Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the November 12, 2007 issue of InSITE:

• Impunity Watch
• Justice for All: the Legacy of Thurgood Marshall
• LOUIS (Library Of Unified Information Sources)
• National Women's Law Center
• Whistleblower Protection Program

Impunity Watch
http://www.impunitywatch.net/

Impunity Watch is a web-based publication offered by the students at the Syracuse University College of Law.  The site, drawing on a Commission on Human Rights report, defines impunity as “the impossibility of bringing human rights violators to account arising from, among other things, a failure of states to meet their obligations to investigate, prosecute, and punish violators . . . ”  Impunity Watch seeks to inform users about impunity issues by acting as a news source and a vehicle for scholarly publication, and by providing a voice to victims.  Taking the form of a blog, the site is organized into seven geographic regions, including Africa, Asia, and the Middle East.  For each region, editors post human rights-related news items — the most recent post under Asia covers the current unrest in Pakistan.  Longer, editorial-style pieces can be found in the Features section.  The Articles section has one submission currently; no doubt, the editors are working to solicit more of them.  Overall, Impunity Watch is an interesting student publication worth following. [MM]

Justice for All: the Legacy of Thurgood Marshall
http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/tmarshall/

One of the publications within the State Department’s USINFO website is Justice for All: The Legacy of Thurgood Marshall.  A table of contents provides access to the components of the site, offering a thorough biography while illuminating the milestones of Marshall’s career.  The site covers Marshall’s work as a lawyer, including a section devoted to the Brown v. Board of Education case.  For additional insight, users will want to consult the interview with Jack Greenberg who, in 1954, was a 27-year-old lawyer working with Marshall on the Brown case.  Additional features of the site include a timeline of Marshall’s life, as well as a photo gallery and several video clips. [MM]

LOUIS (Library Of Unified Information Sources)
http://www.louisdb.org/

LOUIS (Library Of Unified Information Sources) is yet another project of the Sunlight Foundation, working here to bring the legal publications of the federal government out into the open for easy public access.  Their “ultimate goal is to create a comprehensive, completely indexed and cross-referenced depository of federal documents from the executive and legislative branches of government,” though they’re not quite there yet, as they freely admit.  Currently in beta release, LOUIS allows users to simultaneously or separately search the full-text of Congressional Reports, the Congressional Record, Congressional Hearings, the Federal Register, Presidential Documents, GAO Reports, and Congressional Bills & Resolutions.  Some advanced search features are available.  LOUIS also allows users to construct a “standing query” as an RSS feed that will alert you whenever a new document satisfies your search.  For those interested in simple access to federal legislative and executive materials, this “one-stop search engine” is a valuable tool. [JJ]

National Women's Law Center
http://www.nwlc.org/

Operating since 1972, the National Women's Law Center (NWLC) is a nonprofit organization focused on major policy areas of importance to women, including economic security, education, employment, and health and reproductive rights, with special attention given to the concerns of low-income women.  The NWLC’s website encourages political involvement through its “Take Action” section, and visitors can stay up-to-date with e-mail alerts.  Its “Information Center” offers a timeline of the Center’s activities, Center newsletters and annual reports, and biographies of the Center staff.  Many visitors will be interested in the site’s “Issues” section, which covers topics such as athletics, education, health, child care, employment, reproductive rights, sexual harassment, and women in the military.  These issue sections offer FAQs, published guides and brochures, press releases, fact sheets, amicus briefs, and Congressional testimony, when available.  The site is searchable and many documents are available in PDF. [BWK]

Whistleblower Protection Program
http://www.osha.gov/dep/oia/whistleblower/

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration has designed the "Whistleblower Protection Program" website to provide the general public with an explanation of the Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA), and describes how OSHA oversees the whistleblowing provisions of multiple statutes which protect employees who report violations of various trucking, airline, nuclear power, pipeline, environmental, and securities laws.  This site provides the full text of the sixteen statutes enforced by OSHA as well as the regulations governing their administration.  Researchers and practitioners may be interested in the official Whistleblower Investigations Manual, which details the procedures for investigating discrimination complaints.   The site also offers in-depth guides for filing OSHA complaints, even discussing various scenarios and issues such as "imminent dangers," "refusal of dangerous work," and "discrimination for filing complaints."  The site's "A-Z Index" is a good starting place for the researcher, with its extensive list of topics as well as links to news releases, publications, and statistics.  Simple and advanced searching is also available. [BWK]

InSITE contributors: J. Callihan, J. Jones, B. Kreisler, M. Morrison, J. Pajerek (editor)

InSITE highlights selected law-related Web sites in two ways: as an annotated publication issued electronically and in print; and, as a keyword-searchable database. The law librarians at Cornell
evaluate potentially useful Web sites, select the most valuable ones, and provide commentary and subject access to them. This information can be accessed via:

1. Searchable database or by browsing current and archived
   issues on the web:

        Click InSITE at http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/library

2. RSS feed ( http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/lawlibrary/insiteasp/public/rss.asp )

3. Via e-mail subscription: send the following request to: lyris@cornell.edu:

        join INSITE-L "your name"

where your name (include the quotation marks) is the name you want to be available to the list's administrator.  You must send this message from the e-mail address where you want to receive the e-list's messages.

4. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.