State of Chile was responsible for the discrimination against Karen Atala in the course of judicial process that resulted in the decision to deny her the care and custody of her daughters. The case also concerns the failure to observe the best interest of her daughters, whose custody and care the Commission considered were determined in violation to their rights. The case was referred to the Inter-American Court because the IACHR concluded the State did not comply with the recommendations contained in its Merits Report.

This is the first case that the Inter-American Commission decides on discrimination based on sexual orientation. This case will allow the Inter-American Court to decide for the first time on the incompatibility of this type of discrimination with the American Convention.

A principal, autonomous body of the Organization of American States (OAS), the IACHR derives its mandate from the OAS Charter and the American Convention on Human Rights. The Inter-American Commission has a mandate to promote respect for human rights in the region and acts as a consultative body to the OAS in this matter. The Commission is composed of seven independent members who are elected in a personal capacity by the OAS General Assembly and who do not represent their countries of origin or reside.

The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, created in 1959, is primarily charged with the taskf promoting the observance and defense of human rights in the Americas.  The Inter-American Court of Human Rights was created in 1979.  It is an autonomous judicial institution of the OAS whose task is to interpret and enforce the American Convention on Human Rights. Decisions from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights can be found here on the website of the Court and can also be found, along with select decisions from the IACHR, in the Oxford Reports on International Law - Human Rights module.

The Inter-American human rights system helps explain the differences between the commission and the court.  We also have manuals on practice and procedure before the Court.  In addition, we have a wealth of information about the Court and Commission in Spanish.   Simply search the catalog for Inter-American Commission on Human Rights  or Inter-American Court of Human Rights  as subject headings.

                                                                                                                                    ---- Ryan Harrington

From the exhibit, "Mexico Celebrates its Bicentennial: 1810-2010", curated by Teresa Miguel and Michael Widener, and on display in the Rare Book Exhibition Gallery, Level L2, Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.  All works are part of the Yale Law Library collection unless otherwise indicated.

Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15), first proclaimed as Hispanic Heritage Week in 1968, celebrates the Hispanic, Latino, and Chicano cultures of the United States while recognizing the independence of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua on September 15, Mexico on September 16, and Chile on September 18.

September 16, 2010, marked the bicentennial of the beginning of Mexican independence from Spain:

About eight o’clock in the morning on September 16, 1810, Father Miguel Hidalgo exhorted a crowd of some 600 men who had come for Mass at the hamlet of Dolores where he was the curate to join him in rebellion; most did. This event, known as the Grito de Dolores (Cry of Dolores), began the eleven years war for Mexican independence.

-- Robert L. Scheina, Latin America’s Wars (2003).

That same autumn, a group of progressive-minded Spaniards and leaders from the Spanish colonies in the Americas began work on a document focusing on the concepts of liberty and equality which eventually became Spain’s first constitution. The Constitution of Cadiz was written during the Peninsular Wars when Spain was wresting away control of its homeland from Napoleon. Several leaders from the Spanish colonies including Mexico, Chile, Peru, and Ecuador, participated in the Cadiz debates. Naturally, they returned to the Americas and influenced the writing of their own constitutions.

Mexico’s Constitution of 1824, the first after achieving independence from Spain, was heavily influenced by the Constitution of Cadiz. Miguel Ramos Arizpe (1775-1843), a Mexican priest and politician, was present in Cadiz and was an active participant in the creation of the Mexican Constitution of 1824, a precursor to Mexico’s current Constitution of 1917. Ramos Arzipe later served as Minister of Justice to four presidents including Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna.

(Photograph courtesy of Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas)

Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla (1753-1811), a Catholic priest and illustrious military general, is considered the Padre de la Patria, or Founding Father, and initiator of its indepen-dence. It was he who organized and led the first group of insurgents in September 1810 in what would be a lengthy but successful fight for independence. In December 1810, Padre Hidalgo, acting as head of the newly established alternative Mexican government in Guadalajara, issued a decree abolishing slavery. He was captured by Spanish forces in January 1811 and rapidly jailed, excommunicated, found guilty of treason, and executed before a firing squad.

The volume below is a tribute to famous Mexican places and people who contributed to the legacy, evolution, and culture of law and justice in Mexico.

El Abogado Mexicano: Historia e Imagen (México: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas, 1992).

The next work, written the same year as Mexico’s first constitution, is a report by the judges of the Mining Tribunal to the Supreme Executive Power of Mexico on the re-establishment of mining regulations, procedure, protection, promotion, and commerce in Mexico. The Supreme Executive Power had expressly requested recommendations from the Tribunal, which advocated comercio libre or free market in this field.

Memoria acerca de los Medios que se Estiman Justos para el Fomento y Pronto Restablecimiento de la Minería presentada por el Tribunal del mismo cuerpo al Supremo Poder Ejecutivo (Mexico 1824).

Antonio López de Santa Anna (1794-1876) was just 16 years old when he joined the colonial Spanish army to fight against the insurgency of Miguel Hidalgo and the rebel forces. Santa Anna rose quickly through the ranks of the Spanish army, but in 1821, he declared his loyalty to Agustín de Iturbide, a general in the Mexican Army who led the decisive assault on Mexico City to secure Mexico’s independence from Spain. Santa Anna’s life was long and complex. He served as Mexico’s leader eleven times, the first in 1833. He is best remembered as the commander who, in 1836, stormed the Alamo in the Texas Revolution.

In 1845, during his fifth presidency, Santa Anna was arrested by opposition forces and tried for treason. This document is Santa Anna’s plea from San Carlos de Perote prison to the Court to release him and allow him, against his true desire, to leave Mexico. His wish was granted and he was exiled to Cuba shortly thereafter.

Antonio López de Santa Anna, Exposición que el Exmo. Sr. D. Antonio López de Santa-Anna dirige desde la Fortaleza de San Cárlos de Perote á los Exmos. Señores Secretarios de la Cámara de Diputados para que se sirvan dar cuenta en la sesión del Gran Jurado, señalada para el día 24 de febrero del corriente año (Mexico, 1845).

After the Spanish colonies won independence, the law of each newly formed country evolved individually. This early 19th-century lawyer’s manual explains the state of the law in Peru only a few years after its independence (1821). Originally written by law professor Juan Eugenio de Ochoa and printed in Paris in 1827, this second edition was “corrected and improved” by an unnamed “society of friends” and reprinted in Peru in 1830.

Juan Eugenio de Ochoa, Manual del Abogado Americano (Arequipa, Peru, 1830).

Vicente Morales y Duárez (1757-1812) was sent to Cadiz in 1810 to participate along with other representatives from the Spanish colonies in the Cortes de Cadiz. They were the Diputados de Indias, the Deputies from the Americas, and were granted full rights and freedoms to participate in the assembly alongside their counterparts from Spain and the Philippines. Morales y Duárez, who was greatly respected by his colleagues on both sides of the Atlantic, was speci-fically instrumental in the establishment of the Cortes, which was charged with creating a body of laws and ultimately issued the Constitution of Cadiz. He died suddenly in Cadiz of apoplexy shortly after the promul-gation of the Constitution.  This volume is a tribute to Morales y Duárez and his short but successful and influential career which helped shape Peruvian constitutional law.

Luis Alayza y Paz Soldán, La Constitución de Cádiz de 1812: El Egregio Limeño Morales y Duárez (Lima, 1946).

Special thanks to Maria Gutierrez, PhD '15, and Jaime Olaiz Gonzalez, JSD '14, for their expert assistance and suggestions.

We have just created two new research guides for those of you interested in foreign and international law research; one on International Arbitration  and another on International Investment Law.  You will find tabs for treatises, journals, awards and decisions, treaties, institutions, and current awareness.  As always, our guides are works-in-progress so please feel free to speak with any of the librarians about suggestions or questions you may have.

 Students who are considering paper topics might want to consult the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law and the Electronic Information System for International Law to gain some familiarity with subjects and resources on a wide variety of topics.

For those of you interested in arbitration, our new Global Arbitration Review database provides not only the electronic version of the journal, but also news and trends regarding arbitration.  You can also go directly to the Permanent Court of Arbitration site to examine recent decisions as well as documents for cases that are currently pending before the court.  The PCA only identifies cases on their site when parties have agreed, but will include all sorts of documents, including transcripts of the hearings and webcasts when available.  There are many other ways to find out what is currently happening in arbitration, so take a look at our research guide.

Other research guides can be found on the law library website.

