The proposed Treaty on Stability, Coordination, and Governance in the Economic and Monetary Union was finalized on Monday, January 30, 2012. All member states signed on except the United Kingdom and the Czech Republic. After the informal summit the European Council set out the plan for its becoming law as follows:

"The treaty will be signed in March and will enter into force once it has been ratified by at least 12 euro area member states. It will be legally binding as an international agreement and will be open to the EU countries which do not sign it at the outset.
The aim is to incorporate it into EU law within five years of its entry into force."

Controversy surrounding the agreement and various related proposals has the Greek debt crisis as its focus. The EUtopia Blog is one free source (major UK papers and the Financial Times of course provide extensive analysis) with good discussion of the issues.

After a consultations procedure, the States Parties of the International Criminal Court (ICC) have nominated consensus candidate Fatou B. Bensouda of the Gambia for consideration by their Assembly. The formal election will take place at UN Headquarters at the 10th Session of this Assembly on December 12, 2011, and according to the announcement at the ICC official web site, she will assume her post on June 16, 2012.  The nature of the consensus process is intended to assure that this candidate will in fact be the new prosecutor by general agreement. The choice of this highly regarded lawyer, who is Deputy Prosecutor at the court, may well signal the next phase in the history of the court because she hails from a sub-Saharan African jurisdiction, and this region has been a focus of pending cases. Her previous experience included time as a Legal Adviser and Attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as well as legal posts in Gambia both within and outside the government.

On February 26, 2011, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1970, which takes action under Chapter VII, article 41 of the United Nations Charter, placing demands on Libya (understood to be the government still functioning under Col. Muammar Gaddafi) to ensure safe travel out of the country for nationals foreign to Libya and to cease violence, respecting human rights and humanitarian law.  The resolution also puts in place an arms embargo, refers the government in this situation (dated from February 15, 2011) to the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, and sets up a sanctions committee under Rule 28 of its Provisional Rules of Procedure to implement the arms embargo as well as a travel ban (for designated  persons in the government and Gaddafi family listed in an Annex I) and an asset freeze on persons and entities listed in an Annex II. In addition to international criminal law materials, both at the court site and the archived Rome Statute site, there is the excellent Universal Human Rights Index of U.N. Documents where a database of treaty documents and mandates is readily searchable.

Librarians at the Wolff International and Comparative Law Library have created a new guide on international corruption law.  Corruption law touches on a wide variety of issues including money laundering, government transparency, organized crime, trade and investment regulations. The guide lists print and online resources on corruption, links to related treaties, a selection of foreign and U.S. laws on the topic, and a sampling of the best resources related to specific anti-corruption topics.   

FAOLex with its  legislation for water law (WaterLex) and water treaties as well as fishery regulation (yes, FishLex ! ), including coastal and maritime limitations on fishing, are all great United Nations agency sites for finding texts related to our world of resources and how international law is seeking to manage these for the good of all.
Peace on Earth! And enough to drink and eat for everyone.

As the latest entry in the extraordinary list of legal research resources of the World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII), the soft launch of the Legal Information Institute of India (LIIofIndia) is worth a look. The official launch will take place in March, 2011. Primary legal material from the federal level as well as 28 states and 7 union territories are made available for free. The Indian Supreme Court case law and the federal statutory Indian Code are notable, but the Indian Treaty Series is available from the beginning of the independent Indian state (1947) through 2009, as well as selected journals.

According to founder and Professor of Law Graham Greenleaf, "LII of India at present has 50 databases, including over 300,000 decisions from 37 Courts and Tribunals, Indian national legislation from 1836, over 800 bilateral treaties, law reform reports and about 500 law journal articles. The LawCite citator tracks case and journal article citations. Further case law, and State and Territory legislation, will be added by the time of the formal launch."

