Webinar Recap: “What in the world…is happening in Ukraine?”

By Sue Silverman

On March 7, the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee of the FCIL-SIS held its second webinar in a series on international events that may impact FCIL-SIS and the wider AALL membership, “What in the world…is happening in Ukraine?,” focusing on the history of the crisis and the current international legal framework addressing the crisis.  Lidiya Grote from the University of Louisville moderated the panel which included Professor Oona Hathaway from Yale Law School and Victor Rud from the Ukrainian American Bar Association.

Victor Rud provided a historical context for Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine.  Russia, the largest country in the world does not, as Rud explained, need more territory, nor is this a border dispute.  The reason can be traced back to a 1997 Russian army blueprint which proclaimed that wiping Ukraine off the map was integral to Russia’s larger goals of destabilizing Western democracies, including America and Europe. Ukraine is wholly different from Russia, with a distinct language and a democratic tradition that includes separate branches of government, checks and balances, and a separation of church and state all of which predates America’s own founding. Russia perceives Ukraine’s democracy as a threat and Russian media incessantly reminds its viewers of the necessity of wiping the nation of Ukraine off the face of the earth.  As such, the Russian military has targeted cities, cultural landmarks, and civilians.  Russia is also, as Rud explained, targeting the Ukrainian gene pool by deporting orphaned children and indoctrinating them in Russian culture. Rud emphasized that America’s role as a global deterrent is being tested and how America reacts to Russia’s invasion will be extrapolated by other actors to predict how America would react to other illegal invasions such as of Taiwan. 

Professor Oona Hathaway followed Rud’s historical overview with an explanation of how international law has shaped the global response, focusing on how the law has been used first for condemning the war, next as a basis for arming Ukraine, and finally, in initiating the process of prosecuting Russians and Belarussians for violations of international law. The current international order is rooted in post-World War II institutions and legal rules.  Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine is in clear violation of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. In response, many observers fretted this could signal the demise of the post-World War II international legal order. Hathaway explained how international law has provided the foundation for condemning Russia’s invasion.  Though the UN Security Council remains paralyzed, the General Assembly passed a resounding resolution demanding Russia’s immediate withdrawal, as well as subsequent resolutions condemning the invasion.  The International Court of Justice and the European Court of Human Rights have also weighed in, proclaiming the invasion to be in violation of international law.

The General Assembly resolutions and condemnations from international courts have helped set the stage for sanctions and the arming of Ukraine by the United States and Europe.  International law has also served as a justification for isolating Russia through targeted economic sanctions, the exclusion of Russia from international sports, and the expulsion of Russia from the Council of Europe.  And finally, international law serves as a basis for prosecuting Russians and Belarussians for war crimes in the International Criminal Court, or through a separate international tribunal. Hathaway emphasized that while Russia put the international order at risk, what will determine the future of the international order will be how nations respond, which so far has been through international law.  The big question is whether that response will be sustained through what will likely be a long-standing war.  As Lidiya Grote pointed out, Russia’s strategy is to wear us all out.  

Both Rud and Hathaway agreed that any negotiated settlement in which Ukraine ceded territory to Russia or gave anything up would be in violation of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties since any concession by Ukraine would have been made under duress.  Thus, the invasion of Ukraine is not just about Ukraine, it is about the future of international legal order.  If Russia can get away with its flagrant violation of Article 2(4), it will succeed in undermining the fundamental rules of international law.  

Event Recap: Ukraine Prosecutor General Andriy Kostin at Georgetown

By David Isom

Andriy Kostin, the Prosecutor General of Ukraine, spoke at the Georgetown University Law Center on February 1 to discuss his investigation of war crimes committed in the course of Russia’s invasion of his country. Georgetown Law’s Center on National Security (CNS) has been deeply involved in this project, having received a grant from the Department of State to support its efforts as the lead implementing organization of the Atrocity Crimes Advisory Group (ACA) established in May 2022. With additional remarks from Georgetown Law Dean William Treanor and Senator Dick Durbin as well as a discussion panel featuring Professor/Co-Director of Georgetown CNS/Georgetown-ACA Faculty Coordinator Mitt Regan, U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for Global Criminal Justice Beth Van Schaack, Georgetown-ACA Co-Principal Investigator/CNS Senior Director for International Justice Clint Williamson, and Georgetown-ACA Co-Principal Investigator/CNS Executive Director Anna Cave, the session offered a detailed look at the efforts to hold the perpetrators of war crimes and other atrocities in Ukraine to account.

Coming close to one year after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Kostin described the efforts to document Russia’s ongoing war crimes—which include weaponizing winter, sexual violence, torture, and the intentional shelling of civilians, utilities infrastructure, medical facilities, schools, and cultural institutions. Kostin stated that thus far, 65,000 incidents of war crimes have been documented by the International Criminal Court, Ukraine, and other states and multilateral entities. More than 9,000 civilians (including 459 children) are known to have been killed, with the actual number likely several times higher. 256 suspected war criminals have been identified thus far, with 25 already successfully prosecuted. Kostin added that Russia’s “persecutorial pursuit of civilians” demonstrates an attempt to destroy Ukrainian identity constituting genocide.

Representatives of the International Criminal Court are already on the ground in Ukraine investigating crimes, and national investigations are underway in 18 states (in addition to multilateral investigations). Establishing an ad hoc international criminal tribunal to hold the planners of the war responsible is a realistic option, but Kostin stated that the vast majority of prosecutions for war crimes will be held in Ukraine’s domestic courts.

From left to right: Beth Van Schaack, Andriy Kostin, Mitt Regan

Kostin described the types of support his office’s investigations needs most: a robust automated case management system; security for members of the prosecutor’s office; reliable Internet access (such as the SpaceX Starlink service that has already played a role in Ukraine’s war efforts); technical expertise to investigate physical forensics, ballistics (including studies of missiles and craters), crime scenes, digital forensics, open source forensics (e.g. using data found in “trophy” postings to social media to identify perpetrators), and forensic interview specialists; experts on international humanitarian and criminal law on the ground in Ukraine; and expertise on sanctions, reparations, and consequences for others that aid the Russian war such as oligarchs and members of the Wagner Group private military company.

In closing, Kostin stated that “Ukraine’s spirit of resistance stands strong on the battlefield and in the prosecutor’s office,” and that there should be no safe havens for those who have committed war crimes. He expressed “deep gratitude for the unwavering support from the United States government and the American people.”

During the Q&A that followed, Williamson (whose long career in prosecuting war crimes has included serving as a Trial Attorney at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and as the U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for War Crimes Issues) noted several distinguishing elements of the attempt to prosecute war crimes in Ukraine. First, efforts have proceeded in parallel both domestically (in Ukrainian courts) and internationally. Secondly, efforts to document Russia’s atrocities are occurring in close to real time as Ukraine liberates Russian-occupied territories, rather than attempting to reconstruct historical crimes after the fact. Thirdly, it is unique for an educational institution to be playing a leadership role (as Georgetown is) in efforts to prosecute war crimes and other atrocities.

More information (including a video recording of the event) is available on the Georgetown website.

IALL 2022 Recap: International Copyright and the Problem of Orphan Works

By Meredith Capps

On Wednesday, October 12^th, Paul Goldstein, the Stella W. and Ira S. Lillick Professor of Law at Stanford Law School and of counsel at Morrison & Foerster LLP, spoke at the International Association of Law Libraries Annual Course about legal approaches in the U.S. and abroad to copyright law governing “orphan works” (copyrightable works for which a rights-holder cannot be identified).  He began his talk by describing an instance in which he advised a non-profit entity hoping to digitize photographs taken of antiquities and make those photographs available online, when a diligent search to establish the origin of the works would be expensive, and potentially fruitless.  Though he advised the organization to take an intermediate approach, conducting a reasonable search but relying on the fair use doctrine to provide legal protection should an unknown rights holder raise a claim, the group ultimately decided not to pursue the project due to concern regarding legal risk.  Goldstein called the volume of orphan works “indescribable,” with potentially hundreds of millions of such works in circulation; one estimate suggests that as many as 90% of works in British museums have no identifiable rights holder.

