African Human Rights Resource Center

URL: http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/africa/
An online resource maintained by the University of Minnesota, the African Human Rights Resource Center strives to be a comprehensive repository of documents pertaining to human rights in Africa, both sub-Saharan and Northern. Here is found documentation from many African-centered human rights commissions and the Organization of African Unity, texts of treaties, charters, scores of links to Africa-related websites (country or content-specific). Treaties are searchable by subject or keyword. Most documents are from the 1990s; a few are earlier. Researchers looking for the breadth of human rights issues in Africa will certainly want to examine this website.

Center for Immigration Studies

URL: http://www.cis.org
The Center for Immigration Studies describes itself as a non-partisan, independent organization whose mission is to impartially examine issues pertaining to current immigration policy in the United States. However, much of its content takes a distinctly anti-immigration stance. The site chiefly contains news articles, brief topical background reports with a selection of links to related articles, congressional testimony, and similar materials. Among the many issues discussed are guest workers, shifts in the political power of Hispanics, employment in agriculture and high technology, the consequences of temporary visas, and the effect of immigrant labor on employment rates and levels of black Americans. One unique feature is a searchable database, derived from INS files, of employers who have been sanctioned for violating immigration law. Online visitors can also submit questions on immigration. An important Internet resource for people working in immigration law or policy.

Claims Conference

URL: http://www.claimscon.org
The Claims Conference has been in operation for 50 years, seeking to provide restitution and reparations to Holocaust survivors for loss of property, injury, and forced labor. The website covers three principal topics: slave and forced labor (available in several languages, including Hebrew, Yiddish, and Hungarian); the Swiss Refugee Program, which concerns class action lawsuits against Swiss banks for laundering profits derived from forced labor and for concealing assets owned by Holocaust victims; and compensation for Austrian Jewish survivors. Each section gives a thorough background on the issues, international agreements, restitution policies, funds, benefits, and grants available to survivors, and information on applying for compensation. The site is intended for use by the layperson, and is keyword searchable.

Internet ScamBusters

URL: http://www.scambusters.org
Internet ScamBusters, created and maintained by NETrageous Inc., was launched in 1996 as a public service to educate Web surfers about the large variety of scams perpetrated on the Internet. Internet ScamBusters is a monthly newsletter that reports on the types of fraudulent practices purveyed online and advises victims on how to take remedial action. The website for ScamBusters has archived copies of the e-Zine, links to scam-stopping resources, articles on topics such as hoaxes, viruses, credit card fraud, and e-mail spam, and a search engine for the site. Legal researchers will find the monthly newsletter and website a useful current-awareness tool for keeping up with current e-commerce scams, which cost businesses millions of dollars annually.

Swiss Institute of Comparative Law

URL: http://www.isdc.ch
Based in Lausanne, Switzerland, the ISDC (Institut Suisse de Droit Comparée) operates a law library open to the public, supports research in comparative law, and delivers legal opinions on several areas of law, principally in family law and the law of succession. To learn about the ISDC, go to "Fields of Activity," as a separate window reporting news of the institute opens when you log on or select "Home." The institute publishes its legal opinions, evidently in French or German, as well as many essays on comparative and international law, which are available for purchase, and the Yearbook of Private International Law. One section contains documents on relations between Switzerland and the EU. On the page offering links to other legal websites, the user can select by field of law or by "theme site;" i.e. country. This website operates a bit awkwardly, and despite the reviewer logging on to the English version, some pages displayed in French.