                                                                                                                                                                 ---- Ryan Harrington

The Yale Law Library has obtained a trial subscription for the next month or so to the Trade Law Guide.  This database is a new WTO research product.  It is the only database on WTO law that enables the user to "note up" WTO law.  "Noting up" refers to examining the judicial treatment of legislation or a case and is a crucial step in legal research.

 This trial subscription is available to all member of the Yale community when connected to the Yale network (IP access).

 The Law Library appreciates any feedback regarding this database.  Please direct your comment to teresa.miguel@yale.edu.

 Enjoy!

Beginning today, Tuesday, September 14, 2010, and for the next three days, the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea will be transmitting live hearings from Tribunal on their website: http://www.itlos.org/procedings/video/live_en.shtml.  The subject of the hearings is a Request for an Advisory Opinion on the responsibilities and obligations of States sponsoring persons and entities with respect to activities in the International Seabed Area.

The times of the hearings are local time Germany, which is six hours ahead of Eastern Standard Time.  Thus, today's hearing that begins at 3pm in Hamburg, begins at 9am in New Haven.

Below please find ITLOS' Press Release: 

INTERNATIONAL TRIBUNAL FOR THE LAW OF THE SEA

TRIBUNAL INTERNATIONAL DU DROIT DE LA MER

Press Release

RESPONSIBILITIES AND OBLIGATIONS OF STATES SPONSORING PERSONS AND ENTITIES WITH RESPECT TO ACTIVITIES IN THE

INTERNATIONAL SEABED AREA

(REQUEST FOR ADVISORY OPINION

SUBMITTED TO THE SEABED DISPUTES CHAMBER)

PUBLIC HEARING TO BE HELD FROM 14 SEPTEMBER 2010

LIVE WEBCAST OF THE HEARINGS ON THE TRIBUNAL’S WEBSITE

            Hamburg, 6 September 2010. The public hearings of the Seabed Disputes Chamber of the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea regarding the Request for an Advisory Opinion on the responsibilities and obligations of States sponsoring persons and entities with respect to activities in the International Seabed Area will open on 14 September 2010 at 3 p.m. Judge Tullio Treves, President of the Chamber, will preside. The public hearings will be transmitted live on the Tribunal’s website.

By Order of 18 May 2010, the President of the Seabed Disputes Chamber invited States Parties to the Convention, the International Seabed Authority and those organizations invited as intergovernmental organizations to participate as observers in the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority to indicate their intention to make oral statements at the hearing no later than 3 September 2010.

Nine States and three intergovernmental organizations have expressed their intention to participate in the hearings. These are: Federal Republic of Germany, Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Argentine Republic, Republic of Chile, Republic of Fiji Islands, United Mexican States,Republic of Nauru, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Russian Federation, International Seabed Authority, Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission, International Union for Conservation of Nature.

            The schedule for the hearings adopted by the President of the Chamber is as follows:

Tuesday, 14 September 2010

3 p.m.:  International Seabed Authority

Wednesday, 15 September 2010

10 a.m. – 1 p.m.:     Germany 

Netherlands

Argentina

Chile

Fiji

Mexico          

(to be continued from 3 p.m. if necessary)

Thursday, 16 September 2010

10 a.m. – 1p.m.:      Nauru

United Kingdom

Russian Federation

Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission

International Union for Conservation of Nature

(to be continued from 3 p.m. if necessary)

The verbatim records of the hearings will be published daily on the website of the Tribunal at http://www.itlos.org/cgi-bin/cases/case_detail.pl?id=17&lang=en. The hearings can be viewed live at: http://www.itlos.org/procedings/video/live_en.shtml.

History of the proceedings

On 6 May 2010, the Council of the International Seabed Authority adopted Decision ISBA/16/C/13 during the Authority’s Sixteenth Session, in which, in accordance with article 191 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, it decided to request the Seabed Disputes Chamber to render an advisory opinion on the following questions:

 1.    What are the legal responsibilities and obligations of States Parties to the Convention with respect to the sponsorship of activities in the Area in accordance with the Convention, in particular Part XI, and the 1994 Agreement relating to the Implementation of Part XI of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982?

2.     What is the extent of liability of a State Party for any failure to comply with the provisions of the Convention, in particular Part XI, and the 1994 Agreement, by an entity whom it has sponsored under Article 153, paragraph 2 (b), of the Convention?

3.     What are the necessary and appropriate measures that a sponsoring State must take in order to fulfil its responsibility under the Convention, in particular Article 139 and Annex III, and the 1994 Agreement?

The Request for an Advisory Opinion was transmitted by letter dated 11 May 2010, from the Secretary-General of the International Seabed Authority, Mr Nii Odunton, addressed to the President of the Seabed Disputes Chamber, Judge Tullio Treves. The Request was filed with the Registry on 14 May 2010. Subsequently, the Authority submitted a dossier to the Chamber containing documents, decisions and other material of the Authority as well as international instruments and other material likely to throw light upon the three legal questions on which the advisory opinion of the Seabed Disputes Chamber is requested. The dossier is available on the Tribunal’s website.

In accordance with article 133 of the Rules of the Tribunal, the Registrar gave notice of the Request for an advisory opinion to all States Parties to the Convention and to those organizations invited as intergovernmental organizations to participate as observers in the Assembly of the International Seabed Authority.

By Order of 18 May 2010, the President of the Seabed Disputes Chamber decided that the International Seabed Authority and those organizations referred to above are considered likely to be able to furnish information on the questions submitted to the Seabed Disputes Chamber and invited them and the States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to present written statements on the questions contained in the Request. The Order of 28 July 2010 fixed 19 August 2010 as the time-limit for the presentation of written statements.

Twelve States Parties to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and three intergovernmental organizations filed written statements within the time-limit as follows (in order of receipt):

Interoceanmetal Joint Organization; United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; Republic of Nauru; Republic of Korea; Romania; Kingdom of the Netherlands; Russian Federation; United Mexican States; International Union for Conservation of Nature; Federal Republic of Germany; People’s Republic of China; Australia; Republic of Chile; Republic of the Philippines; International Seabed Authority.

            An additional statement was received from the United Nations Environmental Programme after the expiry of the time-limit.

            A written statement was also submitted to the Chamber by Stichting Greenpeace Council (Greenpeace International) and the World Wide Fund for Nature.

            The written statements are available on the Tribunal’s website.

Webcast

The hearings will be transmitted live on the website of the Tribunal at http://www.itlos.org/procedings/video/live_en.shtml. Short interludes in transmission may occur due to congestion on the Tribunal’s site. A recorded webcast of the hearings will be available after each sitting under Webcast Archives at: http://www.itlos.org/procedings/video/start_en.shtml.

The press releases of the Tribunal, documents and other information are available on the Tribunal’s websites: http://www.itlos.org and http://www.tidm.org and from the Registry of the Tribunal. Please contact Ms Julia Ritter at: Am Internationalen Seegerichtshof 1, 22609 Hamburg, Germany,

Tel.: +49 (40) 35607-227; Fax: +49 (40) 35607-245;

E-mail: press@itlos.org

The newly released 2010 World Trade Report focuses on trade in natural resources, such as fuels, forestry, mining and fisheries. The entire report, which can be downloaded from the official WTO website, examines the characteristics of trade in natural resources and the policy choices available to governments.  It also discusses how trade in the sector fits within the legal framework of the WTO and other international agreements that regulate trade in natural resources.

To search for general treatises on WTO in the law library collection, search in Morris under subject headings “World Trade Organization”, “Foreign Trade Regulations”, and "International Trade".  Electronic resources subscribed by the law library include WorldTradeLaw.net and our BNA subscription, which provides access to International Trade Daily, International Trade Reporter, and WTO Reporter.

A recent arrival in the Foreign and International Law Collection is Religion, Race, Rights: Landmarks in the History of Modern Anglo-American Law   (Oxford/Portland,OR: Hart, 2010). 

Written by  Eve Darian Smith, Professor of Global & International Studies at the University of California Santa Barbara, author of Bridging Divides: The Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the New Europe   (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), the book draws upon eight landmark legal decisions, beginning with Martin Luther and the trial of Charles I, to demonstrate that our concept of justice evolves over time and is connected to economic power, social values, and moral sensibilities that are not universal. By doing this, the author underscores the cultural specificity of western legal concepts and showsthat they cannot be used in all cultural contexts, and that legal rights are shaped by prevailing notions about race and religion. 

The book is noteworthy for its many illustrations, and note that it is not classed with books on religion, race, or rights, but with books on the history and theory of the common law (K588 .D37 2010, UES)

                                                                                                                                     ----Daniel Wade

World Treaty Index (WTI) is a new database that aspires to contain every known international agreement of the 20th century by January 2011 -- over 85,000 treaties!  At the moment there are about 53,000 agreements.