Question Copyright 2.png Stephan Baum SVG: Ttog, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Common

Goldstein then described five legal approaches to usage of orphan works, several of which ask users of a work to conduct some type of search and pay a form of compensation, either directly to a later-found owner or to a rights management entity (“search and pay” systems).

1. The approach provided in European Union Directive 2012/28/EU, which requires users who are non-profit institutions to conduct a diligent search for the work’s rights holder, to document that search, and to compensate the owner should they come forward.
2. The approach taken in Canada and the United Kingdom, wherein interested users of a work must seek permission from a central authority to use the work, who if it approves the request will assess a fee intended to compensate rights holders should they come forward within a designated time period.
3. A draft U.S. proposal considered that would limit remedies available to those later asserting rights in orphan works to “reasonable compensation” if the user conducted a diligent search, and exempting non-profit institutions from that compensation requirement (see discussion in the Copyright Office’s Report on Orphan Works). 
4. Extended collective licensing systems, utilized by some Nordic countries and Germany, wherein a local reproduction rights organizations (RROs) grants licenses to utilize non-licensed works.
5. Approaches that do not require search or payment, and instead rely on protection from doctrines such as fair use.

Goldstein typically advises, as illustrated in his initial anecdote, that users in the U.S. conduct a diligent search for potential owners of orphan works, because although a diligent search is not an element of fair use analysis, that analysis does consider whether users are acting in good faith, and a diligent search can establish good faith.  However, Goldstein acknowledged uncertainty surrounding application of the fair use doctrine, particularly the element concerning the transformative nature of a work, and he believes that the U.S. Supreme Court might soon limit this element and thus certain fair use defenses.  His preferred policy approach is the extended collective licensing model, in part because such a system provides a database of works, with his second preferred policy being the U.S. proposal which would limit compensation requirements for those who conducted a diligent search.  Goldstein then discussed another mechanism that might provide users some protection, and that is already utilized to some degree in the entertainment industry – error and omissions insurance.  “I don’t like arguments; I like systems that work,” he stated in concluding his discussion of his preferred approaches to the problem of orphan works.

The 2020 Call for Programming Proposals is Open Now!

By Susan Gualtier

The AALL Annual Meeting Program Proposal site is now open!

Remember all of that brainstorming and up-voting you did during the Ideascale phase of program development for the 2020 AALL Annual Conference?  Well, it paid off!  The AMPC has published its list of must-have program topics and there are a number that incorporate the FCIL perspective. For example:

• Under the Professionalism + Leadership at every level category: Cultural and Identity Awareness and Competencies and Globalization Demands Approaches That Include Foreign, Comparative, and International Perspectives
• Under the Research + Analysis category: Civil Law Research (including legislative processes, tools, influences on civil law, and Louisiana/New Orleans research)
• Under the Teaching + Training category: Assisting non-JD Patrons

The AMPC has given us the opportunity to incorporate FCIL programming into almost every category of must-have programming for the New Orleans conference.  We cannot waste this opportunity!

I urge each of you to contact me (sgua@law.upenn.edu) and Dennis Sears (searsd@law.byu.edu) and tell us what you are willing and able to do to help us transform all of the ideas listed above and on Ideascale into actual programs.  We need your help!  We are also available to help you when it comes to navigating the proposal site and developing your programs.  As co-Chairs of the FCIL-SIS Education Committee, it is our job to encourage and support you in developing ideas and program proposals in anticipation of next year’s meeting.

Congratulations on a job well done so far, and we look forward to hearing from you during the proposal process!

FCIL Program Ideas in 2020 IdeaScale, Fourth and Final Week!

By Susan Gualtier

Mardi Gras in the French Quarter, New Orleans

Here it is… the final week of the first phase of next year’s programming proposal process!  Ideascale will close this Friday, August 16, so this is your last chance to post your proposal ideas and to vote on the ideas that have already been posted!

We’ve had several great new FCIL programming ideas posted to IdeaScale this week, so be sure and check them out and give them an upvote!  We also encourage you to submit your own program ideas to IdeaScale.  We need your ideas as much as your votes!!  You can do this anonymously if you like.  If you have questions, comments, concerns, or calls for help, please reach out to me (sgua@law.upenn.edu) and/or Dennis Sears (searsd@law.byu.edu).  As co-Chairs of the FCIL-SIS Education Committee, it is our job to encourage and support you in developing ideas and program proposals in anticipation of next year’s meeting.

Each Monday from now through August 16, DipLawMatic Dialogues will bring you an update on all of the FCIL-related program ideas currently posted in IdeaScale to encourage you to “up-vote” these programs. For more on why up-voting is important, see here.

Cultural Intelligence and Academic Law Libraries Research

As the 2019 ALL-SIS Research & Scholarship grant recipient, this presentation on “Cultural Intelligence and Academic Law Libraries” will report on my findings, analysis and recommendations based on my research study over the past year. The purpose of my research study is to examine the cultural intelligence in academic law librarians, in order to understand the perspective of these librarians and to help them better serve their stakeholders. Cultural intelligence is defined as the capability of an individual to function effectively across new cultural settings (Ang & Van Dyne, 2008). The following research questions are examined within the study and relate to areas of the American Association of Law Libraries research agenda: (a) What is the overall level of cultural intelligence of participating academic law librarians?, (b) What variations among participating academic law librarians, if any, exist among the four dimensions of cultural intelligence?, (c) What viewpoints do the law librarians have about the value and importance of cultural intelligence within their organizations?, and (d) how can academic law librarians best serve the information needs of their patrons through use of cultural intelligence? This research supports both the spirit and the practical application of at least three of the AALL Body of Knowledge Domains (professionalism + leadership, teaching + training, and marketing + outreach). The research includes a mixed-methods approach with 171 participants. I hope you will join me in learning more about my results and conclusions from our ALL-SIS membership and recommendations for practice and research.

BOK Content Area:  Professionalism & Leadership at Every Level

Improving Access to Law and Justice in Communities of the World

In emerging democracies and developing countries, access to the law is necessary for members of the public to fully participate in the democratic process. However, people in communities around the world face barriers to accessing official law and legal information. How can law libraries and legal information professionals help members of these communities (including refugees, women, indigenous communities, the poor, and pro se litigants) gain access to the law? How can a strong legal information system assist both legal providers and average people by creating tools that expand understanding of the law? This program will look at efforts being made in other countries to ensure that members of the public have access to official versions of the law and will also consider global and regional endeavors by organizations including the Legal Information Institutes and Free Access to Law Movement. Projects underway to promote increased understanding of the law will also be examined.

Potential speakers include Stephen Wyber, Manager for Policy and Advocacy for the International Federation of Library Associations (IFLA), and a representative from one of the LIIs around the world, such as the African LII or the Canadian LII. Another possibility is someone to provide perspective from the International Association of Law Libraries (IALL) or the Chinese and American Forum on Legal Information and Law Libraries (CAFLL).

BOK Content Area:  Marketing & Outreach

Louisiana Law/Civil Law/Comparative Law Roundtable

Building upon and combining some of the ideas already posted, this program would take place in a round table format where participants could discuss topics relating to Louisiana and other civil and mixed jurisdictions. Potential table topics include:

Collection development

Acquisitions

Government documents

Cataloging

Louisiana legal history

Louisiana’s place in comparative law

Civil law generally (structure and research methods)

Civil law in Louisiana courts

Facilitators would consist of librarians familiar with Louisiana, civil, and comparative law issues in the relevant areas.

