Law librarianship in the U.K., like all other types of librarianship elsewhere, is a service profession which reflects the activities of the body of users served. Lawyers in the common law system depend upon the written law, and must refer to the primary sources –statutes and cases– for authoritative statements in support of their arguments and actions. The absence of a formal legal code has long been one of the main characteristics of the U.K. legal system, and marks it off from many other systems, both of civil and common law, although the increasing predominance of statute law in the U.K. has resulted in more and more effectual codification of more and more specific areas of our law during this century. However, in the absence of a “master” code, or even an agreed set of principles underlying our law, U.K. lawyers, perhaps even more than others, are tied to the primary, written legal data base. Their education is concerned mainly with the handling of this data base - locating materials on specific subjects within it, and making classifications of legal subjects according to current trends. Superimposed upon the primary data base are many secondary sources (indexing, abstracting and summarizing services), with which the lawyer becomes acquainted, sometimes as a student, but more often as a practitioner. These are sweeping generalizations, but I hope that my main point will be adequately illustrated by them: that the role of legal information officer or law librarian (apart from purely custodial activities) closely reflects an important part of the role of a qualified lawyer; indeed one upon which his education lays great emphasis.

On numerous online discussion forums in various countries, ordinary people pose specific legal questions and both ordinary people and lawyers answer them. This article considers this new and rapidly growing method of providing legal advice. It emphasizes qualitative over quantitative issues. It seeks to answer questions such as “What kind of questions are being asked?”; “What sort of people are giving legal advice?”, “What sort of people are getting legal advice?”. For those few legal systems that I know something about, I also have considered the question, “How good is the advice?” This is a comparative study, involving discussion forums for Armenian, Australian, Austrian, Brazilian, Canadian, Croatian, English, French, German, Italian, Moldovan, Portuguese, Russian, Scots, Spanish, Swiss, Ukrainian, United Kingdom, and United States law.

Over the years, the legal problems posed by absentees and returnees have attracted the attention of scores of law review authors. Their work is difficult to access, however, because it is scattered across time and place. This is particularly problematic for a field that has no current organizing text. Accordingly, this bibliography collects and annotates the more notable pieces, dividing them into three principal categories: General Works, State-Specific Works, and Subject-Specific Works.

In a common-law jurisdiction, “Supreme Court” is not always the name of a court of final appeal. There are 41 Supreme Courts and Supreme Courts of Judicature with general original jurisdiction. They cover 60 political units. In addition to general original jurisdiction, some of those courts have general appellate jurisdiction. There is a number of political units in which a second appellate consideration is possible.

This article provides information about Supreme Courts and Supreme Courts of Judicature with general original jurisdiction. It includes a list with the names of the political units served by Supreme Courts or by Supreme Courts of Judicature with general original jurisdiction; a statement whether a Supreme Court or a Supreme Court of Judicature of a political unit has both general original jurisdiction and general appellate jurisdiction, or only general original jurisdiction; and further information.

The goal of this article is to inform librarians, lawyers, solicitors, and barristers about the many court systems in the common-law world, in which the court of general original jurisdiction is named “Supreme Court” or “Supreme Court of Judicature.” Those courts are found in diverse political units, including Australian states and territories, Belize, Brunei, Canadian provinces and territories, Gibraltar, and Samoa. The oldest among them is the Supreme Court of New York, founded more than 300 years ago.

Of late, particularly since the inception of the Convention on Biological Diversity (“CBD”), there has been some recognition of the relevance of biological resources and the need to protect and conserve these resources for the benefit of humankind. Natural disasters which have been occurring around the world, such as the recent earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, the 2009 earthquake in Haiti, the floods in Pakistan and the mystery surrounding the fallen dead birds from the sky en masse in Arkansas have raised concerns on the state of the environment in which we live in today. The resultant long-term effects of such natural disasters is colossal to the inhabitants of mother Earth although those who are not directly affected by such disasters are rarely of the view that they have, in some way, contributed to the happenings of such disasters. In Europe and parts of America, winter temperatures plummeted towards the end of 2010 recording some of the lowest temperatures in history whilst in the southern hemisphere, cyclones and floods have plagued Australia thereby giving rise to prophecies that perhaps, the world may be coming to an end.