This new database will eventually allow the user to calculate histograms on the fly, perform combination searches (by topic, country, etc), merge with other datasets (using the Correlates of War codes), and download all or part of the data in a .csv file.

I just did a search for treaties between Argentina and Uruguay and got 63 results between 1945-1990 with citation information where available (this is not a full-text database). The results tell me what type of treaty (bilateral or multilateral), the date of the treaty, the topic, and the title in English.  What a resource!

Both the website and topic codes build upon the work of Peter Rohn from the University of Washington who conducted the original WTI collection process in the 1960's and 1970's.

Here is the direct URL to the database:

http://worldtreatyindex.com/

Feel free to email the creators of this database with any problems and/or suggestions.

We now have IP access to Global Arbitration Review, one of the leading sources of information for international arbitration professionals.  This is a subscription for the Yale community and requires a VPN connection off-campus.

The URL is: http://www.globalarbitrationreview.com/  

In addition to having access to the electronic version of the print GAR journal, the GAR website also provides news, surveys, and interviews targeted for the arbitration professional.

The invaluable and immense three-volume study on customary international humanitarian law conducted by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and published by Cambridge University Press in 2005 is now available free online:  http://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/home.  I have used this work to find, for example, relevant sections of a foreign country's military manual.

The Study has two parts:

1. Rules - a comprehensive (but not exhaustive) analysis of the customary rules of international humanitarian law identified by the Study and considered to be applicable in all armed conflicts.
   
   
2. Practice - for each aspect of international humanitarian law covered, a summary of relevant state practice including military manuals, legislation, case law, and official statements; practice of international organizations, conferences, and judicial and quasi-judicial bodies.

We have this work in print here:  http://morris.law.yale.edu/record=b591517~S1.

A complementary work, Perspectives on the ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law, is here: http://morris.law.yale.edu/record=b668444~S1.

 "Perspectives on the ICRC Study on Customary International Humanitarian Law results from a year-long examination of the Study by a group of military lawyers, academics and practitioners, all with experience in international humanitarian law. The book discusses the Study, its methodology and its rules and provides a critical analysis of them. It adds its own contribution to scholarship on the interpretation and application of international humanitarian law."

The ICRC has two other databases:

1. Treaties - contains treaties, commentaries, and other documents related to international humanitarian law: http://www.icrc.org/ihl.
   
   
2. National Implementation - provides documentation and commentaries concerning the implementation of international humanitarian law at the national level: http://www.icrc.org/ihl-nat.

The Law Library has subscriptions to four new e-resources from LexisNexis:

EU Tracker
EU Tracker tracks the implementation of key EU Directives across 20 Member States in 10 practice areas.  There are links to consultation papers, draft legislation and the eventual national implementing legislation of member States.  It is a unique monitoring and analysis tool for lawyers, PSLs and information managers.

JurisClasseur
This database contains French-language legal information: legislation, regulations and case law. It also gives access to a great volume of secondary legal sources and expert analysis.

LexisNexis China Law Database
The LexisNexis China Law Database (LNCHNL) is an authoritative collection of Chinese laws, regulations, tax information, judicial decisions, and other legal documents, collected from government sources, and translated by LexisNexis China Online (COL) in Beijing.

Quicklaw
Quicklaw is a Canadian electronic legal research database that provides court decisions from all levels, news reports, provincial and federal statutes, journals, and other legal commentary. It also offers a case citator and case digests.

They are accessible on the Yale network and username/password are not required to log in. For a list of legal databases subscribed by the law library see here.

If you've ever wondered about the origins of Cinco de Mayo, here's a short article that nicely summarizes the popularity of the holiday in the U.S.:

Cinco de Mayo, from the Battlefield to the Beer Bottle

Cinco de Mayo celebrates the Mexican victory in the Battle of Puebla on May 5, 1862, against the invading French army of Napoleon III...

"Cinco de Mayo" is an official Library of Congress subject Heading. In other words, you can conduct a Subject search in Orbis, Yale University Library's catalog, and you will find several books on the holiday as well as the famous battle in the Mexican state of Puebla.  

Have a look also at the U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on International Relations', Resolution recognizing the Mexican holiday of Cinco de Mayo.

Viva México!

Today is the anniversary of the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo.  You can see an image of the Treaty on the National Archives website.

Per the National Archives, "the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which brought an official end to the Mexican-American War (1846–48), was signed on February 2, 1848, at Guadalupe Hidalgo, a city to which the Mexican government had fled with the advance of U.S. forces.  Signed on February 2, 1848, this treaty ended the war between the United States and Mexico.  By its terms, Mexico ceded 55 percent of its territory, including parts of present-day Arizona, California, New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, Nevada, and Utah, to the United States."  In sum, Mexico ceded 525,000 square miles (55% of its pre-war territory, not including Texas) to the United States in exchange for $15 million ($313 million in 2006 dollars).

The library has several items specific to the treaty including:

• The Treaty of Guadalupe: A Legacy of Conflict (1990)
  
• The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo: 1848-1948 (1948)
  
• Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Message of the President of the United States, transmitting a communication from the Secretary of State, and accompanying papers, in compliance with resolutions of the House of Representatives, of the 5th Instant, relative to the Treat of Peace concluded at Guadalupe Hidalgoon the 2d of February, 1848 (1848)

The Library of Congress has assigned a subject heading for material related to this treaty: Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 1848. 

Yale's Avalon Project also has the full-text of the treaty.

U.S. Treaties prior to 1950, such as the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo (9 Stat. 922), were published in the Statutes at Large.  Volume 64, Part 3, contains an Index of all treaties ratified by the United States prior to 1950. 

Treaties to which the U.S. is a party are now published in United States Treaties and other International Agreements.

http://faculty.umf.maine.edu/~walters/web%20103/map%20guadalupe%20hidalgo.gif

The Law Library has received a gift of Japanese law treatises from Janice Rabinowitiz, the widow of alumnus, Richard W. Rabinowitz, B.A. (Yale, '47), LL.B. (YLS, '50), M.A. (Yale, '51).

The gift consists of a collection of treatises on Japanese legal history, international investment law and Japanese commercial/business law written in English as well as in Japanese.  The Japanese language materials include multi-volume series comprising annotated codes and treatises on a wide range of legal topics: Gendai hōritsugaku zenshū published by Seirinshoin and Hōritsugaku zenshū published by Yūhikaku.  They will be wonderful additions to our foreign law collection.

Kluwer Arbitration is now available via IP Access on the CCH IntelliConnect platform. You must register though it is very quick -- just email and password.

According to CCH:

Kluwer Arbitration is the world's leading online resource for international commercial arbitration research. It contains a wealth of commentary from expert practitioner authors and an extensive collection of primary source materials. It is a comprehensive, authoritative and up-to-date arbitration library that is designed for quick and simple browsing and searching. Kluwer Arbitration includes case law, commentary, conventions, legislation and rules. This resource has been recently expanded with an Investment Arbitration section. This section provides a wealth of fully searchable investment materials.

We will run this database on a one-year trial basis so if you use this database, please let us know -- and let us know what you think of it!

Send any feed back to Teresa Miguel or Fred Shapiro.

HeinOnline's Blog this week has a nice entry on the Treaty of Lisbon with links to finding scholarly articles about the "Road to Lisbon" and other EU treaties.

Briefly, Czech President Vaclav Klaus ratified the Treaty of Lisbon on November 3, 2009.  The Czech Republic was the final Member State to ratify the Treaty.  The instrument of ratification was deposited in Rome on November 13, 2009 and will enter into force on December 1, 2009.  The new EU presidency and other top jobs have now been filled.  The EU's Europa database has indepth treatment of the Treaty of Lisbon.

The EU's "Your Guide to the Lisbon Treaty" highlights several prinipal provisions of the treaty:

1. More democracy, more openness: The Treaty gives you a stronger voice in decision-making.

2. Faster, more efficient decision-making: The Lisbon Treaty streamlines the EU’s decision-making procedures.

3. Modernising the EU’s institutions: A key aim of the Lisbon Treaty is to modernise the institutions that run the EU’s business and makes them more democratic.

4. Economic policy: The Lisbon Treaty confi rms the commitment to achieving economic and monetary union with the euro as the EU’s currency.