This program could also be proposed in a longer form that included an overview of Lousiana’s legal system and its place in civil and comparative law, before the participants break up into tables.

BOK Content Area:  Professionalism & Leadership at Every Level

Hebrew-script books on non-Jewish legal systems

These are books written by and for Jews in Hebrew script languages, about the legal systems they have lived under as a less-than privileged minority. Examples includes a book on Yiddish on the American legal system written at the start of the 20th century, a Hebrew/Aramaic parody of a talmudic tractae discussing prohibition in the early 20th century, a Hebrew translation of the Ottoman conscription law, and the text of the Austrian civil code written mid-19th century translated into Hebrew with an explanatory commentary in the style of traditional Jewish “rabbinical” legal commentary. This program was presented at the Association of Jewish Libraries conference six years ago and could be adapted by adding explanation of cultural background for non-Hebrew speakers. It could be enhanced or combined with a program on other examples of popular literature on the legal system written by and for minorities in a language not commonly known by scholars of those systems. It may be of special interested to the customary and religious law group in FCIL, the Jewish Librarians Caucus and the LHRB SIS.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Obtaining & Using Copyrighted Materials from Foreign Countries

What does a U.S. law librarian do when a book or report that a patron needs to consult is only available at a library in England or India? How about when a thesis or document that another patron needs for research purposes is only available at a library in Namibia or New Zealand?Many libraries do not want to lend items internationally through OCLC WorldShare Interlibrary Loan, so ILL requests sent to non-U.S. countries are frequently returned unfilled. If a librarian—undeterred and unwilling to give up—contacts the library in another country directly to request scanned chapters of the book or a scanned copy of the report, how can the librarian ensure that the request does not violate that country’s copyright laws? Do other countries have fair use exceptions and library exemptions in their copyright laws similar to U.S. copyright law? How do copyright term lengths differ in other countries?

This program addresses how to research foreign copyright laws, how to legally obtain copies of copyrighted material from libraries around the world, and how to obtain permission to use copyrighted material that has been registered for copyright protection in another country.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Unmasking the World’s 100 Most Influential Legal Texts

What are the 100 most influential texts in the world’s legal literature? Who better to ask than law librarians? We invite AALL members to share their expertise and diverse viewpoints in an interactive session that will be both fun and intellectually engaging. The resulting list may form the basis for a publication, a major public exhibition, and/or a dynamic, ever-growing online project. More than simply a tool for collecting or teaching, the list of the world’s most influential legal texts will demonstrate the profound impact of law on our lives throughout history and into the future.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Legal research in civil law jurisdictions – all that different?

Legal research in civil law jurisdictions may not be as different as you may expect! The

influence of the common law can be seen, for instance, in the increased reliance on precedent and increased length in decisions. One might even question whether the emphasis on doctrine is really as strong now as it used to be.

A slight spin on the ideas already suggested, this panel is a little more introductory, but acknowledges the changing nature of practice in a civilian jurisdiction. Starting with the same research question, law librarians/ lawyers in various civil law jurisdictions will explain how they would tackle the question in their respective jurisdictions. Case law from these jurisdictions will also be compared.

See: http://www.slaw.ca/2019/06/20/not-your-grandparents-civil-law-decisions-are-getting-longer-why-and-what-does-it-mean-in-france-and-quebec/?highlight=civil%20law

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Tips Tools & Techniques for Environmental Law Research

We don’t do as many research subject specific programs as in past. Why not take advantage of local expertise for an introductory to intermediate level program on how to research / tools for environmental law research?

See Tulane Law School https://law.tulane.edu/centers/environment

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Tools Tips & Techniques in Admiralty & Maritime Law

We aren’t doing as many legal research specific programs as in past. Why not take advantage of our location in New Orleans and the local expertise in admiralty and maritime law?

See Tulane Law School https://law.tulane.edu/academics/maritime

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Screening of Documentary “Change the Subject” With Panel

“Change the Subject” is a recent documentary, about the students and librarians who have been fighting to change the Library of Congress subject heading from “Illegal Aliens” to something less pejorative, such as “undocumented people.” The struggle to change this heading even caught the attention of Congress, who until then had never taken an interest in LC subject headings that anyone could recall.

You can read more and view a trailer here: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/changethesubject/. The filmmakers are excited and available to come screen the film and then answers questions during a panel session. Panel would also include law librarians involved in this struggle.

BOK Content Area:  Professionalism & Leadership at Every Level

How Codes are Made: Creating Laws in Civil Jurisdictions

Is there a difference between a code and a set of statutes? How does the process of codification differ between common law and civilian jurisdictions? What roles do legislatures and law reform bodies play? This panel will help librarians to understand the role that codes play in civilian and mixed jurisdictions and how and whether it differs from that of the “codes” that most of us would recognize as codified statutes. The panel will explore how codes are constructed in a variety of jurisdictions.

Speakers will include law faculty and drafters from Louisiana, as well as from or familiar with similar jurisdictions, such as Quebec, Scotland, and South Africa.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Is it Napoleonic? Foreign/Domestic Influences on LA Civil Code

Interpreting and researching modern civil law depends upon an understanding of the historical sources from which those laws evolved. People often say that Louisiana uses the Napoleonic Code, but is that true? Louisiana has been both a French and Spanish colony, and it has been a part of the American legal system for over 200 years; it has also been influenced by Roman Law, Greek Law, Canon Law, and the Germanic Civil Law tradition.

This panel will help librarians understand the legal system of Louisiana, how the Louisiana Civil Code is drafted, and how the Civil Code operates within Louisiana’s mixed, partially common law jurisdiction. It will explore the relationship between codes, statutes, and cases, and how primary and secondary authority are defined and developed within Louisiana’s unique legal system. The panel will also cover elements of Louisiana legal research, including Louisiana’s unique legal publishing industry, the importance of print resources in Louisiana legal research, and available historical treatises and primary sources. The program will be accompanied by a LibGuide to assist non-Louisiana law librarians in researching Louisiana legal issues.

Speakers may include Louisiana law librarians, Louisiana law faculty, and members of the Louisiana State Law Institute (LSLI).

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Researching, Publishing, and Collecting the Laws of Louisiana

Most law librarians are aware of Louisiana’s unique and “different” legal system. But what does that mean for legal research, legal publishing, and collection development in the Pelican State?

This program will cover aspects of Louisiana legal research and collection development, including Louisiana’s small and specialized legal publishing industry, the importance of print resources in Louisiana legal research, and available primary and secondary sources. The program will be accompanied by a LibGuide to assist non-Louisiana law librarians in researching Louisiana legal issues and choosing Louisiana legal resources.

Speakers may include Louisiana law librarians, legal scholars, and representatives of university presses and other publishers of Louisiana law.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

LA Civil Code & Other Influences on Civil Law in Latin America

The Louisiana civil code has directly and significantly influenced civil law in Latin America. It is generally believed that Spanish language translations of a mid-nineteenth century digest of world civil codes served as the first introduction of the civil law in Latin America. The Louisiana civil code was included in this digest (along with the codes of France, Sicily, Piedmont, the Netherlands, Bavaria, Austria, and Prussia), and the Spanish translation of the digest would therefore have served as the very first Spanish translation of the Louisiana civil code.

