Cornell Law Library's InSITE Website Reviews

Reviews published in the April 7, 2008 issue of InSITE:

• Canadian Forum on Civil Justice
• Center on Law and Security
• Copyfight
• Food & Water Watch
• Legislationline

[RJ]

Canadian Forum on Civil Justice
http://cfcj-fcjc.org/

The Canadian Forum on Civil Justice (CFCJ) is a Canadian not-for-profit organization founded by the Canadian Bar Association and funded by Canadian law foundations and governments to "[bring] together the public, the courts, the legal profession and government in order to promote a civil justice system that is accessible, effective, fair and efficient."  The website offers access to all the research publications of the Forum, to a quarterly update called "News and Views on Civil Justice Reform", to the Inventory of Reforms (a collection of detailed descriptions of justice system reforms), and to the Civil Justice Clearinghouse, the most complete bibliographic database of Canadian civil justice and justice administration publications.  The Clearinghouse also provides access to the major civil justice publications from other common law jurisdictions. The search and other usability functions of the Clearinghouse are excellent and response time is short. Some of the materials cited in the Clearinghouse are linked to the full text. Updated regularly, the site provides excellent navigation and search tools. All materials in the site are available in both French and English. [ML]

Center on Law and Security
http://www.lawandsecurity.org/

The Center on Law and Security (CLS), based at the New York University School of Law, has been dedicated to “an informed understanding of the major legal and security issues that define the post-9/11 environment” since 2003.  The Center provides a forum for various experts in the field of security to boost awareness of issues and to make policy recommendations.  The website provides information on the Center’s programs, publications, and events.  CLS programs address domestic security, global law and security, and the Middle East and Islamic fundamentalism.  The Center’s publications, many of which are available for download, include books, the Terrorist Trial Report Card, and the NYU Review of Law & Security.  CLS sponsors various conferences, speaker series, and open forums.  Details of past and future events are provided.  Event topics include government secrecy, prosecuting terrorism, and the privatizing of defense. [MM]

Copyfight
http://copyfight.corante.com/   

Seven legal and technical expert contributors to this collaborative blog "explore the nexus of legal rulings, Capitol Hill policy-making, technical standards development, and technological innovation that creates -- and will recreate -- the networked world as we know it." Specific topics include "intellectual property conflicts, technical architecture and innovation, the evolution of copyright, private vs. public interests in Net policy-making, lobbying and the law, and more." The blog presents an informal, provocative, and informed view of the current issues from a user-rights perspective. Very current but neither comprehensive nor edited for balance, the blog has provided links into issues since 2004. Easy to use, but without any especially valuable search or archiving functions, the site does generate some conversation among readers. [ML]

Food & Water Watch
http://www.foodandwaterwatch.org/

Food and Water Watch (F&WW) is a non-profit consumer advocacy organization “that works to ensure clean water and safe food ... by empowering people to take action and by transforming the public consciousness about what we eat and drink.”  The main page of the website links to four specific advocacy areas: "Food," "Water," "Fish," and "World."  The pages for each general area contain further information on issues specific to that topic; for example, the "Food" page contains sidebar links for factory farms and agricultural policy.  The “World” section of the site contains a limited amount of information in German, Spanish, French, and Polish.  The site’s blog contains information on recent state, federal, and international government actions related to its areas of concern.  Users can look at blog entries by topic area through sidebar links.  This site is of limited use for research because most of the information it contains is issue-based, and reflects F&WW’s position.  F&WW is a good way to track recent legal developments related to a specific area of interest.  The website is searchable, and contains a good advanced search engine, which allows users to limit the search by field and by type of document. [LB]

Legislationline
http://www.legislationline.org/

Legislationline.org is a free database available in English and Russian produced by Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), a part of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). Launched in 2002, it is designed to assist OSCE member states in drafting legislation that complies with international human rights standards. In 2004 the Legislative Support Unit was created in the ODHIR to pursue legislative reform by providing legal expertise to assess compliance with relevant standards, making recommendations to improve draft legislation, and sharing good drafting practices through Legislationline.org.  The site is uncluttered and has obvious navigational and searching links. Standard information links on each page are: About Us, OSCE/ODIHR Legal Commentaries [on draft legislation], What’s New [enacted legislation], Resources [a link list to international organizations, human rights NGOs, legal resource portals and guides], and Newsletter [registration.] Searching entails using drop down menus to first select a topic. There are currently 10 topics, including terrorism, police, elections, and gender. Additional topics are “works in progress”:  prison service, right to fair trial, independent judiciary and hate crimes. The death penalty is listed as a distinct topic since the information provided deals with global standards of international organizations rather than specific national legislation. Researchers next select one of the 56 members of OSCE (countries essentially in the northern hemisphere). Each resulting country/topic page is in the same format, a summary followed by headings for constitutional law, legislation, case law, other, and news. Researchers can search the site using the advanced search option that allows searching by keyword, topic, country, inter-governmental organization, and date.  Although legislationline.org targets drafters, there is a great deal of information for human rights researchers, from primary law to legal opinions to an extensive list of resources. [JC]

InSITE contributors: L. Buechner, J. Callihan, M. Lines (guest contributor), 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 the channels below,  in addition to this mailing list:

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

        InSITE home page ( http://library2.lawschool.cornell.edu/insiteasp/)

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

3. Print format for the Cornell Law School community.

***A note to our readers: The InSITE website has been revamped and now features a quick search on the home page, in addition to the advanced search previously available.  We've also added a great new feature that allows anyone to search all the websites ever annotated by InSITE with a single click.   It's updated with each new issue of InSITE.  We hope you enjoy these new features of InSITE.