5. Th e European Union in the world: The EU pledges to promote the values of the EU in the world by contributing to:

• peace and security;
• sustainable development of the Earth;
• solidarity and mutual respect among peoples;
• free and fair trade;
• eradication of poverty;
• protection of human rights;
• respect for and enhancement of international law as defi ned, in particular, in the United Nations Charter.

6. Security and defence: The Lisbon Treaty spells out more clearly the EU’s role in the area of common foreign and security policy. Decisions on defence issues will continue to need unanimous approval of the 27 EU Member States.

7. Justice and crime: The Lisbon Treaty contains important new provisions strengthening the EU’s ability to fi ght international cross-border crime, illegal immigration, traffi cking of people, arms and drugs.

8. Social policy: The Lisbon Treaty steps up the EU’s social objectives. It provides that, in all its policies and actions, the EU will take into account the promotion of a high level of employment.

9. New areas of cooperation: The Lisbon Treaty has important provisions in a number of new policy areas reinforcing the EU’s ability to fi ght international cross-border crime, illegal immigration, traffi cking of women and children, drugs and arms.

10. Human rights: The Lisbon Treaty recognises the rights, freedoms and principles set out in the Charter of Fundamental Rights and makes the charter legally binding.

The law library also has a fine selection of material related to the Lisbon Treaty and the EU.  See, for example:

• The Lisbon Treaty: EU Constitutionalism without a Constitutional Treaty? KJE4443.32007 .L57 2008
• Dividing Lines between the European Union and its Member States: The Impact of the Treaty of Lisbon. KJE4443.32007 .S54 2008
• Comprendre le Traité de Lisbonne: Texte Consolidé Intégral de Traités: Explications et Commentaires. KJE970 .S28 2008

The current official website of International Criminal Court (ICC) has comprehensive research resources including basic legal texts relevant to doing research relating to ICC.  The Official Journal includes the full text of the Rome Statute, the Rules of Procedure and Evidence, and Regulations of the Court. Key filings, transcripts as well as decisions can also be searched by party names and docket here. The UN Secretariat ceased to serve as the ICC Secretariat in 2003 when the Permanent Secretariat of the assembly of State Parties to the Rome Statute was established but the pre-2003 website of the Court contains documents on the drafting history of the Rome Statute and notes from the Preparatory Commission. 

The website ICL Database and Commentary provides a basic research tool which links international criminal law cases with its corresponding legal texts in the Rome Statute and commentary. More treatises and commentaries can be found in L1 of the Law Library with the call number KZ6310.  In Morris, one can locate these titles by doing an advanced search by subject heading phrase "International Criminal Court" combined with word in the subject "History" for its drafting history and combined with word in the subject "Rules and Practice" for procedural materials.

Other relevant secondary sources include reports from NGOs such as the War Crimes Research Office, International Bar Association's IBA/ICC Monitoring Report, Victims Rights Working Group.

Feliz Dieciocho, Chile!

Secretary of State, Hillary Rodham Clinton, also sends her congratulations to Chile today, on its 199th anniversary of independence. 

Not only is Chile know for its wines, but it is also one of the top five legal publishers in Latin America. Our Country-by-Country page contains several Chilean legal research guides to help you get started. Additionally, if you venture down to the Lower East Side, head to LC Call Number KHF where you can have a look at our Chilean legal collection, including current Chilean laws and the Civil Code of Chile in English. You can browse the collection in Morris.  Look at the Latin American Journals & Serials page for a quick glance at our holdings in Chile.  We even have a few Chilean DVDs.

Legal databases containing Chilean legal material include vLex and InterAm (subscription databases) and SciELO (open access).

Of course, for additional research assistance, please contanct the reference department.

Que lo pases bien!

The latest issue of Max Planck Institute's Zeitschrift für Chinesisches Recht includes a comprehensive bibliography of academic writings in Western languages published in 2008.  See here (Bibliography2009.pdf) for the bibliography compiled by Knut Pissler.

To locate the full-text articles, check Morris for serial holdings in the law library and Orbis and the Online Journals & Newspapers A to Z list for print and electronic holdings in other libraries on campus.

The just-released Treaties in Force 2009 publication by the U.S. Department of State will tell you what bilateral and mulitlateral treaties to which the United States is a party are currently in force.  This is an annual publication also available in print and on HeinOnline (subscription database available to Yale community only).

Treaty research can be complicated so there are plenty of research guides and databases to help with your research.  You will find them on our Foreign and International Research Resources page.

Our very own Zachary D. Kaufman, YLS JD Candidate '09, will be giving a book talk this Friday, April 17, 2009, at 4:00pm, in the Law Library's L3 Periodical Reading Room.  Zach, an Olin Fellow and editor-in-chief of the Yale Law & Policy Review edited After Genocide: Transitional Justice, Post-Conflict Reconstruction, and Reconciliation in Rwanda and Beyond with Philip Clark, research fellow at the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, University of Oxford, and co-founder of Oxford Transitional Justice Research.

In After Genocide, published by Columbia University Press, ". . . leading scholars and practitioners analyze the political, legal, and regional impact of events in post-genocide Rwanda within the broader themes of transitional justice, reconstruction, and reconciliation."

The book includes ". . . chapters from Rwandan academics and practitioners, such as Tom Ndahiro, Solomon Nsabiyera Gasana, and Jean Baptiste Kayigamba—all of whom are also survivors of the 1994 genocide—and draws on their personal experiences. After Genocide constitutes the most comprehensive survey to date of issues related to post-genocide Rwanda and transitional justice."  Read a more complete description of the book.

After Genocide is not on our shelves yet, but it will be very soon!

On a related note, to start researching the domestic law of Rwanda, begin with our Country-by-Country guide.  A nice portal to Rwandan legislation is Lexadin's World Law Guide.  Also, a simple Morris "Call Number" search for Rwanda -- KTD --will return a list of titles that have been assigned to Rwandan law.  Other human rights materials related to Rwanda are found elsewhere in the library collection.  A Morris Subject Heading" search, human rights rwanda, will return more resources cataloged primarily under human rights rather than strictly Rwandan law.

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies has released a new easy-to-use treaty index: FIT, the Flare Index to Treaties.

FIT is searchable by any one or a combination of the following:

• keywords drawn from the official, popular and alternative titles which have been used for each treaty
• additional keywords relevant to the subject matter or organisations associated with the treaty
• the date on which the treaty was concluded
• the place where the treaty was concluded

For example, a free-text search for "genocide" will redirect you to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.  When you click on the Convention, you'll discover that the treaty was concluded on 9/12/1958 in New York, and is published at 78 UNTS 277 (and many other places).  There are also several links that will take you to the full-text of the convention.

For more resources related to treaty research, including a drafting history (travaux preparatoires) research guide and an annotated list of databases, see the Yale Foreign and International Resources page.

The Law Library is testing Westlaw China, a new database with primary and secondary sources on China laws:

http://www.westlawchina.com/login.php

The trial user ID and password can be found in YLS Inside Research Sites under Library Database Passwords. 

The State Deparment recently began publishing online the Treaties and Other International Acts Series (TIAS).  This website is open-access and a work-in-progress. As of today there are only treaties from the years 1996 - 1998.  The treaties are available in pdf.  UPDATE: TIAS is now available up to 2001.

You can find scanned pdfs of the TIAS print volumes on HeinOnline from 1982 - 1996.  UPDATE: TIAS is now available up to 2000.

The print volumes of TIAS are available on L1 (KZ235.32 .U55) but have only been published up to 1998.

The Frederick K. Cox International Law Center at Case Western Reserve law school has developed an exiting new War Crimes Research Portal.  The portal has four features:

1. the portal contains over a thousand links to websites related to international humanitarian law, arranged alphabetically by subject area and including a summary of the content of each site;
   
   
2. the portal contains the text of over 120 research memoranda on issues pending before the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, the Special Court for Sierra Leone, and the International Criminal Court.  The memos can be searched by date published, title, or keywords. (Cites to the memos should take the following form: [Author’s name], [Title of Memo], Research Memorandum Prepared for the Office of the Prosecutor of the [Name of Tribunal], [Date].); 
   
   
3. there is a Research Guide to international humanitarian law and tribunals, prepared by the Case Law School Law Library, which includes a bibliography of relevant articles and books, as well as links to international law journals on the Web;
   
   
4. the portal contains "instant analysis" articles, written each month by the members of the American Branch of the International Association of Penal Law, on the hottest topics in international criminal law.