Around the same time, Spain was beginning to draft its first civil code post-unification, which would not be enacted until 1889. The commentaries provided during the drafting of the Spanish civil code, many of which referred to the code already in place in Louisiana, also heavily influenced the development of the civil law in Latin American countries.Latin American lawmakers turned to the Louisiana civil code not only because of the Spanish language translations and commentaries, but also because it was the first civil code to be drafted in the New World and could therefore serve as a model for Latin American countries that had been fighting for their own independence and that sought to express that independence through their own civil codes. Similarities between the Louisiana and French codes during this period were also significant, as the French code, which captured the spirit of post-Revolutionary France, had also captured the imagination of Latin America. As scholarship on Latin American civil law points out, the first Latin American codes were nearly word for word translations of the French civil code and its corresponding Louisiana code provisions, with departures only where the Latin American codes made reference to much older Spanish laws.

This program will explore the historical influences on Latin American civil law, which are invaluable in helping us to understand and research the modern laws. Speakers will consist of law librarians and civil law scholars who have researched extensively the development of Latin American civil law.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Recent Reforms in the French Law of Obligations

Adapted from a symposium recently held at the Louisiana Supreme Court, this panel will address recent reforms to the French Law of Obligations and what they mean both for France and for French-influenced jurisdictions like Louisiana. Speakers will discuss the need for reforms to adapt the law to modern economic and social environments and to make French law more attractive to international markets. Specific changes to the law, as well as how they are playing out in practice, will be discussed in detail depending upon the available speakers’ expertise. We will round out the panel with a brief discussion of how the reforms in France could eventually affect the law of Louisiana and of other French-influenced jurisdictions.

Speakers would include scholars of French law, Louisiana law, and potential additional jurisdictions’ law, depending on availability. This program could be condensed into a short form program and/or proposed as a half workshop or symposium.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana

In his 2012 book, “Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana” (https://www.lawbookexchange.com/pages/books/59912/vernon-valentine-palmer/through-the-codes-darkly-slave-law-and-civil-law-in-louisiana), Tulane Law Professor Vernon Palmer challenged the prevailing argument that Louisiana’s slave laws were more permissive or protective than those of the other states. The differences between Louisiana’s slave laws and those of the other states have been attributed largely to the alleged adoption of ancient Roman slave laws during the drafting of Louisiana’s Code Noir, or “Black Code.” Because the Romans owned slaves of all races, some scholars have argued that the Roman laws were “color-blind” and that their incorporation into the Code Noir laid the groundwork for a more permissive body of slave law in the French territories. These scholars contrast the civil slave laws to the body of case law that developed to govern slavery in the other states, and argue that, while the common law developed specifically within a racial system, the civil law did not develop from the intent to oppress any particular race.

In “Through the Codes Darkly,” Palmer breaks with the earlier scholarship claiming that the Code Noir was based on Roman law. He instead relies on archival research, examining the Code Noir drafters’ backgrounds, the instructions they received from France, and the notes they generated during the course of their work. Palmer argues that the Code Noir was in fact based on the drafters’ own experiences in the New World, and that the Roman slave laws, which would have been largely irrelevant to slavery in the Americas, did not, in fact, form the substantive basis of the Code Noir. In breaking with Romanist scholarship, Palmer owns that the drafters of the Code Noir created a “profoundly racial document embodying the prejudices of their own white supremacist society.”

This program would explore Palmer’s trailblazing research into the law of slavery in Louisiana. The speaker would ideally be Professor Palmer himself, although other local law professors would also be qualified to speak on this topic if Professor Palmer were not available.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

French, Spanish, African and Jewish influences in US Law

New Orleans and Louisiana in general with its rich city and legal history is the perfect set for this panel. Legal experts and historical experts will shed some light on the French, Spanish, African and Jewish influences which might have been present and even created in Louisiana or New Orleans and then made it to US law. Potential speakers include historical and legal experts on the topic, local history experts, and a local legal history expert or just legal history expert.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Legal information from U.S. Territories

Legal information from and on the current U.S. territories is a nightmare to find. Most major commercial vendors do not include this information and local institutions do not have the resources to digitize and make this information more accessible. What should we do?

Potential speakers include law librarians from different U.S. territories, law librarian specializing in this area, perhaps a government/court librarian from the territories.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Is Google Translate the only option?

The legal document or any material you are working on has a few sentences on Spanish, Estonian, Swahili or Vietnamese. What do you do? If you’re under some pressing time constraints locating and hiring a translator might not be an option. Is Google Translate the only and best option we have? Are there any other options out there either free or not?

Potential speakers include: a FCIL librarian with experience using materials in foreign languages, a certified legal translator, a rep from Google Translate or someone working in one of the other translation sites or apps such as Linguee or Lingvo.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

 

FCIL Program Ideas in 2020 IdeaScale, Week Three

By Susan Gualtier

Beignets and Café au Lait at Café du Monde, New Orleans

Happy Monday! I can’t believe that we’re already in the third week of Phase One of the program proposal process for New Orleans next year!  We’ve had several great new FCIL programming ideas posted to IdeaScale this week, so be sure and check them out and give them an upvote!

We also encourage you to submit your own program ideas to IdeaScale.  We need your ideas as much as your votes!!  You can do this anonymously if you like.  If you have questions, comments, concerns, or calls for help, please reach out to me (sgua@law.upenn.edu) and/or Dennis Sears (searsd@law.byu.edu).  As co-Chairs of the FCIL-SIS Education Committee, it is our job to encourage and support you in developing ideas and program proposals in anticipation of next year’s meeting.

Each Monday from now through August 16, DipLawMatic Dialogues will bring you an update on all of the FCIL-related program ideas currently posted in IdeaScale to encourage you to “up-vote” these programs. For more on why up-voting is important, see here.

In the meantime, why not kick back with some café au lait and check out these amazing program suggestions?

Obtaining & Using Copyrighted Materials from Foreign Countries

What does a U.S. law librarian do when a book or report that a patron needs to consult is only available at a library in England or India? How about when a thesis or document that another patron needs for research purposes is only available at a library in Namibia or New Zealand?

Many libraries do not want to lend items internationally through OCLC WorldShare Interlibrary Loan, so ILL requests sent to non-U.S. countries are frequently returned unfilled. If a librarian—undeterred and unwilling to give up—contacts the library in another country directly to request scanned chapters of the book or a scanned copy of the report, how can the librarian ensure that the request does not violate that country’s copyright laws? Do other countries have fair use exceptions and library exemptions in their copyright laws similar to U.S. copyright law? How do copyright term lengths differ in other countries?

This program addresses how to research foreign copyright laws, how to legally obtain copies of copyrighted material from libraries around the world, and how to obtain permission to use copyrighted material that has been registered for copyright protection in another country.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Unmasking the World’s 100 Most Influential Legal Texts

What are the 100 most influential texts in the world’s legal literature? Who better to ask than law librarians? We invite AALL members to share their expertise and diverse viewpoints in an interactive session that will be both fun and intellectually engaging. The resulting list may form the basis for a publication, a major public exhibition, and/or a dynamic, ever-growing online project. More than simply a tool for collecting or teaching, the list of the world’s most influential legal texts will demonstrate the profound impact of law on our lives throughout history and into the future.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Legal research in civil law jurisdictions – all that different?

Legal research in civil law jurisdictions may not be as different as you may expect! The influence of the common law can be seen, for instance, in the increased reliance on precedent and increased length in decisions. One might even question whether the emphasis on doctrine is really as strong now as it used to be.

A slight spin on the ideas already suggested, this panel is a little more introductory, but acknowledges the changing nature of practice in a civilian jurisdiction. Starting with the same research question, law librarians/ lawyers in various civil law jurisdictions will explain how they would tackle the question in their respective jurisdictions. Case law from these jurisdictions will also be compared.

See: http://www.slaw.ca/2019/06/20/not-your-grandparents-civil-law-decisions-are-getting-longer-why-and-what-does-it-mean-in-france-and-quebec/?highlight=civil%20law

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Tips Tools & Techniques for Environmental Law Research

We don’t do as many research subject specific programs as in past. Why not take advantage of local expertise for an introductory to intermediate level program on how to research / tools for environmental law research?

