On May 1, 2004, ten new countries joined the European Union (EU), bringing the number of members from fifteen to a total of twenty-five. This expansion was the largest expansion ever undertaken by the EU, raising serious questions regarding the integration of different cultures, economies, political systems, and legal regimes into a very Westernized EU. These issues are further complicated by the fact that eight of the ten accession countries, namely Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, are all Eastern European nations that have only been independent states since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent disintegration of the Soviet Union in 1991. Still coping with the transition from socialism to capitalism and from oppression to democracy, each of these nations encountered unique challenges as they approached the date of formal EU accession.

Working with United Nations documentation can be challenging. For starters, titles of documents are generic. In general, it's a good idea to have a basic sense of how the Organization is structured and its reporting system. (For example, the Commission on Human Rights reports to the Economic and Social Council, the International Law Commission to the General Assembly.) Many tools are available to help in this regard but perhaps the most useful is United Nations Documentation: Research Guide, which is an excellent starting point for neophytes but also has features for advanced researchers which enable them to further hone their skills.

Law libraries occupy a unique and, in many respects, an ambiguous status in the United States. This status tends to set them apart in a variety of significant ways from the ubiquitous prototypes of general libraries and, with the possible exception of medical libraries, even from the different categories of specialized libraries in other academic or professional areas. The distinctiveness of law libraries in the United States, which is shared to a greater or lesser extent by many law libraries elsewhere in the world, and especially in countries possessing legal systems based on common law, cannot fully be appreciated by anyone who does not have at least a rudimentary knowledge of the nature and content of law as well as a working familiarity with the idiosyncratic uses of library materials by the legal profession in the exercise of judicial and legislative processes. Unfortunately, the incontro-vertible value of this self-evident requirement if frequently overlooked.

Law librarianship in Nigeria is not as old as the legal profession but certainly older than public librarianship or any other brand of librarianship. The oldest libraries -those of the Lagos High Court and Federal Ministry of Justice– are law libraries and they date as far back as 1900.

The present reporter has been associated with the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (IFLP) from its inception in 1959, first as Assistant Editor and, for the last five years, als General Editor; his remarks will be confined to matters of which he has had direct experience in his work for the IFLP.

While those of us in the United States have become accustomed to talking about our war on terrorism and its consequences, including its effects on civil rights, we should not ignore the fact that the international community, and specifically the United Nations, is conducting its own ‘war’ on terrorism. I will be addressing the General Assembly's and especially the Security Council's war on terrorism and the challenges these efforts present, including to international human rights.

Despite an ongoing drive by governments and law enforcers around the world to improve the sophistication of their risk mitigation measures, cyber-attacks are continually increasing. A study from Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) shows more than 4,000 ransomware attacks occurred daily in 2016. That's a 300 percent increase over 2015, where 1,000 ransomware attacks were seen per day. Cyber criminals are successfully penetrating even the most high-profile companies and governmental agencies. The breach at the NSA was truly alarming and just one recent example of the dire situation the country, and world, face as cybercrime intensifies and the cyber security talent shortage becomes more serious.

Accordingly, the purpose of this research is to focus on cyber education at the national, government, and law enforcement level examining the methodology to set the tone from the top ensuring alignment between governments, law enforcers, private sector, and academic level. It also examines the gaps in cyber laws and educational governance initiatives and their impact on efficient execution of cyber policies for various regions of the world with a focus on the United Arab Emirates and the United States of America.

Finally, this article recommends policy guidelines and a compliance manual framework for governments and law enforcers to consider ensuring that cyber risks are properly addressed and mitigated in a structured and coherent way.

It is proposed in this paper to examine the possibility of cooperative acquisition of legal materials among some libraries in the City of Lagos.

This research guide aims to provide individuals with an understanding for how to approach topics related to the past, current, and future work of the international criminal tribunals established under the domain and supervision of the United Nations. With attention given to the broad nature and responsibilities of these ad hoc tribunals, this guide intends to give a general introduction to researching the tribunals and looking into various types of information that stem from the existence of these institutions. This includes researching information from judicial decisions to the administrative functions of these courts.

Modern legal education began in China late in the Qing dynasty (1644–1911), and then expanded during the period of the Republic of China from 1912. With the establishment of the People's Republic of China in 1949, legal education entered a new and difficult period. The compilation of English language materials offered here includes a few materials relating to the Qing and Republican periods, but after 1949 only materials relating to the People's Republic of China (mainland China). Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan all have separate legal education systems and structures, and are excluded from this compilation.

Once on a plane to New Orleans I chanced to half overhear a conversation between two passengers who shared the same row of seats with me. Somewhere between wakefulness and drowsiness, my ear caught a telltale accent that betrayed one of my seatmates as an Orleanian as they chatted animatedly about the Crescent City, Louisiana, and the ways that both diverged from the rest of the country. The native noted reverently the influence of the Roman Catholic Church, he remarked grandly on the extraordinary cuisine, he waxed pridefully about the city as the birthplace of jazz, and he spoke warmly about the manifold ethnic origins of his fellow Louisianians. Then, as if to fortify his contention that he hailed from a truly unusual place, he pointedly observed that Louisiana was the only state in the nation whose legal system rested upon the Napoleonic Code, even as he confessed to an uncertainty about why that difference existed or what it meant precisely.

