Updated Research Guides From GlobaLex

GlobaLex, the electronic collection created by the Hauser Global Law School Program at the New York University School of Law, recently updated some of its research guides:

• A Research Guide to Cases and Materials on Terrorism: "A bibliographic survey of the law relating to terrorism - even one that tries to avoid advocacy and argument, and perhaps even more so on account of that - exposes its author to criticism more than anything over definition and criteria for inclusion. Terrorism itself is a moving target: laws addressing it written by a fearful Establishment, its history written by the victors. Terrorist acts can be undertaken for all sorts of reasons or, conceptually at least, for none at all other than to promote anarchy or to express hatred. A purely criminal undertaking (as in extortion) is the least likely to threaten the wider public (such crime tends to be local or limited to particular ethnic groups) and it is also the easiest to deal with. Terrorist acts commonly arise out of grievance and frustration, real or imagined: religious, political, economic, personal. Terrorism, or the threat of terrorism, can involve weapons of mass destruction, or it can consist of measures of murder and mayhem, repression and intimidation directed at individuals, at a group or class, or at all the inhabitants of a region or state. While a dozen or more sectors of the law are pertinent to terrorism - some as cause, some as effect, some as impediment and some as punishment - historically, no law has been more successful than the mere passage of time in bringing it to an end. Terrorism and its companion, civil unrest, either bring revolutionary change and are then sanctified in a new national myth, or they fail and grievances either continue to fester or are overtaken by events (...) The point of this survey is not so much to list sources - many of these could be found with a search engine and legal database; others by using some of the better bibliographic sites listed here. It is rather to provide some assistance in planning research and in formulating issues to address - to examine the range of issues and provide links, first to sources that are considered reliable and unbiased, then to specimen law cases and scholarly articles and, finally, to opinions and arguments not otherwise adumbrated which, even if they are in support of a particular agenda are coherent, plausible and forthright in their advocacy or apologia. Collected here are many of the major court cases involving terrorism and terrorists of the modern era, as well as a sampling of issues related to terrorism. "
• The Amparo Context in Latin American Jurisdiction: An Approach to an Empowering Action: " Since 1948 and after the American Declaration of the Rights and Duties of Man and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the necessity of a judicial mechanism of human rights protection became a global concern. Under the influence of Mexican amparo, the right to everyone 'to simple and prompt recourse, or any other effective recourse, to a competent court or tribunal for protection against acts that violate his fundamental rights recognized by the constitution or laws of the state concerned or by this Convention, even though such violation may have been committed by persons acting in the course of their official duties' was included in the American Convention on Human Rights (article 25.1) in 1969. With this 'inter-American purpose', the writ of amparo was conceived (also called Acción de Tutela, Recurso de Amparo and Juicio de Amparo, among others), inspired in the Mexican amparo which was created with the deep conviction of the need for a procedural instrument to protect the fundamental rights of the governed against the public power, including challenging the constitutionality of laws. Today is clear that one fundamental aspect in the modernization of the justice system in Latin American countries has been the quantitative and qualitative improvement of the instruments and the constitutional possibilities for the citizen to access the justice. This is particularly relevant taking into account the lack of access and the corruption in some governments and justice systems in the region. "