Legal research news from an Ottawa law librarian
Labels: law libraries, web 2.0
Labels: legal research and writing, open access, portals, web 2.0
Labels: annual reports, government of Canada, official languages
"Amnesty International's Report 2008, shows that sixty years after the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted by the United Nations, people are still tortured or ill-treated in at least 81 countries, face unfair trials in at least 54 countries and are not allowed to speak freely in at least 77 countries."The report's section on Canada highlights a number of concerns, including aboriginal rights, civil liberties in the context of the "war on terror", women's rights, refugee rights, the use of Tasers, and the reversal of Canada's long-standing policy to always seek clemency for Canadians sentenced to death abroad.
"Amnesty International challenged governments to set a new paradigm for collective leadership based on the principles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (...) "
"The report highlights the following trends:
- Targeting of civilians by armed groups and government forces with impunity;
- Pervasive violence against women;
- Promotion of torture and ill-treatment as acceptable modes of intelligence gathering;
- Suppression of dissent and attacks on journalists and activists;
- Lack of protection for refugees, asylum-seekers and migrants;
- Denial of economic and social rights; and
- Evasion of corporate accountability for human rights abuses."
Labels: annual reports, human rights, NGOs
Labels: IT, Supreme Court of Canada
"This period was marked by considerable interest in the issue of access to government information and in the role of the Commissioner and his office in investigating complaints."A statistical breakdown of last year's activities shows that 1,381 investigations of complaints into how various federal institutions handled access to information requests were completed.
"The interest was partially spurred by changes to the Access to Information Act arising from the Federal Accountability Act, which included a significant increase in the number of institutions subject to the Act (70 to bring the total to more than 250). Another contributing factor was public debate about access to government information, sparked in particular by Canada’s military mission in Afghanistan. There has also been ongoing, and welcome, scrutiny of the Commissioner’s effectiveness at using his influence as ombudsman to foster a culture of openness in government."
"The Commissioner and his office faced numerous challenges in the past year, not the least of which being a significant backlog of complaints waiting to be handled. The number of new complaints received increased by 80 percent from the previous year."
Labels: access to information, annual reports, government of Canada
Labels: Supreme Court of Canada
Labels: conferences, databases, law libraries, legal publishers, legal research and writing
Labels: conferences, law libraries, legal publishers
Over the next year, the SIG will freshen up its mandate and terms of reference, and explore ways of enhancing its web presence.
For the 2009 CALL conference in Halifax, the SIG will be looking at various programming possibilities. Possible topics that the co-chairs will look at (that is Susan Jones from the Nova Scotia Barristers Society and myself) include: self-represented litigants, specialized tribunals (e.g. mental health courts, aboriginal healing circles etc.), and/or courts in the movies and pop culture.
Labels: conferences, law libraries
Labels: conferences, law libraries
Labels: legal research and writing, UK, web 2.0
Labels: consumer law, government of Canada, health law, legislation, Library of Parliament, RSS
The Human Security Report Project’s mission is to undertake research on global and regional trends in political violence. It manages the Human Security Gateway, an online database of human security resources."This Brief focuses on three main issues. First, it challenges the expert consensus that the threat of terrorism—especially Islamist terrorism—is increasing. It tracks a remarkable but largely unnoticed decline in the incidence of terrorism around the world, including a sharp decrease in deadly assaults perpetrated by al-Qaeda’s loosely knit Islamist global terror network. "
"Second, it analyzes the marked decline in the number and deadliness of armed conflicts in sub-Saharan Africa that has taken place since the end of the 1990s. It attributes this decline—and the parallel but longer-term fall in coups d’état in the region—to a significant increase in international initiatives directed towards stopping ongoing political violence and preventing it from restarting."
"Third, it updates the global trend data on armed conflicts, battle-deaths, coups d’état, and human rights abuses that were reported in the Human Security Report 2005 and Human Security Brief 2006. It finds that there has been little net change in recent years in the number of conflicts in which a government is one of the warring parties, but that other forms of political violence, including communal conflicts, have declined."
