L’information date d’il y a quelques semaines déjà, mais le 06 juillet, a eut lieu, à New York, une réunion spéciale relative à la Convention des Nations Unies sur l’utilisation de communications électroniques dans les contrats internationaux (pour avoir le texte en anglais, ::cliquez ici::). Je me permets d’y revenir malgré tout car ce me semble être l’aboutissement (ou presque) d’une démarche qui a commencé aux alentours de … 1985. Si mes informations sont bonnes, John Gregory, nouveau slawer, est l’un des représentants canadiens à cette grande « messe » du droit du commerce électronique.

Le 06 juillet . . . [more]

This week’s fillip may be a little too much like work. If so, I apologize. I’ll spend the weekend working on being frivolous to see if I can improve things for next time.

The deal is that Which Canadian Supreme Court Justice Are You gives you opinion snippets for 10 SCC Charter decisions. Elect the snippet for each judgment that most closely matches your view of what’s correct or right, and Matthew Skala‘s device comes up with the name of the judge whose views most nearly mirror your own. As he himself acknowledges, the site is a little outdated . . . [more]

In light of current world events, I thought that I would do a librarian thing and survey the literature to see what Canadian Legal writers have written on the topic. I present this in an unbiased fashion descending chronologically. It is by no means comprehensive but represents what has been written on the topic from a legal perspective.

Boon, Kristen. "Legislative reform in post-conflict zones: jus post bellum and the contemporary occupant’s law-making powers." (2005) 50 McGill L.J. 285-326.

Gathii, James Thuo. "Assessing claims of a new doctrine of pre-emptive war under under the Doctrine of Sources " (2005) 43 . . . [more]

I am slowly making my way through the fabulous book McLuhan for Managers by Mark Federman and Derrick de Kerckhove. It takes Marshall McLuhan‘s theories/ideas and places them into context for managers. Thus far it has been a terrific tool to help me rethink some of my assumptions. I am particularly taken with a particular critical thinking tool or probe called the “Laws of Media tetrad”. My understanding is that the Laws of Media provide us with four questions to help us understand the effect of new media. Each new media will allow one to answer the four . . . [more]

Since the Journal officiel website isn’t the easiest to navigate, here is a link to the text of the Constitutional Court’s Décision n° 2006-540 DC du 27 juillet 2006 (Loi relative au droit d’auteur et aux droits voisins dans la société de l’information).

The court upheld new laws on Internet copyright, despite criticising parts of the legislation relating to online music stores. The law was originally aimed at forcing online stores such as Apple’s iTunes to allow songs bought from its store to be played on devices that work with other music stores. The blogosphere has been in full spate, . . . [more]

The Parliamentary Library of the Australian Parliament has produced “A survey of codes of conduct in Australian and selected overseas parliaments.” [The] e-brief summarises the approach taken in federal, state and territory and some overseas parliaments to codes of conduct for ministers and members of parliament, registers of interests, the post-separation employment of ministers and the use of ethics commissioners in providing advice on and/or conducting investigations into breaches of codes.... It does not compare codes of conduct...This e-brief also examines the codes of conduct in the parliaments of the United Kingdom, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland, Republic of Ireland, Canada, New Zealand and the USA.

The Hindu is reporting that India has decided to stay out of Nicholas Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child scheme – which aims to provide kids in developing countries with a simple $100 machine.

Describing the ‘One Laptop Per Child Scheme’ as “pedagogically suspect, ” the Education Minister felt that the money that was to have been spent on the project would be better used in making secondary education universal in the country.

“The case for giving a computer to every single is pedagogically suspect. It may actually be detrimental to the growth of creative and analytical abilities of the child”, . . . [more]

I don’t normally post market numbers, but with Reed and Thomson posting interestingly contrasting second quarter results this morning, one has to wonder what these numbers mean for consumers of legal information.

Reed Elsevier H1 beats expectations; on track to meet FY targets. Anglo-Dutch publisher Reed Elsevier PLC reported higher-than-expected first half profits, as strong growth in online revenues and from publishing and information businesses offset a fall in profit at the group’s US education unit.

Thomson Second-Quarter Net Falls After Year-Ago Gain
July 27 Thomson Corp., owner of the Westlaw legal research and TradeWeb financial services, said second- . . . [more]

Since the topic of an international peacekeeping mission to Southern Lebanon is on the table, it may be useful to look at some of the major peacekeeping resources out there, especially those that include a legal dimension.

I have not included government resources from Canada (there are numerous National Defence handbooks, peacekeeping training materials, and military and international humanitarian law guides developed for Canadian Forces personnel) because Canada has announced it will not provide any troops for any eventual Lebanon intervention force.

Go to the post Peacekeeping Resources on Library Boy for the full list of resources. . . . [more]

There is a good article on Wikipedia in a recent issue of the New Yorker. . . . [more]

I received two recent emails from colleagues that, I think, illustrate the issues in the ongoing debate of the future of print and electronic.

The first is from the Chronicle of Higher Education of an issue dated 28th July: Young, “Web 2.0: Scholars turn monographs into digital conversations”. There is a great link a podcast of John Updike criticizing aspects of the shift from printed to networked books.

The second is about the failure of the new Charleston School of Law to win accreditation from the ABA in part because the adequacy of its print library resources.

I remember . . . [more]

Yesterday’s International Herald Tribune had an interesting article on President Bush’s use of ‘signing statements’. I had not previously heard of this device by which Presidents can indicate disagreement with particular provisions of legislation which they are otherwise endorsing and apparently then disregard those provisions. These statements seem much like the reservations which countries make when entering into treaties but are not something I had come across at the domestic level. Googling “signing statements presidential” provides a plethora of references discussing the historical use of the statements (W is by no means the first to use them) and their significance. . . . [more]