See Tulane Law School https://law.tulane.edu/centers/environment

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Tools Tips & Techniques in Admiralty & Maritime Law

We aren’t doing as many legal research specific programs as in past. Why not take advantage of our location in New Orleans and the local expertise in admiralty and maritime law?

See Tulane Law School https://law.tulane.edu/academics/maritime

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Screening of Documentary “Change the Subject” With Panel

“Change the Subject” is a recent documentary, about the students and librarians who have been fighting to change the Library of Congress subject heading from “Illegal Aliens” to something less pejorative, such as “undocumented people.” The struggle to change this heading even caught the attention of Congress, who until then had never taken an interest in LC subject headings that anyone could recall.

You can read more and view a trailer here: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/changethesubject/. The filmmakers are excited and available to come screen the film and then answers questions during a panel session. Panel would also include law librarians involved in this struggle.

BOK Content Area:  Professionalism & Leadership at Every Level

How Codes are Made: Creating Laws in Civil Jurisdictions

Is there a difference between a code and a set of statutes? How does the process of codification differ between common law and civilian jurisdictions? What roles do legislatures and law reform bodies play? This panel will help librarians to understand the role that codes play in civilian and mixed jurisdictions and how and whether it differs from that of the “codes” that most of us would recognize as codified statutes. The panel will explore how codes are constructed in a variety of jurisdictions.

Speakers will include law faculty and drafters from Louisiana, as well as from or familiar with similar jurisdictions, such as Quebec, Scotland, and South Africa.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Is it Napoleonic? Foreign/Domestic Influences on LA Civil Code

Interpreting and researching modern civil law depends upon an understanding of the historical sources from which those laws evolved. People often say that Louisiana uses the Napoleonic Code, but is that true? Louisiana has been both a French and Spanish colony, and it has been a part of the American legal system for over 200 years; it has also been influenced by Roman Law, Greek Law, Canon Law, and the Germanic Civil Law tradition.

This panel will help librarians understand the legal system of Louisiana, how the Louisiana Civil Code is drafted, and how the Civil Code operates within Louisiana’s mixed, partially common law jurisdiction. It will explore the relationship between codes, statutes, and cases, and how primary and secondary authority are defined and developed within Louisiana’s unique legal system. The panel will also cover elements of Louisiana legal research, including Louisiana’s unique legal publishing industry, the importance of print resources in Louisiana legal research, and available historical treatises and primary sources. The program will be accompanied by a LibGuide to assist non-Louisiana law librarians in researching Louisiana legal issues.

Speakers may include Louisiana law librarians, Louisiana law faculty, and members of the Louisiana State Law Institute (LSLI).

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Researching, Publishing, and Collecting the Laws of Louisiana

Most law librarians are aware of Louisiana’s unique and “different” legal system. But what does that mean for legal research, legal publishing, and collection development in the Pelican State?

This program will cover aspects of Louisiana legal research and collection development, including Louisiana’s small and specialized legal publishing industry, the importance of print resources in Louisiana legal research, and available primary and secondary sources. The program will be accompanied by a LibGuide to assist non-Louisiana law librarians in researching Louisiana legal issues and choosing Louisiana legal resources.

Speakers may include Louisiana law librarians, legal scholars, and representatives of university presses and other publishers of Louisiana law.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

LA Civil Code & Other Influences on Civil Law in Latin America

The Louisiana civil code has directly and significantly influenced civil law in Latin America. It is generally believed that Spanish language translations of a mid-nineteenth century digest of world civil codes served as the first introduction of the civil law in Latin America. The Louisiana civil code was included in this digest (along with the codes of France, Sicily, Piedmont, the Netherlands, Bavaria, Austria, and Prussia), and the Spanish translation of the digest would therefore have served as the very first Spanish translation of the Louisiana civil code.

Around the same time, Spain was beginning to draft its first civil code post-unification, which would not be enacted until 1889. The commentaries provided during the drafting of the Spanish civil code, many of which referred to the code already in place in Louisiana, also heavily influenced the development of the civil law in Latin American countries.

Latin American lawmakers turned to the Louisiana civil code not only because of the Spanish language translations and commentaries, but also because it was the first civil code to be drafted in the New World and could therefore serve as a model for Latin American countries that had been fighting for their own independence and that sought to express that independence through their own civil codes. Similarities between the Louisiana and French codes during this period were also significant, as the French code, which captured the spirit of post-Revolutionary France, had also captured the imagination of Latin America. As scholarship on Latin American civil law points out, the first Latin American codes were nearly word for word translations of the French civil code and its corresponding Louisiana code provisions, with departures only where the Latin American codes made reference to much older Spanish laws.

This program will explore the historical influences on Latin American civil law, which are invaluable in helping us to understand and research the modern laws. Speakers will consist of law librarians and civil law scholars who have researched extensively the development of Latin American civil law.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Recent Reforms in the French Law of Obligations

Adapted from a symposium recently held at the Louisiana Supreme Court, this panel will address recent reforms to the French Law of Obligations and what they mean both for France and for French-influenced jurisdictions like Louisiana. Speakers will discuss the need for reforms to adapt the law to modern economic and social environments and to make French law more attractive to international markets. Specific changes to the law, as well as how they are playing out in practice, will be discussed in detail depending upon the available speakers’ expertise. We will round out the panel with a brief discussion of how the reforms in France could eventually affect the law of Louisiana and of other French-influenced jurisdictions.

Speakers would include scholars of French law, Louisiana law, and potential additional jurisdictions’ law, depending on availability. This program could be condensed into a short form program and/or proposed as a half workshop or symposium.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana

In his 2012 book, “Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana” (https://www.lawbookexchange.com/pages/books/59912/vernon-valentine-palmer/through-the-codes-darkly-slave-law-and-civil-law-in-louisiana), Tulane Law Professor Vernon Palmer challenged the prevailing argument that Louisiana’s slave laws were more permissive or protective than those of the other states. The differences between Louisiana’s slave laws and those of the other states have been attributed largely to the alleged adoption of ancient Roman slave laws during the drafting of Louisiana’s Code Noir, or “Black Code.” Because the Romans owned slaves of all races, some scholars have argued that the Roman laws were “color-blind” and that their incorporation into the Code Noir laid the groundwork for a more permissive body of slave law in the French territories. These scholars contrast the civil slave laws to the body of case law that developed to govern slavery in the other states, and argue that, while the common law developed specifically within a racial system, the civil law did not develop from the intent to oppress any particular race.

In “Through the Codes Darkly,” Palmer breaks with the earlier scholarship claiming that the Code Noir was based on Roman law. He instead relies on archival research, examining the Code Noir drafters’ backgrounds, the instructions they received from France, and the notes they generated during the course of their work. Palmer argues that the Code Noir was in fact based on the drafters’ own experiences in the New World, and that the Roman slave laws, which would have been largely irrelevant to slavery in the Americas, did not, in fact, form the substantive basis of the Code Noir. In breaking with Romanist scholarship, Palmer owns that the drafters of the Code Noir created a “profoundly racial document embodying the prejudices of their own white supremacist society.”

This program would explore Palmer’s trailblazing research into the law of slavery in Louisiana. The speaker would ideally be Professor Palmer himself, although other local law professors would also be qualified to speak on this topic if Professor Palmer were not available.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

French, Spanish, African and Jewish influences in US Law

New Orleans and Louisiana in general with its rich city and legal history is the perfect set for this panel. Legal experts and historical experts will shed some light on the French, Spanish, African and Jewish influences which might have been present and even created in Louisiana or New Orleans and then made it to US law.