Labels: human rights, terrorism
Labels: privacy
Labels: government_Quebec, human rights, immigration, religion
"The report comes out of the three-day Justice Stakeholder Summit held in June 2007. The Summit asked legal stakeholders to look at the problems and barriers in the system and to develop recommendations for ways that these could be addressed. Discussions focused on civil, criminal and family law."Earlier Library Boy posts on reform to the justice system include:
"The resulting report details a variety of practical solutions to the very real problems that all those who participated face on a regular basis. The recommendations include:
- Increasing the judicial complement to better reflect the growing population in Ontario
- Better integration of justice services, such as in matters of domestic violence that may involve both criminal and family law issues
- Providing better tools to educate the public about the justice system
- Creating specialty courts to deal with drug offences, mental health patients and domestic violence"
Labels: access to justice, courts, criminal law, law societies, legal aid, litigation
Labels: civil liability, dispute resolution, government_Ontario, legislation, litigation
Labels: courts, statistics
Labels: e-resources, journals, law libraries, Supreme Court of Canada
Labels: current awareness, e-government, government_Quebec
"...property crime rates were down and the overall rate of youth crime was 6% lower than a decade earlier and 25% below the peak in 1991, according to a new [report] based on police-reported statistics."Youth homicide rates have risen 41 per cent since 1997. However, there are so few youth homicides every year that rates can fluctuate substantially.
"In 2006, nearly 180,000 young people were implicated in some violation of the Criminal Code, excluding traffic offences. This translates to a youth crime rate of 6,885 youth accused for every 100,000 young people in this age group."
"This study showed that the rate of violent crime among young people increased 12% in 10 years, and 30% since 1991. While property crime rates have declined over the course of the previous decade, these types of offences still accounted for about 4 in 10 youth crimes in 2006."
"Drug-related crimes among youth have also climbed dramatically. The rate of drug offences among youth in 2006 was nearly twice what it was 10 years earlier."
Labels: criminal law, statistics, Supreme Court of Canada, youth
"The Supreme Court of Canada, in the Secession Reference, suggested that federalism is among the core shared values of Canadians along with democracy, constitutionalism and the rule of law, and respect for minorities ... As such, it would be reasonable to expect that federalism would be a major and ongoing preoccupation and concern for those who, broadly defined, study Canadian politics and government. However, there is some debate about the extent to which, in fact, federalism remains the object of sustained and continuing scholarly attention. This paper seeks to add to this debate based on a review of recent scholarly literature on federalism published in Canada and the results of a series of interviews with scholars for whom federalism is a major concern."From the conclusion:
"First, our research suggests that, while the total number of studies having something to do with federalism in Canada (defined broadly) is quite large (about 1200 between 2000 and 2007 published in academic journals, released by think tanks, published in edited collections, etc.), the number of studies that deal with federalism per se is quite small. In other words, there is a large and evolving literature in law, economics and particularly in political science where federalism is given at least some consideration. However, our qualitative and quantitative review of the recent literature on federalism in Canada suggests that federalism is, very often, a contextual or explanatory factor and not the principal object of study. Much less common are studies where federalism is the main focus of the research."
"Second, this study suggests that federalism studies in Canada continue to be tied to current events and contemporary issues. This focus on what is more or less immediate has several advantages and disadvantages. On the plus side, it suggests that students of Canadian federalism are engaged with the debates of the day and are, in a small way, willing and able to contribute to
framing, understanding and, in some cases, advancing the debate. However, this focus on the here and now may mean that scholars of Canadian federalism focus on the detail (e.g. How big is the fiscal imbalance?) or are, at least to some extent, captured by the particular framing that is dominant in the current debate (e.g. What does 'open federalism' mean?). This makes it more difficult to explore the more fundamental questions. In fact, this lack of attention to some of the more enduring questions that underline contemporary debates may make the short-term interventions of scholars less effective and compelling. A second disadvantage of this strong linkage to current events is that perennial issues (e.g. Why is Canada a federation?), issues that are just over the horizon (e.g. demographic change and fiscal arrangements) or issues that will, sooner or later, return to the agenda (e.g. What are the necessary conditions to allow for constitutional change?) may not get the attention they deserve."
