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.

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.

In 2006 the Russian Federation was chair of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe. Our motto was: “Towards united Europe without dividing lines.” In order to make European countries closer to each other it is very important to insure unified interpretation and application of norms contained in international treaties. Such harmony between countries requires us to first consider the terms in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms.

Whales have captivated the human imagination for millennia. Indeed, evidence of the first whale hunting dates back to at least 6,000 B.C. These incredible cetaceans have been a source of human food, fuel and tools, and have inspired art, myth and literature around the globe. Legal issues affecting whales are varied and far reaching. Only since the mid 20th century, with the establishment of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) under the terms of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) have whales benefited from any type of conservation effort.

The use of abbreviations saves considerable time and space. This translates into savings in costs. However, one unfamiliar with abbreviations will lose considerable time in searching for their meanings.

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.

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.

Czechoslovakia was established on October 28, 1918. For a better understanding of its legal history, allow me to mention first a few historical events that influenced the creation of Czechoslovakia and, in later years its legal development.

My name is Johannes Houwink ten Cate; I am a historian of the Holocaust and I am interested in other modern genocides as well. It would seem appropriate to discuss with you how historians and legal experts have interacted in the past fifty years in dealing with the Holocaust and other modern genocides – insofar as these genocides have been formally acknowledged as such by international courts. So, I will limit my observations to the Holocaust, to the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 and to the genocidal incident that took place in Srebrenica in 1995.

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.

The number of Chinese legal scholarly publications has grown dramatically in the last ten years as the Chinese government legislature churned out an expansive body of law, with an impressive proliferation of print treatises and web-based legal information in the vernacular. This article offers a sampling of legal scholars and their treatises. It is organized by subject area, and is offered as a selective annotated treatise finder. The list focuses on legal publications published within the last two decades subsequent to the amendment of the 1982 Chinese Constitution in 1989. Some of the authors included here wrote extensively on specific legal topics, while others were involved in the deliberation, preparation, and drafting of key legislation. It is hoped that the article provides a roadmap that will be useful to students and others new to research in Chinese law; to help them locate relevant treatises, journal literature, and to jumpstart their research into specific legislation and legal topics.