Frederick K. Cox International Law Center also has webcasts available of recent events:

• War Crimes Research Symposium: The International Criminal Court and the Crime of Aggression
  Speakers: M. Cherif Bassiouni, Mark Ellis, Don Ferencz, William Schabas and many more
  http://law.case.edu/lectures/webcast.asp?dt=20080926
  
  
• Klatsky Seminar in Human Rights: The Future of Human Rights
  Speaker Information: Geoffrey Robertson, Queen's Counsel, formerly of the SCSL
  http://law.case.edu/lectures/webcast.asp?dt=20081106

When searching for books on war crimes and humanitarian law in Morris, try searching by the following Subject Headings:

• war crime trials
• war (international law)
• guerillas (international law)

HeinOnline is a subscription database collection available to the Yale community.*

HeinOnline's United Nations Law Collection will allow you to access UN research materials quickly and easily using the Finding Aids available from the collection home page.  The Finding Aids include the ability to:

• Find and retrieve a UN Treaty by entering the UNTS Citation
  
• Search for a UN Treaty by treaty/registration number, country, short title, popular name and more
  
• Search by subject, as all treaties have been assigned a Kavass Subject
  
• Find and link directly to law review articles that cite a UN Treaty

Hein has also developed user guides, video tutorials, FAQ’s, and more.  Training Resources Include:

• Quick Reference Guide (PDF format): http://heinonline.org/HeinDocs/UN_QuickRefGuide.pdf
  
• Video Tutorial: http://www.screencast.com/t/JN7N3S57
  
• United Nations Law Collection Wiki Page: http://heinonline.org/wiki/index.php/HeinOnlineLibSpec:United_Nations

The United Nations Law Collection Wiki page contains links to the Quick Reference Guide, Video Tutorial, FAQs, How-To information, search examples, and more!

Hein further invites users to collaborate and join in discussions via HeinOnline’s 2.0 Community.  Friend Hein on Facebook, collaborate on Hein's Wiki, subscribe to Hein's Blog, watch Hein on YouTube, or follow Hein on Twitter! 

Visit Hein at http://www.heinonline.org/home/training/Educational_Resources.html to find out more about our virtual community. 

*In order to access HeinOnline and other Yale subscription database from off-campus, you must be connected to the Yale network via VPN.

The International Video Law Library is a fantastic place to find, listen to, and watch leading experts in the field discuss substantive international law issues.  Also within the International Video Law Library is the Human Rights Video Library.

Some of the lectures in the library include:

• Thomas Buergenthal, Judge at the International Court of Justice, speaks about reservations to treaties.

• Philippe Kirsch, President of the International Criminal Court,  for an interview in September 2005 in which he introduced himself, and went on to give the historical background of the creation of the International Criminal Court.  President Kirsch then when on to explain how the Court functions, its structure, and finally gave a status report of the Court's activites as of 2005.

• James Crawford , Whewell Professor of International Law, University of Cambridge, considers his time at the UN International Law Commission as part of the Working Group on an International Criminal Court and the drafting of the 1994 Draft Statute for an International Criminal Court. The 1994 ILC Draft was source of the drafting process which ultimately lead to the 1998 Rome Diplomatic Conference and the creation of the International Criminal Court.

• Judge Navanethem Pillay, President of the International Criminal for Rwanda Tribunal (1999 - 2003) and later Judge of the International Criminal Court introduces herself and explains why the Rwanda Tribunal was established.  Judge Pillay speaks about the legacy which the ICTR will leave in respect to the evolution of international jursiprudence, and discusses the means by which the ICTR will finish its work. 

• Christine Chinkin, Professor of International Law at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), discusses the feminist approach to international law.

There are many more.  Enjoy!

Of course the Yale Law Library has a fantastic print and electronic international law library.  For a list of our electronic international law resources, go to our webpage of Foreign, International and Transnational Law Resources.  Our international law reference books, treatises, looseleafs, and monographs are in the compact and open shelving areas and reading room on L1 as well as the Upper East Side.  The librarians are more than happy to assist you with your international legal research!

The BBC recently reported that the EU and Cuba have formally renewed ties that were severed 5 years ago following "a mass arrest of dissidents." Cuba will now receive 2 million Euros of aid for the hurricanes that swept over the island this summer; aid will increase to 30 million Euros next year.

The Yale Law Library purchases Cuban legal materials whenever possible, in both English and Spanish.  You can find Cuban materials on the Lower East Side (LES), Call No. KGN.  See, for example:

• The Role of the Judiciary in Post-Castro Cuba - KGH2545 .S26 2003
• Instrumentos internacionales sobre derechos humanos ratificados por Cuba - KGN3003 .I57 2001
• La protección del medio ambiente en Cuba - KGN3305 .A67 C66 2005

Of course we also collect interdisciplinary materials involving Cuba and the United States.  Try a Subject Heading search in our Morris catalog:

• Cuba - Foreign Relations - United States; or
• Cuba - Foreign Economic Relations - United States
• When you pull up an item record on Morris, click on any of the Subjects Headings to view other related Subject Headings.  Click again on any of the Subject Headings to find related books.
  

For a compilation of treaties involving Cuba, try another Subject Heading search: Cuba - Foreign Relations - Treaties .  Also check out the new and improved United Nations Treaty Collection database.  It's open-access and easy to search.

We also have a few Cuban DVDs:

• Lucia (1968) by Humberto Solas (one of my all-time favorites!)
• Quien Diablos es Julietta? (1967) by Carlos Marcovich
  
• Check IMDB for reviews: Lucia and Julietta
  

The Avalon Project also has documents pertaining to Cuba, specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis.

The new and improved United Nations Treaty Collection database is up and running.  In this fabulous open-access database, you can find the complete run of the United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS), League of Nations Treaty Series (LoN), Multilateral treaties deposited with the UN, Status of Treaties (MTDSG), Certified True Copies (CTCs) of treaties (pdfs), and  Depositary Notifications (CNs).  There is a UN legal research guide, cumulative index, and more.  The database has been further refined to offer a variety of advanced search features including Popular Name search, Title search, and Participant search.

UNTS is also available in print in the tunnel between L1 and the UES.  You can find all of Yale's subscription-based and some open-access international law databases and resources on our Foreign and International Law Resources page.

Lionel Messi, one of the world's greatest football (i.e. soccer) players at the moment, is caught in the middle of a conflict.  His national squad, Argentina, has called him to play in the Olympics this month.  His club team, Barcelona, who pays his multi-million euro salary, does not want him to go because of Champion's League obligations.  Barcelona has appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) for a ruling.  Here is the court's summary of the dispute:

The CAS has registered an appeal from FC Barcelona against the decision made by the Single Judge of the FIFA Players' Status Committee regarding the release of players for the Olympic Games. This appeal will be handled together with the appeals filed by FC Schalke 04 and Werder Bremen against the same FIFA decision. The CAS will deliver its final ruling on or before 6 August 2008.

FIFA, the Fédération Internationale de Football Association, the governing body of football, has long contended that players should be released to play with their national teams.  A single judge from the FIFA Players' Status Committee ruled on July 30, 2008 that the clubs must release their players to the national teams.  This ruling was appealed by the clubs to the CAS.

AUGUST 6 UPDATE:  According to Reuters, the Court of Arbitration for Sport has shockingly ruled that club teams may recall their players from their national teams!  Regardless, both FIFA President Sepp Blatter and International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge are calling on the clubs to allow their players to remain in China to compete in the Olympics.

Photo of Lionel Messi in his Argentina kit from the Guardian: CAS steps in to stop players heading to Beijing.

The Yale Law Library has quite a few resources pertaining to the Court of Arbitration for sport such as:

• The proceedings before the Court of Arbitration for Sport -  2006 Conference - K3702 .P36 2007
  
• The Court of Arbitration for Sport, 1984 - 2006 - K3702 .C686 2006
• Arbitraje deportivo - K3702 .G66 2006

We also have other titles dealing with various aspects of sports law:

• The regulation of sport in the European Union - KJE6063 .R44X 2007
• Equal play: Title IX and social change - KF4166 .E68X 2007
• The strict liability principle and the human rights of athletes in doping cases - K3702 .S64 2007

There are many sports law journals, too (do a subject heading search in Morris, for example: Sports - law and legislation - united states - periodicals):

• Seton Hall journal of sports and entertainment law - K23 .E83 and Hein Online
  
• The sports lawyers' journal - K23 .P67 and Hein Online
  

The U.S. District Court in the District of Columbia has created a webpage of public information on the Guantanamo Bay cases.  Find the court schedule, court orders and opinions, and press releases and notices.

