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The Volokh Conspiracy » Judge Posner Criticizes the Bluebook (the Most Popular Legal Citation Format Manual)

26 January, 2011

Eugene Volokh • January 25, 2011 5:32 pm

The article is The Bluebook Blues, published in the Yale Law Journal, which is one of the journals that publishes the Bluebook itself. The review is short (a bit over 10 pages of text) and very readable. An excerpt:

Many years ago I wrote a review of The Bluebook, then in its sixteenth edition. My review was naïvely entitled “Goodbye to the Bluebook.” The Bluebook was then a grotesque 255 pages long. It is now in its nineteenth edition — which is 511 pages long.

I made a number of specific criticisms of The Bluebook in that piece, and I will not repeat them. I don’t believe that any of them have been heeded, but I am not certain, because, needless to say, I have not read the nineteenth edition. I have dipped into it, much as one might dip one’s toes in a pail of freezing water. I am put in mind of Mr. Kurtz’s dying words in Heart of Darkness — “The horror! The horror!” — and am tempted to end there.

via volokh.com

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Comparing Abortion to the Holocaust « Strasbourg Observers

25 January, 2011

| 1 Comment

| General

Amid all the discussion regarding the A., B. and C. v. Ireland judgment, it is interesting to note that last week, in one of its first freedom of expression judgments of 2011, the European Court of Human Rights was called upon to consider an interesting issue surrounding abortion, namely the conviction for defamation of an anti-abortion activist for comparing abortion to the Holocaust.

The applicants in Hoffer v. Germany were anti-abortion activists who had handed out pamphlets outside a medical clinic in Nuremburg.

via strasbourgobservers.com

This post on the Strasbourg Observers blog was written by Rónán Ó Fathaigh, a researcher working on a Ghent University Special Research Fund project entitled “Legal analysis and explorative research of the chilling effect on freedom of expression and information”.

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Memex 1.1 – Witty tee shirt print about social networking sites

24 January, 2011

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| General

Putting your shirt on it

January 22nd, 2011 [link]

One of despair.com’s witty tee-shirt prints.

Thanks to Andrew Ingram for the link.

via memex.naughtons.org

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Judges look to foreign counterparts for guidance, survey shows – The Irish Times – Mon, Jan 24, 2011

24 January, 2011

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| Courts, General

BRIAN FLANAGAN

WE ARE SAID to be living in an era of “cosmopolitan constitutionalism”, in which lawyers and judges increasingly look abroad for guidance when interpreting their own constitutions.

The practice is controversial in the US, where Congress has denounced references to the law of European nations in cases concerning sexual equality and the death penalty.

A judge is said to use “foreign law” when he or she interprets domestic laws by reference to the law of other nations.

In an Irish context, it would include seeking guidance from US Supreme Court decisions say, but not from those of the European Court of Human Rights, whose authority Ireland has officially recognised.

Establishing why judges look abroad, how often they do it, and which sorts of countries they look to will reveal whether “cosmopolitan constitutionalism” is likely to benefit the development of Irish law.

via irishtimes.com

Brian Flanagan is a lecturer in the department of law at NUI Maynooth. He and Sinéad Ahern, a PhD candidate in clinical psychology at UL, conducted an international survey of Supreme Court judges in which the judges were asked in confidence about their use of foreign law. The results will be published in the International Comparative Law Quarterly.

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Lecturers protest over Croke Park deal – The Irish Times – Mon, Jan 24, 2011

24 January, 2011

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| General, Universities

Lecturers protest over Croke Park deal

Former taoiseach Garret FitzGerald at a meeting of academics in the Gresham Hotel in Dublin on Saturday to discuss the proposed implementation of the Croke Park agreement in third-level institutions.Photograph: Alan Betson

JOANNE HUNT

MORE THAN 200 university and institute of technology lecturers met in Dublin on Saturday to protest against the implementation of the Croke Park agreement in third-level institutions.

