Founded in 1991, the Institute for Justice (IJ) is a libertarian public interest law firm which litigates in courts across the country to preserve freedom of opportunity and to challenge government’s control over individuals’ lives. The Institute focuses on the core mission areas of economic liberty, school choice, private property rights, and freedom of speech. In addition to republishing the firm’s most popular amicus briefs, the website provides detailed background information of the cases in which the Institute is involved. Researchers will also be interested in the firm’s state-by-state census of eminent domain takings, Public Power, Private Gain, which documents more than 10,000 private-to-private takings. Visitors can also access IJ’s newsletters, reports, and research bibliographies. Students and activists will be interested in the Institute’s Law Student Conference, Clinic on Entrepreneurship with the University of Chicago Law School, Policy Activists Conference, and other opportunities for involvement which are detailed on the site.

IP Justice (IPJ) is a non-profit civil liberties organization that defends consumer rights to use digital media worldwide, and promotes balanced intellectual property laws that preserve traditional consumer rights such as private copying, the public domain, and reverse engineering. The IPJ website contains the organization’s statement of principle, a list of IPJ’s publications, and reprints the group’s press releases. The site also describes IPJ’s various projects and campaigns, such as its work with the Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE), its monitoring of the activities of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and its participation with the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Researchers will appreciate the “Resources” section, which contains articles on copyright, circumvention, and software patents, as well as international treaties, directives, agreements, and proposals relating to intellectual property. The information is also topically arranged by region. The IPJ site is searchable.

Cindy L. Chick’s blog, LawLib Tech, celebrated its two-year anniversary in October 2005. Cindy Chick is the former co-editor of LLRX.com, and her blog focuses on library technology and knowledge management. A nice feature of this blog includes an in-depth RSS tutorial covering topics such as “Getting Started with RSS Aggregators” and “Using Bloglines.” This blog is also available via Bloglet-based e-mail subscription, which is nice due to the frequent nature of the blog’s updates. LawLib Tech is archived by topic, such as “Search Engines,” “Taxonomies, Thesaurus', etc.,” and “Virtual Reference,” and by date. LawLib Tech is searchable and syndicatable. Reader comments are allowed.

One of the major research topics of UNESCO's MOST Programme is the analysis of multicultural societies. Through interdisciplinary, comparative, and culturally sensitive research, the MOST Programme aims to furnish information useful for the peaceful and democratic management of societies characterized by cultural and ethnic pluralism. The Programme focuses on policies that contribute to the goals of achieving equality of citizenship rights between culturally diverse groups, and the avoidance and solution of ethnic conflict. The MOST “Linguistic Rights” section features its “Policy on Linguistic Rights,” which offers links and annotations to papers which discuss legal and social issues related to the development of democratic policies in multilingual societies. Visitors may also find a collection of relevant provisions in international conventions, declarations, multilateral treaties, and national constitutions which pertain to linguistic rights. The relevant sections from some of the more prominent international NGO documents are available as well.

Wrightslaw is a project of Pete (an attorney representing children with special educational needs) and Pam (a psychotherapist) Wright. Wrightslaw was a response to the overwhelming reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Florence County School District Four (South Carolina) v. Shannon Carter. Wright successfully represented Carter, a learning disabled high school student. After the decision, the Wrights wrote a book on special education law and were then encouraged to start the website, which came online in 1998. The site is particularly informative to parents, educators, attorneys, and psychologists. While the site promotes the Wrights’ books and seminars, there is a good deal of free information made available. The Law Library provides full-text access to numerous articles and cases pertaining to special education issues. There are additional categories for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, No Child Left Behind and other laws. Explanation is provided, as well as links to statutory text and regulations. The site also provides a topical section spanning from autism to teachers and principals. Under each topic, explanation, articles, cases, and other helpful resources are provided.