Meanwhile, back at the camp, the trial of Osama Bin Laden's driver, Salim Ahmed Hamdan, began about 10 days ago, as reported on NPR.  In 2006, Yale law students worked closely with Mr. Hamdan's lawyer, Neal Katyal, a YLS grad, in his challenge of the use of military commissions; they were victorious.  As a result,  Congress passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006.

Another Guantanamo prisoner, Omar Khadr, has been in the news recently as a result of the release of a videotaped interrogation conducted on the island.  The video was released by Mr. Khadar's defense team, as explained in this story on NPR. An interesting history of Mr. Khadar's life and eventual detention at Guantanamo can be read in a 2006 article in Rolling Stone; a summary of his legal history can be found on Human Rights First.

The U.S. Dept. of Defense, Military Commissions, has a website with court filings and documents pertaining to Mr. Khadr's and Mr. Hamdan's cases, as well as other Guantanamo Bay detainees facing trial.  The Military Commissions Act and Military Commissions Manual can also be found here.

The Yale Law Library has several recently published book on the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and the Guantanamo detainees:

• Honor Bound: Inside the Guantanamo Trials by Kyndra Miller Rotunda (2008)
• Bush, the Detainees, and the Constitution: The Battle over Presidential Power in the War on Terror by Howard Ball (2007)
  
• Beyond the Law: The Bush Administration's Unlawful Responses in the "War" on Terror by Jordan J. Paust (2007)

We also have interesting historical works on military commissions in the U.S.:

• Constitutional Limitation on Trials by Military Commissions by Harold Loeb (1943) (microfiche)
• Military Commissions for the Trial of Citizens: A Letter to the Attorney General of the United States by John H. James, Jr. (1860) (microfiche and MOML)
• An Argument to Establish the Illegality of Military Commissions in the United States, and Especially of the One Organized for the Trial of the Parties Charged with Conspiring to Assassinate the Late President, and Others, Presented to that Commission, on Monday, the 19th of June, 1865 by Reverdy Johnson, one of the counsel of Mrs. Surratt (1865)

There are several online, free research guides pertaining to the Military Commissions Act of 2006:

• Commentary: The Military Commissions Act and Habeas Corpus
• National Security Law Research

In an unprecedented decision the Vatican has granted Paraguayan President-elect Fernando Lugo dispensation of  "all obligations as a priest, as a bishop and as a religious man of the Divine Word" (my translation).  The dispensation by Pope Benedict XVI was formally announced today in Paraguay by Orlando Antonini, Apostalic Nuncio of the Vatican.  Antonini also stated that this decision was reached after several years of research and analysis into Canon Law.

President-elect Lugo resigned from the priesthood in 2006 when he decided to run for president.  His victory in April 2008 ended the 61-year rule of the Partido Colorado in Paraguay.  He will officially take office on August 15, 2008. At the time of his 2006 resignation, he was advised that he might be excommunicated for violating the Vatican's rule against clerical involvement in politics.  Read more...

Yale has a fantastic Canon Law collection located on the LES (Lower East Side) of the library, with current and historical texts in many languages, such as:

• The Canon Law (2002) (a handbook of Catholic Theology)
  
• Die Geschichte der Quellen und Literatur des Canonischen Rechts (1875) (The History of the Sources and Literature of Canon Law (my translation) - a bibliography).
  

There are also several law reviews dedicated to Canon Law, such as:

• Revista Española de Derecho Canónico
  
• Revue de Droit Canonique. 

There are several excellent, free, online research guides to assist with Canon Law research:

• Canon Law Research Guide
• Comparative Religious Law Research Guide 

There is even a blog dedicated to Canon Law by Prof. Edward N. Peters, J.D., J.C.D., Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit, MI:

• In Light of the Law

Recently I wrote that The Hague Academy of International Law's Recueil des Cours de l'Academie de la Haye was online with free browsing but at the time the Yale Law Library had not yet purchased a subscription to the full-text. 

Today I am happy to write that we have subscribed and you can now browse, search and access all the full-text articles.

"The Academy is a prestigious international institution for the study and teaching of Public and Private International Law and related subjects. The work of the Hague Academy receives the support and recognition of the UN. Its purpose is to encourage a thorough and impartial examination of the problems arising from international relations in the field of law. The courses deal with the theoretical and practical aspects of the subject, including legislation and case law.  All courses at the Academy are, in principle, published in the language in which they were delivered in the Collected Courses of the Hague Academy of International Law.

You can also access our complete print collection in the Yale Law Library on L1, Call No. KZ 3092 .R43.  

Legal periodicals are often a good starting point when you are researching a broad legal topic.  The Law Library has access to three online legal journal databases in Chinese: Chinese Academic Journals (CAJ), Wan Fang's Chinese Online Journals (COJ) and ChinaLawInfo's journal collection.  For those who are interested in researching China law but are not proficient in Chinese, HeinOnline (Law Journal Library and Foreign & International Law Resources Collection), JSTOR and SpringerLink's Frontiers of Law in China include a variety of China-related legal and inter-disciplinary journal titles published in English.  The latter, a collaborative publication by publisher Springer with Renmin University in Beijing consists of English translation of selective law review articles originally published in the vernacular by universities in China. While the quality of the English translation varies, the selection of articles provide an overview of legal issues currently of interest to the Chinese legal community.

For better access, the China Law Research Resources page in Morris (under Research tab) now has a link to a union list of China-Related Electronic Serial Titles included in the three journal databases. The selective list includes the more commonly known journals currently accessible from three A to Z lists in the law library research website (Legal Databases, Yale University Library E-Journals & Newspapers and Other Databases).  They are arranged alphabetically by their Pinyin or English titles in the union list. Information relating to the coverage of each journal title is available as well as direct links to the databases.

Lastly, a recent blog post in Law Librarian Blog includes a useful bibliography of China-related journal articles and treatises published in English and German in 2007compiled by Dr. Knut Benjamin Pissler of Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law.  See here.

The United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), the statistical arm of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), has launched a new web-based data service UNdata.  Instead of clicking through data sets scattered in the websites of different UN agencies, users can now search and download a variety of statistical resources of the UN system through a single entry point. 

The new portal provides useful features such as Country Profiles, Advanced Search and Glossaries to aid research. Currently, there are 14 databases and 6 glossaries containing over 55 million data points and covering a whole range of statistics relating to Population, Industry, Energy and the Environment, Trade and National Accounts. The UNdata wiki provides links to the sources' homepages and includes information about the methodology by which data sets are collected.

NPR reported this morning on Spain's battle to reclaim the treasure from a sunken Spanish vessel recovered in international waters in the Atlantic Ocean by Odyssey Marine Exploration of Tampa, FL.  The 19th century shipwreck contained some 17 tons in silver coins, cuff links and other personal items, and other artifacts; it may be the most valuable treasure ever discovered.  Exact details of the discovery have yet to be revealed.

A Federal District Court in Tampa is reviewing Spain's claim to the treasure that Odyssey recovered.  Spain insists that Odyssey's claim to the warship Nuestra Señora de las Mercedes is immoral and illegal.  Spain compares the Nuestra Señora site to the grave sites of Gettysburg and the U.S.S. Arizona, as the sinking of Nuestra Señora precipitated Spain's entry into the Napoleonic wars.  Odyssey maintains, however, that they found no vessel and no human remains, just the cargo, and there is nothing to prove that it is the cargo of La Senora. In PACER, the federal court's password-protected electronic filing database (which is available free to the public in several federal depository libraries), you can review court filings for this case (8:07-cv-00614-SDM-MAP) as well as several others in which the Kingdom of Spain has filed a claim (ask a reference librarian for assistance if needed). 

So just what is the law pertaining to sunken treasures?  Finders keepers?  Return to rightful owner? 

The Yale Law Library has several books pertaining to the law of sunken treasure and cultural patrimony.  See, for example, Legal Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage: National and International Perspectives.  This book compares the laws, traditions, and perspectives of various countries, including the United States and Spain.  Note the Subject Headings at the bottom of the record: Cultural property -- Protection -- Law and legislation; Shipwrecks; Salvage; Treasure-trove; Underwater archaeology -- Law and legislation. Click on any of them to find more works pertaining to that topic. 

In comparison, see, The Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage: National Perspectives in Light of the UNESCO Convention 2001, for an international law focus and analysis.  Under the Subject Heading, underwater archaeology - law and legislation, you will find books in several languages other than English, including French German, Spanish, Russian and Italian.  Admiralty law also comes into play, specifically the Supplementary Admiralty Rules.  See also, Admiralty and Maritime Law, available in print and electronically.