Law libraries are the stepchildren of legal and general library literature. This observation made by Kurt Schwerin a decade ago is still valid in the Federal Republic of Germany. No comprehensive publications exist to describe the history, current status or the prospective tasks of our law libraries. The few articles published on the topic describe only one library or one group of libraries. The reports published by juridical institutes often contain useful information on the respective libraries. Another source of information on law libraries may be found in the guides published by several law libraries to facilitate the use of their holdings.

The history of the Canadian Association of Law Libraries (C.A.L.L.) has many parallels with the history of the International Association as set out by Dr. Dahlmanns in No. 28 of this Bulletin. The year 1960 seems to have been a turning point in law library development in Canada and the decade following it was a period of rapid and extensive growth both in the number of law libraries and in the size and scope of their collections. Before 1960 the possibility of a law library organization had been discussed, but in 1960 it became a reality. Under the guidance of Eunice Beeson, the newly appointed law librarian at the Dalhousie University Law School in Halifax, C.A.L.L. first came into being as a chapter of the American Association of Law Libraries. Eunice brought with her to Canada valuable experience in the American organization and she lost no time in getting the five or six widely scattered Canadian law librarians into touch with one another in a way in which they could work together on common projects and share similar concerns. She drafted the constitution of the organization, articulated ideas for co-operative ventures, and indicated practical ways of achieving what had to be done. Her death in the spring of 1966 was a great loss, but she had laid a firm foundation for the future development of the Association.

In the Spring of 2015, the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Library was contacted by Mark Engsberg, Director of Library Services at Emory Law, enquiring about old English legal documents. Mark knows several of us at the Institute through the IALL conferences. He was emailing on behalf of Professor Tina Stark, an Emory faculty member, who was planning a visit to London and hoped to see collections of indentures while she was there.

This empirical study starts from the newest medium, the internet, and explains briefly what researchers can expect to find there in terms of legal information, and how to find the needed information. It focuses on U.S. legal information, but also touches on foreign and international law. It includes comparisons with other legal research platforms and raises a few issues.

Considering a wide variety of international instruments and literature, this article will attempt to provide a comprehensive and consistent definition of the human right to development and its relationship to the human right to health and intellectual property. This article will also provide an annotated bibliography of various sources which can facilitate the research of scholars and practitioners in this field. A list of primary source instruments, including the selective laws of domestic countries, is also introduced.

The Communications Directorate of The Scottish Parliament is responsible for the development and implementation of strategy and policy in respect of information generation, publication and dissemination. Within The Directorate, it is the Information Systems business unit that has particular responsibility for the external information policy, that is to say, the policy regarding the provision of parliamentary information to the world outside The Parliament.

At the 1994 Summit of the Americas, leaders of democratic nations in the Western Hemisphere committed to establishing a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) by January 2005. The Declaration of Principles resulting from that Summit called for building on “existing sub-regional and bilateral arrangements in order to broaden and deepen hemispheric economic integration and to bring the agreements together.” Although ambitious, this endeavor was undertaken during a decade marked by an unprecedented proliferation of trade agreements. In 1991, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay agreed to initiate the formation of a common market now known as the MERCOSUR. Then in 1994, Canada, Mexico and the United States signed the North American Free Trade Agreement which replaced the United States-Canada Free Trade Agreement. Later that year, nations around the world formalized the existing General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, creating the World Trade Organization. In 1997, the Andean Community of Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela formalized its plans to establish a common market. Members of the Caribbean Community and Common Market also agreed in several protocols to further their economic and social integration. During the 1990's, numerous other trade agreements were negotiated, and their development continues at the same rapid pace today.

The Indian constitution contains in Part III, a Chapter on fundamental rights. The fundamental rights cover a broad spectrum, including

1. • the right to life and personal liberty;

2. • the right to equality and equal protection;

3. • freedom of conscience;

4. • the right to profess, practice and propagate religion;

5. • freedom of association and assembly,

6. • free movement within the territory of India, and

7. • freedom to practice a profession, trade or business.

The fundamental rights are not absolute because the freedoms that are recognized by Article 19 are subject to reasonable restrictions in a variety of contexts.