Labels: constitutional law
"During the month of February, AALL members took a wide range of photographs of law librarians working, meeting, teaching, and doing all that law librarians do in a given day or week."The AALL received submissions from more than 35 law libraries.
Labels: awards, law libraries
"[Ning is] a user-customizable platform that allows anyone to create MySpace or Facebook-like social networks, but without all the clutter and garbage that makes MySpace and Facebook so frustrating."
(...)
"I suspect that what has made this group go viral in its own small way is that it is serving the right need at the right time. Some of the members are active social networking users: bloggers, podcasters, and Twitterers; Skype, Gtalk, and ooVoo users; del.icio.us and wiki fans, and more. Many of the members appear to be law librarians who have been meaning to learn more about these tools, and perhaps had planned some exploration among their summer projects. "
Labels: law libraries, web 2.0
"Often referred to as 'the official newspaper of the Government of Canada,' the Canada Gazette has been an important instrument in the Canadian democratic process for more than 160 years. It has served to inform Canadians of the operations of government and to involve them actively in the legislative process. With this site, Library and Archives Canada (LAC), in co-operation with the Canada Gazette Directorate, Public Works and Government of Services Canada, will make the Gazette available online, in its entirety, for the first time (...)"Approximately 30% (almost 300,000 pages) of the total Canada Gazette content is now online. This includes:
And, of course, everything from 1998 onwards has been available online for some time now.
By the fall of 2008, LAC will be adding the earliest issues of the Gazette, from 1841 to 1950. By spring 2009, all issues of the Canada Gazette will be available online.
The database will allow keyword searching of all issues dating back to the very first one.
Labels: databases, e-government, government of Canada, legislation, Library and Archives Canada
Labels: conferences, Internet, profiles
"Mass surveillance can be considered a fact of modern society. Its significance is reflected in the variety of methods used to collect information. Among these methods, New Surveillance and Monitoring Technologies (NSMT), and particularly the way in which they are used, raise a number of ethical issues. In addition, the Commission de l’éthique de la science et de la technologie (CEST) has taken on the mandate of formulating an opinion on technology which could be used in mass surveillance for purposes of security: Biometric Systems, Video Surveillance and Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID)."Earlier Library Boy posts about surveillance include:
"In Search of Balance: An Ethical Look at New Surveillance and Monitoring Technologies for Security Purposes is the Commission’s fifth Position statement. A look at the notions of security, sense of insecurity, risk, and surveillance is followed by a technical and ethical overview or each NSMT under consideration. Fundamental democratic values are at the heart of the ethical issues involved: Assessment of the effectiveness and reliability of NSMT, proportionality of response to insecurity, social acceptability, consent, respect for end purpose, and protection of personal information."
Labels: government_Quebec, privacy
Labels: international law, international organizations, treaties
Labels: administrative law, conferences
Labels: human rights, Internet
Labels: law libraries, Supreme Court of Canada
Labels: government_USA, legislation, RSS
"When it was launched in the fall of 2000, CanLII contained less than 30,000 cases. Over the years, the content development went through various stages: first, recent cases from all appeal and superior courts, then from all courts, and so on. Recently, focus has been placed on the addition of important historical case law as well as administrative tribunals. All those efforts led us to our first half-million "CanLII also draws attention to some interesting facts about itself:
Labels: CanLII, courts, databases, legal research and writing, open access, portals
The Supreme Court of Canada has some 1929 e-books provided through NetLibrary, a division of OCLC. MARC records for the e-books in our OPAC provide a direct link to each document.
Labels: e-books, libraries, Supreme Court of Canada, surveys
The Institute was founded in 2001 by retired Judge Alfred J. Scow, the first Aboriginal person called to the Bar and to the Bench in British Columbia.