There are several international law databases you might try as well to find case law and law review articles.  See our Foreign and International Resources page for the plethora of electronic resources at your fingertips, or ask a reference librarian for assistance.

Joe Hodnicki, Associate Director for Library Operations at the University of Cincinnatti Law Library, has written and excellent and informative documentary history of Israel on his Law Librarian Blog

Cyclone Nargis has thrust Myanmar into the public spotlight, as pressure increases to allow foreign aid to help cyclone victims. 

In February, Myanmar had announced its intention to hold a democratic referendum on a draft constitution this month, and to hold democratic elections in 2010. Immediately prior to the cyclone, on May 2, 2008, the U.N. had taken official notice of Myanmar's intent and encouraged an open process.  However, today the U.N. is urging Myanmar to delay this process. 

Myanmar is being monitored by the United Nations for human rights violations. On March 18, 2008, the UN Security Council held a meeting during which Ibrahim Gambari, the Secretary-General's Special Envoy to Myanmar, reported on his March 6 - 10, 2008 visit to Myanmar. Mr. Kyaw Tint Swe, the government representative from Myanmar, was present and also spoke at the meeting.  The meeting was transcribed in S.PV/5854, the provisional record of the public briefing.

The United Nations Human Rights Council has spoken many times to the human rights situation in Myanmar. Most recently, on March 28, 2008, the Council adopted resolution A/HRC/7/L.36 wherein the Council strongly deplored the "ongoing systematic violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms of the people of Myanmar" and extended the mandates of the Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression, and the Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.  In a separate but related resolution A/HRC/7/L.37, the HRC, in accordance with Commission on Human Rights resolutions 1992/58 and 2005/10 of 14 April 2005, extended for one year the the Special Rapporteur's mandate, and urged, inter alia, the Government of Myanmar to "cooperate fully with the Special Rapporteur and to respond favourably to his requests to visit the country and to provide him with all information and access to relevant bodies and institutions necessary to enable him to fulfill his mandate effectively."

Watch the U.N. Human Rights Council, 7th Session UN Webcast on the two resolutions: the "Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar" (A/HRC/7/L.36), and "Mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar" (A/HRC/7/L.37). both from March 28, 2008 at the Palais de Nations in Geneva. See also, an archived video of "The Situation of Human Rights in Myanmar" from October 2, 2007 at the Palais de Nations in Geneva.

Find Security Council and other UN documents related to Myanmar on the website of the Security Council Report - Myanmar.  SCR is an NGO headquartered in New York City.

The Yale Law Library collects human rights and interdisciplinary materials pertaining to Myanmar; they are cataloged and located with other human rights publications or social science materials on the Upper East Side rather than in the Myanmar/Burmese legal collection (KNL) on the Lower East Side.  If you conduct a Morris Subject Heading search: Human Rights - Burma, you'll return 26 hits. You can then sort Newest First and you'll find several books written in the last few years, including a 2008 publication entitled Promoting Human Rights in Burma: A Critique of Western Sanctions Policy.

The Yale Law Library has a 2005 volume of Myanmar Laws, our most current compilation of laws from Myanmar. This is an English translation of the yearbook of Myanmar laws originally published in Burmese. You will find older materials if you do a Subject Heading search on Morris: Laws - Burma. Note that the laws of Myanmar are still cataloged by Library of Congress using Burma rather than Myanmar.  Why is that?  During a 2006 interview, Barbara Tillett, chief of the Library of Congress Cataloging Policy and Support Office, explained: "The Library of Congress is the national library for the United States and to some extent we reflect US policy (for example using Burma not Myanmar)." Read the BBC's take on this issue.  You will see that our collection of law from Myanmar is quite small; there is not a lot being published nor do we heavily collect from this country. See our Country-by-Country guide to foreign legal research: Myanmar, for more print and electronic resources.

For assistance researching Myanmar law, please contact the reference team.

The Brandeis Institute for International Judges (BIIJ) "provides international judges with the opportunity to meet and discuss critical issues concerning the theory and practice of international justice. Institutes are held approximately every 18 months, bringing together judges serving on international courts and tribunals around the world to reflect on both the philosophical aspects and practical challenges of their work. The most recent Institute was held from July 23-28, 2007, in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, USA. The next Institute is scheduled for January 4-9, 2009, in Trinidad."

The BIIJ website has reports for each of the previous institutes along with a group photo of each year's participants. The BIIJ is just one of the Brandeis Programs in International Justice and Society, which is part of the The International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life at Brandeis University.

London's Old Bailey Criminal Court cases 1674-1913 are now searchable online.  The Proceedings of the Old Bailey,1674-1913 include transcripts of 197,745 criminal trials held at London's Central Criminal Court between the years 1674-1913.  Other than chronicling a string of sensational trials in London in the period, the free website was also billed as "the largest single source of searchable historical information about British lives that has ever been published". See full story here.

NPR reported this morning that Tariq Aziz, former Iraqi Foreign Minister under Saddam Hussein, begins trial today for the execution of forty-two food merchants in 1992. Aziz, 72, has been in prison for over 5 years and is challenging the charges.  In the Anfal Campaign Trial, Gen. Ali Hassan Majeed, aka Chemical Ali for his use of poisonous gas against villagers, has already been sentenced to death by hanging for the mass killings of Kurds during the Sadaam era.  Here you can find an English translation of the Anfal Campaign Judgment.  Of course, Saddam Hussein was convicted, sentenced to death, and executed by the Iraqi Special Tribunal on December 30, 2006.

The Iraqi Special Tribunal, also known as the Iraqi High Tribunal or the Special Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT), was initially created in 2003 by the Statute of the Iraqi Special Tribunal (also found here), issued by the now-dissolved Coalition Provisional Authority and enacted by the Iraqi Governing Council.  Due to legitimacy questions raised as a result of the Tribunal being established by an occupying force, the Iraqi Interim Government passed a new statute (pdf) in 2005 creating the current Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal (SICT).  The SICT, like its predecessor, is an independent tribunal located in Baghdad devoted to the prosecution of Saddam Hussein and the leaders of his regime for war crimes, crimes against humanity, genocide, and other crimes committed between 1968 and 2003. 

The Law Library of Congress has an excellent website on the trial of Saddam Hussein.  The site includes primary documents and secondary resources pertaining to Saddam Hussein's trial, the creation of the Special Tribunal and appeal, and the laws, treaties, and resolutions related to the Tribunal and relevant trials.   

The Yale Law Library has many books written on the Hussein trial, the Tribunal, and Iraq generally.  See, for example, Saddam on Trial: Understanding and Debating the Iraqi High Tribunal.  Also try a Subject Heading serach: Hussein, Saddam. All Iraqi foreign law is classified under KMJ and can be found on the Lower East Side.  For electronic resources pertaining to Iraqi law, see our Country-by-Country guide to legal research.  Finally, for research assistance, don't hesitate to contact the reference team.

Congressional Research Service, funded by taxpayers' dollars, provides members of Congress with reports on current political, legal and socio-economic issues.  Open CRS provides citizens access to CRS Reports already in the public domain and encourages Congress to make all CRS Reports available in the open source. Recent CRS Reports of interest to those following current affairs relating to Asia include East Asia's Foreign Exchange Rate Policies and Tibet: Problems, Prospects, and U.S. Policy.

The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, established on January 19, 1981 and located in the Hague, was created in an effort to resolve the crisis between the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States of America arising from the detention of 52 United States nationals at the United States Embassy in Tehran which commenced in November 1979, and the subsequent freeze of Iranian assets by the United States of America.

The Tribunal has jurisdiction to decide claims of United States nationals against Iran and of Iranian nationals against the United States which arise out of:

• debts, contracts, expropriations or other measures affecting property rights;
  
• certain "official claims" between the two Governments relating to the purchase and sale of goods and services;
  
• disputes between the two Governments concerning the interpretation or performance of the Algiers Declarations; and,
  
• certain claims between United States and Iranian banking institutions.

The Official website of the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal is in both English and Persian.  It contains background information, governing documents, and a searchable database of tribunal decisions, awards, and other documents.  You must register for the database; it is free and login information will be emailed to you within a week or so.

