While growing up in New Zealand, then attending university there and working as a policy adviser in both environmental and constitutional law, I saw news items and had discussions about Māori rights, activism, and related legal or policy developments fairly regularly. I have therefore followed with interest media articles and social media discussions about the […]
Today, June 9th, marks the Åland National Day, självstyrelsedagen, celebrated in honor of the law that made it independent in 1921: the Autonomy Act of 1920. Today, celebrations of this event includes eating Ålandic pancake (Ålandspannkaka). Åland is made up of more than 6,700 islands that form an archipelago in the Baltic Sea between Sweden […]
On March 23, 1962, the Helsinki Treaty on Nordic cooperation was signed by Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden, a date that has become known and celebrated as “Nordic Day.” The treaty legally entered into force on July 1, 1962. The Treaty formalized the longstanding Nordic collaboration and in particular the role of the Nordic […]
Overview of the Danish government’s legal response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
One of my favorite features of the Law Library is its incredible resources and I especially enjoy looking through old foreign laws. It may seem odd to highlight items from our collection while our physical doors remain closed, but the entire Law Library continues to serve you online. This post will look at the Autonomy […]
On September 17, 1809, 210 years ago today, Sweden and Russia signed the Treaty of Fredrikshamn (Finnish: Hamina), marking the end of the Finnish war of 1808-1809 and also the end of the Sweden-Finland era. Finland had been part of Sweden since 1323, when another peace treaty between Novgorod (Russia) and Sweden, the Peace of Pähkinäsaari […]
Fifty years ago, on January 31, 1968, Nauru became an independent nation. It is the smallest island republic in the world with a land area of just 8.1 square miles (“about 0.1 times the size of Washington, DC“) and a population of around 10,000 people. Prior to independence, from 1947 onward, the island was subject to a […]
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage month here in the United States. During this month, we are encouraged “to learn more about our Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander heritage.” In thinking about how to further this goal for readers of In Custodia Legis I was initially inspired by the release last year of the first animated […]
The following is a guest post by Tariq Ahmad, a legal research analyst in the Global Legal Research Directorate of the Law Library of Congress. Tariq has previously contributed posts on Islamic Law in Pakistan – Global Legal Collection Highlights, the Law Library’s June 4, 2013 Panel Discussion on Islamic Law, Sedition Law in India, […]
I recently had cause to look through the Fiji Government Gazette notices and supplements for the year 2000, in search of a particular regulation. It was actually an interesting year to scroll through on one of the microfilm machines in the Law Library’s Reading Room because I was aware that, in May of that year, […]