The Inter American Commission on Human Rights has agreed to hear a precedent-setting case against the United States based on environmental racism. Heavily polluting industries are often concentrated in poor areas, typically occupied by minorities. In the United States, these minorities tend to be black. The Canadian equivalents may be First Nations communities, such as the reserve just downwind of Sarnia’s Chemical Valley.

 Mossville and Cancer Alley

The IACHR case relates to an African American hamlet named Mossville, Louisiana. Fourteen heavy industries lie between Mossville and its neighbour, Westlake, including an oil refinery, a coal burning power station and several . . . [more]

Sharon Davis at Hull & Hull has a new blog entry reminding lawyers that while they often remind clients of the importance of good estate succession planning, they should also give thought to succession planning for their own practices.

Will your clients be looked after in the event of your sudden death or incapacity? You’ll find some good practical tips here, including: making arrangements in advance with another lawyer, having your critical information stored in an easily accessible (to the assisting lawyer, at least) location, and having appropriate Powers of Attorney in place. You’ll also find links to guidelines and . . . [more]

On May 31st the Newfoundland and Labrador Court of Appeal issued a judgement with a number of broad statements about the proportionality principle and how it ought to be applied by courts in crafting discretionary orders under civil rules.

The underlying matter was about a motor vehicle claim and a list of broadly framed interrogatories served by a defendant immediately after the close of pleadings. The defendant argued that the interrogatories were necessary because the statement of claim requested general and special damages without any real degree of particularity. It also argued that the applicable court rules did not require . . . [more]

So the iPhone 4 is out. Its cool new features include:

• Multitasking: You can switch between third-party apps instantly.
• HD video recording: Shoot, edit and share video in HD.
• FaceTime: Video calling from iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 over Wi-Fi.

Great minds think alike, or so they say. In this case, Slaw and Steve Jobs (well, Apple, really) have come up with pretty much the same thing: a way to make your web reading a whole lot easier. Apple released Safari 5 yesterday, the latest iteration of its browser (available for both Windows and Mac operating systems); among the other improvements you’ll find (such as increased speed, and the possibility of extensions) will be Reader. When the browser believes you’re reading an article — how it knows, I don’t know: a long stretch of text, presumably — it offers you . . . [more]

At the awards luncheon at the recent CALL conference (Canadian Association of Law Libraries) in Windsor, ON, the Hugh Lawford Award for Excellence in Legal Publishing was presented to the Nova Scotia Barristers’ Society Library & Information Services for their Nova Scotia Annotated Civil Procedure Rules service. CALL’s decision to present this award to this organization for this product is significant for two reasons: First, it justly recognizes an innovative and extremely useful new legal publication; second, and perhaps more important, it has been awarded by librarians to librarians for their publishing activity. As we move deeper into the digital . . . [more]

It was a slimming week in the world of biotech.

Orexigen’s obesity drug, Contrave, was accepted for FDA review. Contrave joins weight-loss medicines from Arena and Vivus in the FDA hopper. Interestingly, all three are still seeking marketing partners, but there is a very real possibility that there will be an FDA-approved weight loss drug on the market soon.

Patients aren’t the only ones dropping weight. Amorfix dropped its vCJD program this week, and its CEO and 5 others are out as well. The company founder is back, along with the ProMIS rational drug design program.

Only The . . . [more]

♬ Listen,
Do you want to know a secret?,
Do you promise not to tell?, whoa oh, oh…♬

Lyrics and Music by Lennon and McCartney.

The Privacy Commissioner of Canada, Jennifer Stoddard’s 2009 Annual Report to Parliament on the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA) is expected to be tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, June 8, 2010.

The annual report will highlight the findings of an audit of several mortgage brokerages which experienced serious data breaches that compromised the personal information of hundreds of people across Canada. The report also explores the issue of transborder . . . [more]

On May 25th CLA Executive Council put forward two resolutions, to postpone elections (considered an unconstitutional but necessary move) and to operate on a zero-based balanced budget going forward. I have heard that, to balance the budget, it will mean closing down some or all divisions and special interest groups. These resolutions were voted on at the AGM on Saturday, June 5th.

Like most law librarians in this country, I am unfortunately not a member of the Canadian Library Association (CLA). Some of my colleagues, however, have been members of its CASLIS division for specialized libraries (as opposed . . . [more]

I recently met a new neighbour who told me he was the corporate counsel for a large company. When I explained my insurance connection to the legal profession, he quickly responded with “I have all the insurance I need through my benefits at work.”

Before he could turn and run, I assured him I would not preach the virtues of buying insurance (unless he wanted to listen), but let him know I thought it was extremely important to have his coverage reviewed by an insurance expert to ensure he is adequately protected. In my experience, most people who rely on . . . [more]

I’ve been learning the ins, outs, and inbetweens of my new iPad, which means for the most part figuring out what apps work on it and what their limitations are. (e.g. I don’t use Word so I’m not fussed about its lack; but I do use RTF and am disappointed that I can’t create rich text files.) In the course of doing that, I’ve downloaded the iPad app version of Dropbox and have been impressed all over again by that great service.

If you don’t know Dropbox you should take a look. It’s a file storage and sharing system that . . . [more]

The Global Centre for Information and Communication Technologies in Parliament, a partnership initiative of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, has released a considerable World e-Parliament 2010 report. (Aussi disponible en français.) According to the executive summary [PDF]:

The Report presents the latest data on the use and availability of systems, applications, hardware, and other tools in [134] parliaments around the world, based on the global survey conducted by the Global Centre for ICT in Parliament in 2009.

. . . The Report highlights two critical issues – communication with citizens