Potential speakers include historical and legal experts on the topic, local history expert, and a local legal history expert or just legal history expert.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Legal information from U.S. Territories

Legal information from and on the current U.S. territories is a nightmare to find. Most major commercial vendors do not include this information and local institutions do not have the resources to digitize and make this information more accessible. What should we do?

Potential speakers include law librarians from different U.S. territories, law librarian specializing in this area, perhaps a government/court librarian from the territories.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Is Google Translate the only option?

The legal document or any material you are working on has a few sentences on Spanish, Estonian, Swahili or Vietnamese. What do you do? If you’re under some pressing time constraints locating and hiring a translator might not be an option. Is Google Translate the only and best option we have? Are there any other options out there either free or not?

Potential speakers include: a FCIL librarian with experience using materials in foreign languages, a certified legal translator, a rep from Google Translate or someone working in one of the other translation sites or apps such as Linguee or Lingvo.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

FCIL Program Ideas in 2020 IdeaScale, Week Two

By Susan Gualtier

New Orleans Balcony Decorated for Mardi Gras Season

Dear FCIL Colleagues:

Happy Monday once again! I hope that you’ve been thinking about New Orleans as much as I have. The humidity in the Northeast has certainly helped to keep it at the forefront of my mind! I just unearthed some Mardi Gras beads while unpacking in my new house (everyone who’s lived in Louisiana has that one box of beads that they keep moving from place to place), and I can’t wait to wear them at the conference next year!

Each Monday from now through August 16, DipLawMatic Dialogues will bring you an update on all of the FCIL-related program ideas currently posted in IdeaScale to encourage you to “up-vote” these programs. For more on why up-voting is important, see here.

We also encourage you to submit your own program ideas to IdeaScale.  We need your ideas as much as your votes!!  You can do this anonymously if you like.  If you have questions, comments, concerns, or calls for help, please reach out to me (sgua@law.upenn.edu) and/or Dennis Sears (searsd@law.byu.edu).  As co-Chairs of the FCIL-SIS Education Committee, it is our job to encourage and support you in developing ideas and program proposals in anticipation of next year’s meeting.

In the meantime, please go check out and vote for these amazing program suggestions!

Tips Tools & Techniques for Environmental Law Research

We don’t do as many research subject specific programs as in past. Why not take advantage of local expertise for an introductory to intermediate level program on how to research / tools for environmental law research?

See Tulane Law School https://law.tulane.edu/centers/environment

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Tools Tips & Techniques in Admiralty & Maritime Law

We aren’t doing as many legal research specific programs as in past. Why not take advantage of our location in New Orleans and the local expertise in admiralty and maritime law?

See Tulane Law School https://law.tulane.edu/academics/maritime

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Screening of Documentary “Change the Subject” With Panel

“Change the Subject” is a recent documentary, about the students and librarians who have been fighting to change the Library of Congress subject heading from “Illegal Aliens” to something less pejorative, such as “undocumented people.” The struggle to change this heading even caught the attention of Congress, who until then had never taken an interest in LC subject headings that anyone could recall.

You can read more and view a trailer here: https://sites.dartmouth.edu/changethesubject/. The filmmakers are excited and available to come screen the film and then answers questions during a panel session. Panel would also include law librarians involved in this struggle.

BOK Content Area:  Professionalism & Leadership at Every Level

How Codes are Made: Creating Laws in Civil Jurisdictions

Is there a difference between a code and a set of statutes? How does the process of codification differ between common law and civilian jurisdictions? What roles do legislatures and law reform bodies play? This panel will help librarians to understand the role that codes play in civilian and mixed jurisdictions and how and whether it differs from that of the “codes” that most of us would recognize as codified statutes. The panel will explore how codes are constructed in a variety of jurisdictions.

Speakers will include law faculty and drafters from Louisiana, as well as from or familiar with similar jurisdictions, such as Quebec, Scotland, and South Africa.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Is it Napoleonic? Foreign/Domestic Influences on LA Civil Code

Interpreting and researching modern civil law depends upon an understanding of the historical sources from which those laws evolved. People often say that Louisiana uses the Napoleonic Code, but is that true? Louisiana has been both a French and Spanish colony, and it has been a part of the American legal system for over 200 years; it has also been influenced by Roman Law, Greek Law, Canon Law, and the Germanic Civil Law tradition.

This panel will help librarians understand the legal system of Louisiana, how the Louisiana Civil Code is drafted, and how the Civil Code operates within Louisiana’s mixed, partially common law jurisdiction. It will explore the relationship between codes, statutes, and cases, and how primary and secondary authority are defined and developed within Louisiana’s unique legal system. The panel will also cover elements of Louisiana legal research, including Louisiana’s unique legal publishing industry, the importance of print resources in Louisiana legal research, and available historical treatises and primary sources. The program will be accompanied by a LibGuide to assist non-Louisiana law librarians in researching Louisiana legal issues.

Speakers may include Louisiana law librarians, Louisiana law faculty, and members of the Louisiana State Law Institute (LSLI).

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Researching, Publishing, and Collecting the Laws of Louisiana

Most law librarians are aware of Louisiana’s unique and “different” legal system. But what does that mean for legal research, legal publishing, and collection development in the Pelican State?

This program will cover aspects of Louisiana legal research and collection development, including Louisiana’s small and specialized legal publishing industry, the importance of print resources in Louisiana legal research, and available primary and secondary sources. The program will be accompanied by a LibGuide to assist non-Louisiana law librarians in researching Louisiana legal issues and choosing Louisiana legal resources.

Speakers may include Louisiana law librarians, legal scholars, and representatives of university presses and other publishers of Louisiana law.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

LA Civil Code & Other Influences on Civil Law in Latin America

The Louisiana civil code has directly and significantly influenced civil law in Latin America. It is generally believed that Spanish language translations of a mid-nineteenth century digest of world civil codes served as the first introduction of the civil law in Latin America. The Louisiana civil code was included in this digest (along with the codes of France, Sicily, Piedmont, the Netherlands, Bavaria, Austria, and Prussia), and the Spanish translation of the digest would therefore have served as the very first Spanish translation of the Louisiana civil code.

Around the same time, Spain was beginning to draft its first civil code post-unification, which would not be enacted until 1889. The commentaries provided during the drafting of the Spanish civil code, many of which referred to the code already in place in Louisiana, also heavily influenced the development of the civil law in Latin American countries.

Latin American lawmakers turned to the Louisiana civil code not only because of the Spanish language translations and commentaries, but also because it was the first civil code to be drafted in the New World and could therefore serve as a model for Latin American countries that had been fighting for their own independence and that sought to express that independence through their own civil codes. Similarities between the Louisiana and French codes during this period were also significant, as the French code, which captured the spirit of post-Revolutionary France, had also captured the imagination of Latin America. As scholarship on Latin American civil law points out, the first Latin American codes were nearly word for word translations of the French civil code and its corresponding Louisiana code provisions, with departures only where the Latin American codes made reference to much older Spanish laws.

This program will explore the historical influences on Latin American civil law, which are invaluable in helping us to understand and research the modern laws. Speakers will consist of law librarians and civil law scholars who have researched extensively the development of Latin American civil law.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Recent Reforms in the French Law of Obligations

Adapted from a symposium recently held at the Louisiana Supreme Court, this panel will address recent reforms to the French Law of Obligations and what they mean both for France and for French-influenced jurisdictions like Louisiana. Speakers will discuss the need for reforms to adapt the law to modern economic and social environments and to make French law more attractive to international markets. Specific changes to the law, as well as how they are playing out in practice, will be discussed in detail depending upon the available speakers’ expertise. We will round out the panel with a brief discussion of how the reforms in France could eventually affect the law of Louisiana and of other French-influenced jurisdictions.