Unfortunately, like the WorldLII itself, the entire site runs and loads very slowly (as do most of these links and thanks for your patience); it is hoped that this problem can be resolved. However, the Legal Information Institutes and Free Access to Law Movement is mostly a partnership between non-governmental academic institutions and government support in varying proportions, and so while free to use, these sites are obviously not free to build. As winter brings festivals of light (like the Indian Diwali of the western autumn season), we might reflect on the light that the rule of law shines on our globe while the LIIs ponder combining free with some local subscription support in its many regions. 

This Veterans Day, we might reflect upon the progress made possible through the sacrifice of military servicemembers, and the tragedy, triumph, and trials of war. In legal history, the tribunals for war crimes following World War II have had a profound impact on our domestic and international jurisprudence and scholarship, and there are a growing number of online resources to help us research these important materials.

Transcripts and associated documents of the Nuremberg Trials (officially the International Military Tribunal for Germany) have been digitized, organized, and made available for free on the Web through several ongoing initiatives, including Yale’s Avalon Project, the Nuremberg Trials Project at Harvard Law, and the Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection at the Cornell Law Library. The National Archives has also converted many of their microform documents on WWII crimes and trials to PDF.

Although no comparably extensive online compilation yet exists for the Tokyo Trials (International Military Tribunal for The Far East), some of the most important and interesting documents are available on iBiblio.org through the HyperWar Foundation (the Tribunal’s judgment) and the Harry S. Truman Library website (official correspondence and photos). For now, full transcripts of the Tokyo Trials are only available in print, here at Georgetown in the Wolff Library.

The Law Library also offers a good selection of relevant print and electronic resources; try an Encore keyword search to see our cataloged holdings on the Nuremberg and Tokyo Trials.

From the time of the middle ages and on through the explosion of piracy in the Caribbean in the 18th century, a thin line has existed between piracy and terrorism.  British authorities tried to address it through a succession of acts, one of which we have on display:  The Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy, 1700, 11 Will. 3, c.7. Piracy off the coast of Somalia today.

A map from UNOSAT on Reported Incidents of Somali Pirate Attacks and Hijacking in the Gulf of Aden is reproduced as the one fully electronic item, but modern technology has so far been unable to stop or always anticipate these continued attacks.

Before you talk (arrhh!) or dress like a pirate (for Hallowe'en), set aside the myths and take a look at history and the real terror of the seas!

The Law Librarian Blog (and others) have announced the formal debut of a new database, the International Law Library,  within the free web resource site, the World Legal Information Institute. Sir Kenneth James Keith, ONZ, KBE, QC, serving as a judge on the International Court of Justice describes its development and contents along with general support for the Australian pioneers of the LII's, chief among whom is Professor Graham Greenleaf. This database has been available in development over the summer and is included in a general description of the Free Access to Law Movement that will be included in a handbook soon to be published for the International Association of Law Libraries. This database is not quite as comprehensive as indicated in the blogs because it still revolves mostly around the former Commonwealth countries and sources, but among these there is a LawCite citator including several English-speaking jurisdictions such that one can almost "Shepardize" the law of the world! (It records judicial treatment of citations).  Most impressive of all, however, is that from within the multinational treaties one finds in the United Nations Treaty Collection (indexed via FLARE freely at the Institute for Advanced Legal Studies in London and within the subscription libraries of Hein Online), WorldLII has pulled out the bilateral agreements, making them more readily accessible. Judicial decisions from international courts and tribunals round out this great new research platform.

With the conclusion on June 27, 2010 of the G20 meeting in Toronto, major documents on the outcome of the summit, particularly the reports of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, are posted at the Toronto G20 web site. In another development related to the urgency of international banking and financial regulatory reform, today the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland, issued its 80th Annual Report covering 1 April 2009 through 31 March 2010.
The G20 summits are meetings of finance ministers and central bank governors from Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Republic of Korea, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union.  The continuing development of new rules for banks on capital and liquidity will continue on into the next summit in Seoul, South Korea 11-12 November, 2010.