The group, which met in the Gresham Hotel, is seeking to protect the right of academics to permanency and tenure until retirement age. They said this “bedrock on which academic freedom rests” was under threat.

The Croke Park deal, along with the Hunt report on higher education, proposes longer working hours and shorter holidays, tighter management control and performance-related pay.

They also open up the possibility that academics deemed to be substandard by management could be sacked.

via irishtimes.com

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Symposium: The Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment

21 January, 20111 February, 2011

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| Conferences, Lectures, Papers and Workshops, Restitution

Washington and Lee University School of Law and the American Law Institute are pleased to announce a conference on

Restitution Rollout: Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment

on February 25, 2011 in Lexington, Virginia.

The American Law Institute (ALI), the leading legal-reform organization in the United States, restates basic legal subjects to inform the legal profession what “the law” is in a particular subject. In 2010, the ALI approved the Restatement (Third) Restitution and Unjust Enrichment (2011), the subject of theRestitution Rollout.

Restatement (Third) of Restitution and Unjust Enrichment replaces the original Restatement of Restitution, promulgated in 1936. Restatement Third restores the full title, Restitution and Unjust Enrichment, that appeared on the Tentative Drafts of the original Restatement but was dropped when the official text was published, thus emphasizing that the subject matter encompasses the independent body of law of unjust enrichment, and not simply the remedy of restitution.

At the conference, ALI Reporter Andrew Kull and ALI Director Lance Liebman will introduce the Restatement Third of Restitution. They will be joined by leading Restitution and Contracts scholars including Joe Perillo, Lionel Smith, Emily Sherwin, John McCamus, Peter Linzer, and Caprice Roberts, among others.…

Protecting academic freedom seen as key – The Irish Times – Fri, Jan 21, 2011

21 January, 2011

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| Academic Freedom, General, Tenure

SEANAD REPORT: ACADEMIC FREEDOM must be protected in view of the fact that some of the important criticisms of what had been happening in this country in recent years had come from people in academia rather than from the Oireachtas, Rónán Mullen (Ind) said.

One hundred and fifty academics had criticised proposals in the Croke Park agreement, which they claimed would pose a serious threat to academic freedom.

Referring to a letter published in The Irish Times, Mr Mullen said its signatories had said there was a threat to the right to permanency and tenure to retirement age, which was the bedrock on which academic freedom rested. He thought it was very important that academic freedom would not be undermined when one considered the sources of criticisms of the way the country had been governed.

The definition of the right of academic tenure should not be achieved at the expense of the rights of those holding temporary positions, he also argued.

via irishtimes.com

It’s not often I agree with Ronán Mullen, but I’m glad that he now agrees with me! See my posts on the various legal protections of academic freedom and tenure.

The letter to which he refers is here.

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NI High Court reluctantly holds that police retention of photos and DNA compatible with ECHR

21 January, 2011

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| General, Privacy

JR 27’s Application [2010] NIQB 143 (Judgment No 2) (23 December 2010)

The judgment of the Divisional Court (Morgan LCJ, Weatherup J and McCloskey J) was given by McCloskey J:

[2] This is an application for judicial review by a litigant to whom anonymity has been granted, by virtue of his age. The factual matrix, which is uncontentious, can be stated in brief compass. The Applicant is aged fourteen years. On 7th October 2008, he was arrested by the police by reason of his suspected involvement in a burglary. At the police station, in the presence of his solicitor, he was interviewed. Following interview, the Applicant provided two DNA samples and fingerprints and he was photographed (hereinafter described as “the impugned measures”). He neither consented nor objected to the impugned measures. By letter dated 21 November 2008, the Public Prosecution Service intimated that the Applicant would not be prosecuted.

III THE DECISIONS IN S and MARPER.

[10] … In R (S and Marper) –v- Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police [2004] 1 WLR 2196 [[2004] UKHL 39 (22 July 2004)] … by a majority of four to one, the House of Lords held that the retention of the Applicants’ fingerprints, cellular samples and DNA profiles did not interfere with their right to respect for private life under Article 8(1).

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