InSITE ISSN 1521-9046 Current Issue
| InSITE highlights selected law-related World Wide Web sites in two ways: as an annotated publication issued electronically and in print; and as a keyword-searchable database. The law librarians at Cornell evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them. These information can be accessed as following:
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Commonwealth @ 60: Serving a New Generation
- URL: http://www.thecommonwealth.org/
The Commonwealth, dating from the 1870s, is a voluntary association of 53 countries that span the globe. These countries were once colonies of the British Empire. In 1867, Canada became the first to change its status to a “Dominion”, which implied equality with Britain. Other major colonies followed suit over the years with increasing recognition from Britain. In 1949, the Modern Commonwealth began when India became a republic and the London Declaration formally allowed republics to maintain membership while acknowledging King George VI as Head of the Commonwealth. Today’s member states are found in Africa, the Caribbean, the Americas, Europe, Asia, and the South Pacific. The Commonwealth “believes that the best democracies are achieved through partnerships” and that member states are united by “democracy, freedom, peace, the rule of law and opportunity for all.” The website provides a plethora of information about the Commonwealth, its history, and its member states. Consult the Who We Are tab for extensive background on the Commonwealth, its organization, mission and function. The timeline provides a concise review of the historical events and developments that have led to the existence of today’s Commonwealth. Also, each member state is profiled, and users can gain key facts for each country, as well as geographic, political, economic, and societal information. Other resources available include Commonwealth documents, communiqués, speeches, and declarations. For anyone researching the Commonwealth, the site is a bonanza.
[Author: M. Morrison]
- URL: http://hiphoplaw.blogspot.com/
Hip Hop Law.Com was launched in spring 2009 by Pamela D. Bridgewater, Professor at American University College of Law, in conjunction with andré douglas pond cummings, Professor at West Virginia University College of Law, and Brian Welch, a third year student at West Virginia University College of Law. The purpose of this blog is to apply critical legal theory to issues that affect the Hip Hop Nation, a rather unique and interesting lens through which to view the law. The blog includes postings of song lyrics, thoughts on current events, critiques of legal writings, and analysis of legal issues faced by those in and around the Hip Hop culture. The scope of the site is broad with no one issue serving as a focus and includes much original content by the listed contributors. The postings are current occurring from one to six times per week and the legal writings appear to be accurate. The pages are organized in the way most blogs are organized with the postings in the middle, most recent on top and the biographies and archives on the left side panel but there is no right hand column; the postings go to the right hand side of the screen. There is a basic search feature that allows searches of words or phrases but advanced searching is not available. The homepage contains about two months' worth of posts with access to archives going back to the week of February 22, 2009 that is easily available on the left hand side of the home page. The site also includes links to biographies for each of the contributors, and with 13 regular contributors and five guest contributors representing many law schools throughout the country, this endeavor appears to have strong support from the law school community. On the home page there is a link to Twitter but clicking through leads to tweets of blog posts on the main site with no original tweets. The blog has a professional appearance and is free of charge to anyone who accesses the site. One area of criticism about the site is that in the beginning, the posts were authored by a mix of the posted contributors but over the past two months, one author has predominated which could perhaps be explained by the typical college/university calendar. With the new academic year, the activity level and mix of contributions could change again. This is a new blog that is working to bring what appears to be a unique perspective to the law and it will be interesting to watch as it develops.
[Author: C. Brown]
- URL: http://www.globalcompetitionforum.org/
The Global Competition Forum website was created by the International Bar Association in 1991 to facilitate their work with the International Competition Network (http://www.internationalcompetitionnetwork.org/). The site’s function is to further international discourse by providing a place to collect, develop, and distribute information regarding competition policy. In so doing, the Global Forum hopes to “act as a catalyst for change” and ultimately harmonize conflicting legal systems. From the site’s homepage, visitors may click on a geographic region to be connected to an alphabetical list of that region’s countries. Each country’s name serves as a link to a current, well-organized source of that country’s competition laws. To the extent that information is available, each country’s outline includes an overview, legislation, selected cases, guidelines, forms, treaties, news reports, Global Forum annual reports, press releases, and links to other competition authority websites. Each category in turn provides links to PDF copies of documents, in English, and frequently, in the vernacular. If information is not available regarding a particular country’s competition laws, then the site will indicate that this so; however, other relevant information, such as treaties, will still be provided. The site provides extensive access to not only the text of laws, but also commentary by world-renowned experts in all facets of competition law, together with links to other competition authorities and interested international organizations. A tab at the top of the homepage also provides access to copies of the papers, reports, and speeches of the International Competition Network itself. The site is well organized and logically arranged, but it would do well to add a search engine to provide an additional method of accessing its wealth of resources.
[Author: A. Emerson]
InSITE contributors: C. Brown, A. Emerson, M. Morrison, J. Pajerek (editor)
© 2009 Cornell Law Library
The contents of this publication and any recommendations therein are the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of Cornell University.
The contents of this publication and any recommendations therein are the opinions of the authors and do not reflect the views of Cornell University.