Foreign law, whether a subject of study in itself within the domain of comparative law, or invoked under a rule of conflict of laws to resolve a crossborder issue, is an essential library resource. In jurisdictions where foreign law must be pleaded and proved as a fact, it is up to the parties to demonstrate what that law is, in default of which the Anglo-American court will generally presume it to be the same as municipal law. In other, generally civil-law, jurisdictions it may be up the court to appoint an expert; foreign law may be treated either as law or as fact, depending upon the jurisdiction. Because family law, succession and donations are, in civil-law countries, largely ruled by personal law and because personal law may be determined by reference to facts of nationality, domicile, religion and ethnic identity, considerable academic sophistication is demanded of foreign and comparative law librarians. The escalating costs of legal materials and the difficulty of cataloguing and maintaining collections of rarely-used materials in hard languages pose additional obstacles. In the United States particularly, acquisition of foreign materials has perceptibly declined since the early 1980s. Only a handful of law libraries in the world possesses the financial, logistical, linguistic and technical wherewithal to aspire to collecting materials from all or most countries; for those, managing acquisition and selection is the main challenge. Collecting official gazettes, session laws and case reporters from many jurisdictions makes enormous demands upon space and record-keeping; microform collection is not in many cases an alternative. Where it is, it creates its own special demands.

Socio-economic rights are those human rights that aim to secure for all members of a particular society a basic quality of life in terms of food, water, shelter, education, health care and housing. They differ from traditional civil and political rights such as the right to equality, personal liberty, property, free speech and association. These “traditional human rights” are now found in most democratic constitutions and are, as a rule, enshrined in a Bill of Rights; which is that part of the Constitution that is normally enforced through mechanisms such as judicial review. The victims of the violation of such rights have a legal remedy. Individual freedom is a primary value underpinning civil and political rights.

Estonia employs a civil law system and follows the legal traditions of continental Europe – there is a distinction between public and private law. The main source of law is written (statutory) law. Case law has no precedent value. However, the decisions of the Estonian Supreme Court are used as a subsidiary source of law in interpreting and founding the general principles of law. This follows expressis verbis from the Estonian Code of Criminal Procedure, which states in article 2 subsection 4 that the decisions of the Supreme Court in issues which are not regulated by other sources of criminal procedural law but which arise in the application of law are also sources of criminal procedure law. And they are de facto in other areas of law: private law, in particular administrative law, as well. Thus one could say that step-by-step the judgments of the Supreme Court gain more and more importance in shaping the legal system and legal order of Estonia.

Recent developments in U.S-Cuba relations have resulted in a proliferating global interest in Cuba, including its legal regime. This comprehensive Guide aims to fill a noticeable void in the availability of information in English on this enigmatic jurisdiction's legal order, and on how to conduct research related to it. Covered topics include “The Constitution,” “Legislation and Codes,” “The Judiciary,” “Cuba in the International Arena,” and “The Legal Profession.” A detailed section on “Cuban Legal Materials in U.S. and Canadian Libraries” is also featured. Although the Guide emphasizes sources in English and English-language translation, materials in Spanish are likewise included as English-language equivalents are often unavailable. The Guide's 12 authors are members of the Latin American Law Interest Group of the American Association of Law Libraries’ Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Special Interest Section (FCIL-SIS).

There is an independent Scottish legal system today because, until the Union of the English and Scottish Crowns in 1603 and the Union of the Parliaments of the two countries in 1707, Scotland was an independent sovereign state. When King James VI of Scotland became James I of England and Great Britain in 1603, there was considerable interest in the possibility of establishing a single legal system for the newly united kingdoms, while during the Cromwellian interlude of the 1650s the possibility moved some way towards actuality. But the 1707 Act of Union showed a recognition that the establishment of a single legal system and body of law for the whole of the United Kingdom was not really a practical proposition, in articles which remain the formal basis for the continuing existence and independence of the Scottish law and legal system. Article XVIII provided for the continuation of Scots law after the Union, excepting only the ‘Laws concerning Regulation of Trade, Customs and … Excises', which were to ‘be the same in Scotland, from and after the Union, as in England.’ Change to Scots law was allowed under the Article, but in matters of ‘private right’ such change had to be for the ‘evident utility’ of the Scottish people. Only in matters of ‘public right’ might the aim be simply to make the law the same throughout the United Kingdom. Article XIX laid down that the principal Scottish courts, the Court of Session and the High Court of Justiciary, should ‘remain in all time coming’ as they were then constituted, and further provided that Scottish cases were not to be dealt with by the English courts ‘in Westminster-hall’ (which likewise continued to exist post-Union).

Albert Einstein, in an Address in Chicago observed: [t]he existence and validity of human rights are not written in the stars. The ideals concerning the conduct of men towards each other and the desirable structure of the community have been conceived and taught by enlightened individuals in the course of history. Those ideals and convictions which resulted from historical experience, from the craving for beauty and harmony, have been readily accepted in theory by man – and at all times, have been trampled upon by the same people under the pressure of their animal instincts. A large part of history is therefore replete with the struggle for those human rights, an eternal struggle in which a final victory can never be won. But to tire in that struggle would mean the ruin of society.