Speakers would include scholars of French law, Louisiana law, and potential additional jurisdictions’ law, depending on availability. This program could be condensed into a short form program and/or proposed as a half workshop or symposium.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana

In his 2012 book, “Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana” (https://www.lawbookexchange.com/pages/books/59912/vernon-valentine-palmer/through-the-codes-darkly-slave-law-and-civil-law-in-louisiana), Tulane Law Professor Vernon Palmer challenged the prevailing argument that Louisiana’s slave laws were more permissive or protective than those of the other states. The differences between Louisiana’s slave laws and those of the other states have been attributed largely to the alleged adoption of ancient Roman slave laws during the drafting of Louisiana’s Code Noir, or “Black Code.” Because the Romans owned slaves of all races, some scholars have argued that the Roman laws were “color-blind” and that their incorporation into the Code Noir laid the groundwork for a more permissive body of slave law in the French territories. These scholars contrast the civil slave laws to the body of case law that developed to govern slavery in the other states, and argue that, while the common law developed specifically within a racial system, the civil law did not develop from the intent to oppress any particular race.

In “Through the Codes Darkly,” Palmer breaks with the earlier scholarship claiming that the Code Noir was based on Roman law. He instead relies on archival research, examining the Code Noir drafters’ backgrounds, the instructions they received from France, and the notes they generated during the course of their work. Palmer argues that the Code Noir was in fact based on the drafters’ own experiences in the New World, and that the Roman slave laws, which would have been largely irrelevant to slavery in the Americas, did not, in fact, form the substantive basis of the Code Noir. In breaking with Romanist scholarship, Palmer owns that the drafters of the Code Noir created a “profoundly racial document embodying the prejudices of their own white supremacist society.”

This program would explore Palmer’s trailblazing research into the law of slavery in Louisiana. The speaker would ideally be Professor Palmer himself, although other local law professors would also be qualified to speak on this topic if Professor Palmer were not available.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

French, Spanish, African and Jewish influences in US Law

New Orleans and Louisiana in general with its rich city and legal history is the perfect set for this panel. Legal experts and historical experts will shed some light on the French, Spanish, African and Jewish influences which might have been present and even created in Louisiana or New Orleans and then made it to US law.

Potential speakers include historical and legal experts on the topic, local history expert, and a local legal history expert or just legal history expert.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Legal information from U.S. Territories

Legal information from and on the current U.S. territories is a nightmare to find. Most major commercial vendors do not include this information and local institutions do not have the resources to digitize and make this information more accessible. What should we do?

Potential speakers include law librarians from different U.S. territories, law librarian specializing in this area, perhaps a government/court librarian from the territories.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Is Google Translate the only option?

The legal document or any material you are working on has a few sentences on Spanish, Estonian, Swahili or Vietnamese. What do you do? If you’re under some pressing time constraints locating and hiring a translator might not be an option. Is Google Translate the only and best option we have? Are there any other options out there either free or not?

Potential speakers include: a FCIL librarian with experience using materials in foreign languages, a certified legal translator, a rep from Google Translate or someone working in one of the other translation sites or apps such as Linguee or Lingvo.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

FCIL Program Ideas in 2020 IdeaScale, Week One

By Susan Gualtier

French Quarter, New Orleans

Dear FCIL Colleagues:

Happy Monday! I hope that you all had a great weekend and that those of you on the East Coast stayed safe during the heat wave!

Each Monday from now through August 16, DipLawMatic Dialogues will bring you an update on all of the FCIL-related program ideas currently posted in IdeaScale to encourage you to “up-vote” these programs. For more on why up-voting is important, see here.

We also encourage you to submit your own program ideas to IdeaScale.  You can do this anonymously if you like.  If you have questions, comments, concerns, or calls for help, please reach out to me (sgua@law.upenn.edu) and/or Dennis Sears (searsd@law.byu.edu).  As co-Chairs of the FCIL-SIS Education Committee, it is our job to encourage and support you in developing ideas and program proposals in anticipation of next year’s meeting.

In the meantime, please go check out and vote for these amazing program suggestions!

How Codes are Made: Creating Laws in Civil Jurisdictions

Is there a difference between a code and a set of statutes? How does the process of codification differ between common law and civilian jurisdictions? What roles do legislatures and law reform bodies play? This panel will help librarians to understand the role that codes play in civilian and mixed jurisdictions and how and whether it differs from that of the “codes” that most of us would recognize as codified statutes. The panel will explore how codes are constructed in a variety of jurisdictions.

Speakers will include law faculty and drafters from Louisiana, as well as from or familiar with similar jurisdictions, such as Quebec, Scotland, and South Africa.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Is it Napoleonic? Foreign/Domestic Influences on LA Civil Code

Interpreting and researching modern civil law depends upon an understanding of the historical sources from which those laws evolved. People often say that Louisiana uses the Napoleonic Code, but is that true? Louisiana has been both a French and Spanish colony, and it has been a part of the American legal system for over 200 years; it has also been influenced by Roman Law, Greek Law, Canon Law, and the Germanic Civil Law tradition.

This panel will help librarians understand the legal system of Louisiana, how the Louisiana Civil Code is drafted, and how the Civil Code operates within Louisiana’s mixed, partially common law jurisdiction. It will explore the relationship between codes, statutes, and cases, and how primary and secondary authority are defined and developed within Louisiana’s unique legal system. The panel will also cover elements of Louisiana legal research, including Louisiana’s unique legal publishing industry, the importance of print resources in Louisiana legal research, and available historical treatises and primary sources. The program will be accompanied by a LibGuide to assist non-Louisiana law librarians in researching Louisiana legal issues.

Speakers may include Louisiana law librarians, Louisiana law faculty, and members of the Louisiana State Law Institute (LSLI).

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Researching, Publishing, and Collecting the Laws of Louisiana

Most law librarians are aware of Louisiana’s unique and “different” legal system. But what does that mean for legal research, legal publishing, and collection development in the Pelican State?

This program will cover aspects of Louisiana legal research and collection development, including Louisiana’s small and specialized legal publishing industry, the importance of print resources in Louisiana legal research, and available primary and secondary sources. The program will be accompanied by a LibGuide to assist non-Louisiana law librarians in researching Louisiana legal issues and choosing Louisiana legal resources.

Speakers may include Louisiana law librarians, legal scholars, and representatives of university presses and other publishers of Louisiana law.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

LA Civil Code & Other Influences on Civil Law in Latin America

The Louisiana civil code has directly and significantly influenced civil law in Latin America. It is generally believed that Spanish language translations of a mid-nineteenth century digest of world civil codes served as the first introduction of the civil law in Latin America. The Louisiana civil code was included in this digest (along with the codes of France, Sicily, Piedmont, the Netherlands, Bavaria, Austria, and Prussia), and the Spanish translation of the digest would therefore have served as the very first Spanish translation of the Louisiana civil code.

Around the same time, Spain was beginning to draft its first civil code post-unification, which would not be enacted until 1889. The commentaries provided during the drafting of the Spanish civil code, many of which referred to the code already in place in Louisiana, also heavily influenced the development of the civil law in Latin American countries.

Latin American lawmakers turned to the Louisiana civil code not only because of the Spanish language translations and commentaries, but also because it was the first civil code to be drafted in the New World and could therefore serve as a model for Latin American countries that had been fighting for their own independence and that sought to express that independence through their own civil codes. Similarities between the Louisiana and French codes during this period were also significant, as the French code, which captured the spirit of post-Revolutionary France, had also captured the imagination of Latin America. As scholarship on Latin American civil law points out, the first Latin American codes were nearly word for word translations of the French civil code and its corresponding Louisiana code provisions, with departures only where the Latin American codes made reference to much older Spanish laws.

