Posted in:
Uncertain What to Get That Special Someone for Christmas? Try WSLR!
The Call List-Serv is offering the Western Samoa Law Reports, 1930-1949 and 1970-1979 (2 volumes) free for the cost of shipment. Some Samoan cases are available online, though the Index is also on PacificLii.
Samoan law is described in PacificLii.
I’ve not found any reference to any Canadian court having considered a Western Samoan case. But it does seem sad that the inexorable rise of web-based caselaw has put this obscure bit of antipodean jurisprudence in the recycling hopper. Unless someone wants to claim it from the BC Courthouse Library.
I sent this notice to an American law professor (originally from New Zealand) who represented Western Samoa in many international meetings, including in the negotiations leading to the creation of the International Criminal Court. He had this to say about the Western Samoa Court:
” The Court of Appeal has had some fine judges on it, like Lord Cooke, later of the House Of Lords and Sir Kenneth Keith, now of the ICJ.
I’ve known a lot of counsel who argued cases there. Not too many copies printed, I suspect.”
So perhaps someone with more storage space than I should snap up these valuable volumes.