Yale Law Library also has the complete collection of decisions and awards in the Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal Reports - KZ238.I7 I73 on L1.  We also have monographs on L1 analyzing the tribunal and the decisions of the tribunal.  See, for example: 

• The Iran-U.S. Claims Tribunal at 25: the cases everyone needs to know for investor-state & international arbitration - KZ238.I7 D72 2007
• The Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and the process of international claims resolution: a study by the Panel on State Responsibility of the American Society of International Law - KZ 238.I7 I733 2000
• UNCITRAL arbitration rules as interpreted and applied: selected problems in light of the practice of the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal - KZ238.I7 P45 1994
  

Spain's re-elected Prime Minister José Luís Zapatero recently named his new 17-member cabinet, of whom 9 are female.  The cabinet member getting the most attention and causing the most controversy, both domestic and international, is 37-year old Defense Minister Carme Chacón, who is 7 months pregnant.  Hailing from Catalunya, Ms. Chacón, who was head of the Housing Ministry during P.M. Zapatero's first term, is credited with garnering support from her powerful region during last month's election.

P.M. Zapatero also created two new ministries: the Equality Ministry, headed by 31-year old Andalusian Bibiana Aido, Spain's youngest Cabinet member ever; and the Science and Innovation Ministry, headed by Basque molecular biologist Cristina Garmendia.  Is Spain closing the gender gap?  

Yale Law Library has an impressive collection of Spanish legal materials: historical and current, monographs and serials, print and electronic.  The Spanish collection of monographs resides with the rest of our foreign law on the Lower East Side, LC Call No. KKT, and in the Rare Book Room, where you can examine Las Siete Partidas from 1550, for example.  In addition to monographs, you will also find legislation and jurisprudence, such as Repertorio de Jurisprudencia.  There are also several serial publications on the Upper East Side, such as Revista Española de Derecho Constitucional and Revista Española de Derecho Internacional.  The library also subscribes to vLex, a Spanish database of laws, jurisprudence, and legal literature (IP access).  For more electronic resources related to Spanish law, see Spain in our Country-by-Country Guide to foreign legal research, part of our larger Foreign and International Law Resources webpage.   You'll find links to other sources, as well, such as La Constitución Española de 1812.

Photo and caption from The Independent article: 

JAVIER SORIANO/AFP/Getty Images

The Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero poses on the steps of the Moncloa palace in Madrid with his female cabinet ministers (left to right) Science and Innovation minister Cristina Garmendia, Transport and Development minister Magdalena Alvarez, Education, Social Affairs and Sports minister Mercedes Cabrera Calvo, Defence minister Carme Chacon, deputy prime minister Maria Teresa Fernandez de la Vega, Public Administration minister Elena Salgado, Equality minister Bibiana Aido, Housing minister Beatriz Corredor and Agriculture and Environment minister Elena Espinosa

On February 14, 2005, Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 other were killed in a bomb attack in Beirut.  The act was immediately condemned as a "terrorist bombing" in a formal statement by the President of the United Nations Security Council.  Shortly thereafter, the U.N. appointed an international independent investigation Commission.  About one year later, on May 29, 2006, pursuant to Security Council resolution 1664, the United Nations and the Lebanese Republic negotiated an agreement on the establishment of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Further, pursuant to Security Council resolution 1757 (Annex and Statute included) of May 30, 2007, the U.N. Security Council held, inter alia, that the Statute of the Special Tribunal, would enter into force on June 10, 2007.

The U.N. Special Tribunal website has a complete list of documents relating to the creation of the Special Tribunal.  There is also a timeline of events and a factsheet explaining the procedures and applicable law of the Special Tribunal.

Lebanese criminal law relating to the prosecution and punishment for acts of terrorism and crimes and offenses against life and personal integrity will apply to the Special Tribunal; the death penalty and forced labor have been excluded as possible punishments for those found guilty.

The Law Library of Congress has created a report, the Hariri Assassination Legal Commentary, also available in pdf, that "explains some of the legal issues relevant to the Special Tribunal for Lebanon by discussing:

• the jurisdictional basis for international judicial bodies;
• examining the jurisdictional reach of mixed tribunals;
• exploring the legal nature of the February 14, 2005 bombing; and
• identifying a number of legal questions for which the final answers may shape radically the jurisdictional reach of international criminal law."

Ulrich Mans and Lisette Sinkeler of the Hague Center for Strategic Studies express their opinion on the Special Tribunal (also in pdf).  The report notes that eight anti-Syrian politicians have been killed since 2004, and acknowledges that the Hague will become, for Lebanese and Syrians, a place of "public accusation of the most influential elites in Syria."

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad repeatedly denies that his country had anything to do with the murder of Prime Minister Hariri. (See, CNN interview, among many other news reports in the BBC, NYT, and others). 

Security Council Report, a non-profit working with Columbia University's Center on International Organization, has monthly reports on Lebanon as well as key U.N. documents referenced in their reports.

For those interested in the recent legal developments in China, here's a list of new Chinese library acquisitions. They include commentaries on the new Property Law and Labor Contract Law.  Two titles may be of interest to those doing empirical research: Zhu Jingwen's work with statistical data on the Chinese court system (in Chinese) and China Development Review, a publication by the Development Research Council, the policy research arm of the PRC State Council (in English and Chinese).

 The Library of Congress has launched a series of multinational, comparative legal studies on the rights of children.  

"Children’s Rights examines sixteen nations, across five continents: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Nicaragua, Russia, and the United Kingdom (England and Wales). For each nation, the study focuses on the domestic laws and policies that affect child health and social welfare, education and special needs, child labor and exploitation, sale and trafficking of children, and juvenile justice. Children’s Rights also lists which pertinent international treaties the nation has ratified and implemented."

The reports, as well as an overview (providing a summary of relevant global and regional legal instruments, including human-rights related instruments and international agreements on child protection and placement), are available in both html and pdf format, with footnotes and hyperlinks.  The overview and the country reports, as they become available, can be accessed from the project's main page.

Finally!  It's online and searchable!  The Hague Academy of International Law's Recueil des Cours de l'Academie de la Haye.  One can search this entire collection of international law articles by volume, year, author, or keyword.  Although we do not subscribe to full-text access to the articles, once you have found a relevant article, you can locate it in our complete print collection in the Yale Law Library on L1, Call No. KZ 3092 .R43.   

The PRC National People's Congress in March approved a government reorganization plan that consolidated several ministries and appointed new officials to top leadership posts. See the latest analysis from the US-China Business Council.  For an interesting commentary on the developments of the Chinese party leadership, see CRS Report  "China's 17th Communist Party Congress 2007: Leadership and policy implications".

India is in the news a lot recently (see NYT: India Orders New Inquiry into 2002 Clashes) and is a very popular country for legal research, partially due to the fact that Indian legal materials are in English.  To help you research Indian statutes, jurisprudence, and doctrine, we have a fabulous print collection on the Lower East Side (Call no. KNS), an electronic guide to Indian legal research guides, and a subscription to Manupatra, the most popular and comprehensive Indian legal database available.  To access Manupatra, you must obtain the username/password  from the old Blackboard site: Communities Tab -- Academic Community -- Library Databases -- enroll...then find the Manupatra folder.  If you have any research questions or suggestions for Indian legal materials, please contact Teresa or the Reference team.

On recent trips to the Ferias de Libros de Guadalajara and Buenos Aires, I selected several dozen DVDs from all over Latin America and the Caribbean, including Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Argentina, and Uruguay.  You can find them easily in the Morris catalog by conducting an Advanced Search with the country name as a Keyword, and limiting the Material Type to DVD-VHS.  If you have any suggestions for domestic or foreign films to add to our collection, please send an email to Teresa Miguel.  Remember, the film must have a legal premise or at least a tangential legal issue -- well, we have the run of Sex in the City because Miranda is a lawyer....

Two new congressional publications of interest to to those researching in treaties and international agreements:

1. Senate print (S. prt. 106-71) "Treaties and other international agreements: the role of the U.S.Senate" .

2. CRS Report (RL 33865/2008) "Arms Control and Nonproliferation: a Catalog of Treaties and agreements"

Source: [Int-Law] listserv

Don't know where to find the criminal code for the Ivory Coast?  Or jurisprudence from the Constitutional Court of South Africa?  Or a case decided by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights?  Try the F/I Research Resources page.  This page will link you to primary and secondary sources to help you get started on your research.  The Country-by-Country Guide will point you to valuable legal research guides for each country in the world.  You will also find annotated lists of foreign and international databases, both open-access and subscription-based.  For specialized assistance with your research, please do not hesitate to contact Teresa Miguel or any of our reference librarians.

All of the Latin American journals and serial publications held by Yale Law Library are available on the Latin American Journals and Serials website.  The publications are organized alphabetically by country. Soon, other law school libraries with Latin American collections will add their holdings as well.

If you would like to suggest a new serial for the library, please send an email to Teresa Miguel.