New Resource on HeinOnline

HeinOnline has added a new legal research platform 'World Constitutions Illustrated'.  It draws together constitutional documents, books, articles, and websites into a central database.  The initial release includes the current constitution for 193 different countries and HeinOnline will be working towards identifying and acquiring the source documents for every historical constitution for every country!

Every country record includes the current constitution in its original language (accompanied by at least one English translation) as well as links to commentaries, book chapters, scholarly articles and online sources.

New legislation site for UK

OPSI (Office of Public Sector Information) and the Statute Law Database have now been replaced with a new website called legislation.gov.uk.  This new site combines two very useful sources of legislation into one easy search engine. It is run by the National Archives on behalf of the HM Government. OPSI provided legislation as originally enacted whilst the Statute Law Database gave the legislation as amended, in future the one site will offer both.  legislation.gov.uk‘s default is the legislation as amended, but it offers  an option to look at it in its original form.

(Mis)perceptions of crime in Australia

Public concern about crime victimisation is one of a range of factors that policymakers take into account when creating new criminal offences, setting penalties and allocating resources for policing and prosecution. The level of public concern about rising crime can also determine the extent to which people engage in certain daily activities, sometimes restricting behaviour unnecessarily. However, there can be a disjunction between how people perceive the risk of crime victimisation and the actual level of victimisation that occurs in the community. Recently, for example, concern with some crime types has increased, despite an actual decline in crime rates for the offences in question. This study reinforces earlier research into perceptions of crime; that there are substantial misperceptions of crime among the general public, both in terms of the number of incidents and in perceptions of trends in crime. This paper uses statistical modelling based on data taken from the 2007 Australian Survey of Social Attitudes to examine the relationship between gender, age, education and sources of information on crime in the Australian context.http://www.aic.gov.au/en/publications/current%20series/tandi/381-400/tandi396.aspx

High Court Drops Catchwords!

The High Court of Australia is no longer applying catchwords to judgments. See article in The Australian 9th July 2010.

Supreme Court of Tasmania Wireless Internet Access (Wi-Fi)

The Supreme Court has arranged for limited wireless internet access to be trialed in Hobart. The service will allow court users free access to browse the internet including access to web e-mail. The trial will run for 6 months. Fore more information, click here

ASIL Insight Vol. 14 Issue 17

ECJ Holds that West Bank Products are Outside Scope of the EU-Israel Association Agreement

ASIL Insight Vol. 14 Issue 16 (June 22, 2010)

States Parties Approve New Crimes for International Criminal Court

AustLII Newsletter

The first newsletter for the year is now available at http://www.austlii.edu.au/austlii/news/20100521.pdf

Some of the content included in this edition include:

* Subject specific libraries
* Search tips
* International law library
* AustLII user survey

UK Human Rights Blog Launched

The UK Human Rights Blog aims to provide a free legal update service.  It will be updated regularly with news, case comments and features written by human rights and public law specialists within One Crown Office Row.  You can follow this blog on Facebook, Twitter or set up email notifications.

Cambodia parliament passes controversial anti-corruption bill

The Cambodian parliament passed a controversial anti-corruption bill Wednesday meant to further transparency in government while opposition parties staged a walkout, saying the new law would stifle criticism and foster corruption. Read More

Italy parliament approves bill shielding Berlusconi from trial

The Italian Senate [official website, in Italian] on Wednesday gave final approval to a bill that would allow cabinet ministers, including Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, to postpone criminal proceedings against them on the grounds that they would interfere with official duties. Read More

House of Commons Justice Committee

First report - Cutting Crime : The  Case for Justice Reinvestment

Congratulations Professor Chalmers!

Professor Don Chalmers, University of Tasmania has just been awarded the NHMRC Ethics Award.  Click to read more.

Australian Institute of Criminology - Current Awareness Bulletin

A selection of new key reports, books, journal articles and websites.http://www.aic.gov.au/en/library/alerts/jvbarry/200912.aspx

Court of Arbitration for Sport - Latest News

CYCLING - The appeal filed by Stefan Schumacher is dismissed by the CAS

Lausanne, 25 January 2010 – The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has dismissed the appeal filed by the German cyclist Stefan Schumacher against the decision of the International Cycling Union (UCI) to recognise the two-year suspension imposed by the French Anti-Doping Agency (AFLD) and to extend it worldwide. However, the CAS has fixed the commencement date of the suspension at 28 August 2008, instead of 22 January 2009.

View recent decisions online http://www.tas-cas.org/recent-decision

Animal Law Update

The Animal Law Toolkit  
is a report on the status of the animal law movement in Australia. The Toolkit, which was produced with the support of a small grant from the Victoria Law Foundation:

• examines key animal law issues;
• provides details of animal law course offerings;
• lists professional animal law associations; and
  
• contains animal law case notes, resources and other valuable information for budding animal lawyers.

ASIL Insight - January 8, 2010 Volume 14, Issue 1

The ICC Appeals Chamber Judgment on the Legal Characterization of the Facts in Prosecutor v. Lubanga