[Source: British Columbia Courthouse Library Society]
Labels: aboriginal and Indigenous law
Labels: elections, Library of Parliament
"A spokesman for Treasury Board confirmed Friday that the system is being killed because 'extensive' consultations showed it was not valued by government departments."Earlier Library Boy posts about CAIRS include:
(...)
"If departments and agencies are no longer required to update the CAIRS database with new requests, its value as an accountability tool will quickly diminish, critics said."
" 'This is terrible and I consider this to be yet one more step in making records less accessible,' said Michel Drapeau, a lawyer, frequent user and co-author of a standard reference work on access law." [Drapeau is co-author of Federal Access to Information Act and Privacy Legislation Annotated]
" 'To do this now after the CAIRS' usefulness has been proven over and over again is indicative of the extent to which government will go to stifle the access regime'."
Labels: access to information, databases, government of Canada
"What we need to do as a federal library community is to draw together this shared interest in Web 2.0. This will enable us to hear about common areas of interest and then discuss issues and challenges presented and the lessons learned."Federal government librarians should contact Industry Canada's Oryst Iwanycky [iwanycky DOT oryst AT ic.gc.ca].
"So, what is Web 2.0? Tapscott and Andrews in their influential work Wikinomics distinguish Web 2.0 from what they call the old Web. 'While the old Web was about Web sites, clicks and eyeballs, the new Web is about communities, participation and peering.' Openness, peering and sharing are the action words of a new generation of knowledge workers. The key is audience engagement. As librarians, we would like more of that in our libraries. The promise for libraries is that our audiences that are now going to Amazon, Google and YouTube also come to the Library."
"So, this is an invitation to you to get involved. We are proposing:
- to form an interest group next month
- to identify & publish a list of key resources on Web 2.0 specifically for federal libraries
- to identify topics of interest in Web2.0 for discussion, for example, wikis, RSS, collaborative technologies, open source, etc.
- to identify departments engaged in Web 2.0 projects and
- to show the results to the community this fall."
Labels: government of Canada, libraries, RSS, web 2.0, wikis
"Between January and March 2008 the Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies (C4LPT) invited learning professionals to share their Top 10 Tools for Learning – both for their own personal learning/productivity as well as for creating learning for others. 155 learning professionals contributed their Top 10 Tools (...) In total over 460 different tools were named, but from these Top 10 Tools lists we compiled a list of the Top 100 Tools for Learning Spring 2008."The Centre also provides an analysis of the tools selected.
Labels: continuing education, IT, web 2.0
"Each level of Canadian government attacks the problem in different ways, according to its priorities and powers. The end result is a broad network of prostitution-related measures that generally complement one another and work to resolve the problem at multiple levels. The federal government is striving to live up to its international obligations, and in large measure has succeeded through criminal law that punishes procurement, trafficking, and the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Nonetheless, trafficking in women and children remains a reality in Canada and a further battle for the government, which must also work to strengthen its social programs to provide protection and a viable future for the victims of such crimes."The Weekly Checklist includes a listing of book and serial titles which have been released during the previous week by the Parliament of Canada, federal departments, and Statistics Canada.
"Beyond federal legislation, provinces and municipalities are also making full use of their powers to deal with prostitution. Although those powers provide strong means for dealing with various aspects of prostitution, they are not immune to challenge. A number of the measures in place have been criticized as unconstitutional, although only a few have actually been brought before the courts. The dilemma is that there are so many different approaches to dealing with prostitution, and the problem is so varied throughout the country, that there will always be a perception that federal law is inadequate to deal with the issue. At the same time, however, attempts by provincial and municipal jurisdictions to regulate prostitution locally will continue to cater to issue-specific areas or area-specific issues, and are thus unable to solve the problem on a broader scale."
Labels: criminal law, Library of Parliament
Law library blogaliciousness from Ottawa since 2005. Accept no substitutes.
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As Michel de Montaigne would say, "Je vais au change indiscrètement et tumultuairement - mon style et mon esprit vont vagabondant de même" (Essais, III, 9, De la vanité): I go where my fancy leads me, but my fancy always leads back to the law