This program will explore the historical influences on Latin American civil law, which are invaluable in helping us to understand and research the modern laws. Speakers will consist of law librarians and civil law scholars who have researched extensively the development of Latin American civil law.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Recent Reforms in the French Law of Obligations

Adapted from a symposium recently held at the Louisiana Supreme Court, this panel will address recent reforms to the French Law of Obligations and what they mean both for France and for French-influenced jurisdictions like Louisiana. Speakers will discuss the need for reforms to adapt the law to modern economic and social environments and to make French law more attractive to international markets. Specific changes to the law, as well as how they are playing out in practice, will be discussed in detail depending upon the available speakers’ expertise. We will round out the panel with a brief discussion of how the reforms in France could eventually affect the law of Louisiana and of other French-influenced jurisdictions.

Speakers would include scholars of French law, Louisiana law, and potential additional jurisdictions’ law, depending on availability. This program could be condensed into a short form program and/or proposed as a half workshop or symposium.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana

In his 2012 book, “Through the Codes Darkly: Slave Law and Civil Law in Louisiana” (https://www.lawbookexchange.com/pages/books/59912/vernon-valentine-palmer/through-the-codes-darkly-slave-law-and-civil-law-in-louisiana), Tulane Law Professor Vernon Palmer challenged the prevailing argument that Louisiana’s slave laws were more permissive or protective than those of the other states. The differences between Louisiana’s slave laws and those of the other states have been attributed largely to the alleged adoption of ancient Roman slave laws during the drafting of Louisiana’s Code Noir, or “Black Code.” Because the Romans owned slaves of all races, some scholars have argued that the Roman laws were “color-blind” and that their incorporation into the Code Noir laid the groundwork for a more permissive body of slave law in the French territories. These scholars contrast the civil slave laws to the body of case law that developed to govern slavery in the other states, and argue that, while the common law developed specifically within a racial system, the civil law did not develop from the intent to oppress any particular race.

In “Through the Codes Darkly,” Palmer breaks with the earlier scholarship claiming that the Code Noir was based on Roman law. He instead relies on archival research, examining the Code Noir drafters’ backgrounds, the instructions they received from France, and the notes they generated during the course of their work. Palmer argues that the Code Noir was in fact based on the drafters’ own experiences in the New World, and that the Roman slave laws, which would have been largely irrelevant to slavery in the Americas, did not, in fact, form the substantive basis of the Code Noir. In breaking with Romanist scholarship, Palmer owns that the drafters of the Code Noir created a “profoundly racial document embodying the prejudices of their own white supremacist society.”

This program would explore Palmer’s trailblazing research into the law of slavery in Louisiana. The speaker would ideally be Professor Palmer himself, although other local law professors would also be qualified to speak on this topic if Professor Palmer were not available.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

French, Spanish, African and Jewish influences in US Law

New Orleans and Louisiana in general with its rich city and legal history is the perfect set for this panel. Legal experts and historical experts will shed some light on the French, Spanish, African and Jewish influences which might have been present and even created in Louisiana or New Orleans and then made it to US law.

Potential speakers include historical and legal experts on the topic, local history expert, and a local legal history expert or just legal history expert.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Legal information from U.S. Territories

Legal information from and on the current U.S. territories is a nightmare to find. Most major commercial vendors do not include this information and local institutions do not have the resources to digitize and make this information more accessible. What should we do?

Potential speakers include law librarians from different U.S. territories, law librarian specializing in this area, perhaps a government/court librarian from the territories.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Is Google Translate the only option?

The legal document or any material you are working on has a few sentences on Spanish, Estonian, Swahili or Vietnamese. What do you do? If you’re under some pressing time constraints locating and hiring a translator might not be an option. Is Google Translate the only and best option we have? Are there any other options out there either free or not?

Potential speakers include: a FCIL librarian with experience using materials in foreign languages, a certified legal translator, a rep from Google Translate or someone working in one of the other translation sites or apps such as Linguee or Lingvo.

BOK Content Area:  Research & Analysis

Program Planning for New Orleans 2020: Ideascale Is Now Open!

By Susan Gualtier

Dear FCIL Colleagues:

I hope that you all had a wonderful conference and a safe trip home!  As we all make our way through the weekend’s unchecked emails and get ready for teaching and other fall commitments, it’s important to remember that it’s also time to start thinking about FCIL programming for the AALL Annual Meeting in New Orleans next year.  In case you didn’t notice, Ideascale opened yesterday with very little fanfare, and is available from now until August 16 for submissions and voting!

As your Education Committee Co-Chair, let me explain how you can contribute RIGHT NOW to our ongoing efforts to guarantee substantive FCIL programming at next year’s conference.

Phase 1: Ideascale

1. Submit all your wild and crazy ideas to the Ideascale platform (you will need to register and join the AALL Annual Meeting Program Ideas community within Ideascale before you can submit). Ideascale is a crowdsourcing tool that the Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC) is monitoring to gauge membership interests.  The AMPC will use the information on Ideascale to identify the “must have programming” for next year’s meeting.
   • Any and every idea will suffice.
   • You can submit anonymously, if you like.
   • Submitting an idea does NOT obligate you to do any of the work needed to turn that idea into a program.
   • The system will ask you to categorize your idea as falling within one of the 6 domains of the “Body of Knowledge” (BOK).

1. Upvote any ideas on the Ideascale platform that explicitly relate to FCIL work or that could be expanded to include a FCIL perspective. This will help us make connections across SISs and remind the AALL community that almost every topic on law and law librarianship can take on international and/or foreign dimensions.
   • The system allows for one upvote per idea.
   • The FCIL-SIS blog, DipLawMatic Dialogues, will post weekly updates of ideas submitted to Ideascale to encourage your upvoting. Please make sure to subscribe to the blog, if you have not done so already.

The Ideascale platform is up until August 16^th.  Once it closes, I’ll send out another message about Phase 2 of our New Orleans programming plan.

If you have questions, comments, concerns, or calls for help, please reach out to me (sgua@law.upenn.edu) and/or Dennis Sears (searsd@law.byu.edu).  As co-Chairs of the FCIL’s Education Committee, it is our job to encourage and support you in developing ideas and program proposals in anticipation of next year’s meeting!

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

St. Louis Cathedral at night.

AALL 2018 Recap: Education Committee Meeting – Program Planning for DC

By: Loren Turner

The FCIL-SIS Education Committee met at the crack of dawn (7:00 am) on Tuesday, July 17^th to begin brainstorming and strategizing for the AALL 2019 conference in Washington, D.C.  We were joined by two members of the Annual Meeting Program Committee (AMPC), Sabrina Sondhi (our official FCIL liaison to the AMPC) and Alyson Drake.  Sabrina and Alyson shared the AMPC’s timeline for gathering program ideas and proposals.  Alyson will be writing a separate DipLawMatic blog post that covers the AMPC’s timeline and goals in more detail, but in a nutshell, there is a two-step process for us to get some FCIL-related programming into the DC conference: (1) submit and up-vote your undeveloped, wild and crazy ideas to the Ideascale platform (from now until August 17th) and (2) submit your developed, professional program proposals to the AMPC (Labor Day-ish until October 1).

We have an excellent location for the next conference and the Georgetown folks who joined our meeting are already on-the-ball with fab ideas on international taxation, international trade, and international human rights.  What about you?!  What programming do you want to see in D.C. for your professional development?

Dennis Sears (searsd@law.byu.edu) and I (lturner@umn.edu) would L.O.V.E. to hear from you!  Tell us what you want to learn.  Tell us what you want to teach. Tell us who you know and what they might offer.  We will do your cold-calls.  We will help craft your wild and crazy ideas into fully-developed programs (or pre-conference workshops). We need you to help us create substantive FCIL programming for the AALL 2019 conference.  Let’s do this.