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Category: In the News

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Standardization and the Law

Posted by: Jenny Gesley

On December 22, 1917—100 years ago today—the German Institute for Standardization (Deutsches Institut für Normung, DIN) was founded. DIN develops the content of standards and coordinates the work of other bodies involved in the process. It is organized as a private non-profit organization and has entered into an agreement with the German government to be recognized …

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Disappearance of a Prime Minister

Posted by: Kelly Buchanan

On this day fifty years ago, December 19, 1967, it was announced that the then-Prime Minister of Australia, Harold Holt, was officially presumed dead. Mr. Holt, who had been Prime Minister for 22 months, from January 1966, had disappeared two days earlier while swimming in the ocean at Cheviot Beach near Portsea, in the state of …

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Two Koreas Separated by Demilitarized Zone

Posted by: Kelly Buchanan

This following is a guest post by Sayuri Umeda, a foreign law specialist who covers Japan and various other countries in East and Southeast Asia. She has previously written posts for In Custodia Legis on various topics, including English translations of post-World War II South Korean laws, laws and regulations passed in the aftermath of the Great East Japan Earthquake, and …

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The Creation of the Department of Justice

Posted by: Jim Martin

It is a curiosity of history that while the office of the Attorney General of the United States was created by the first congress as a part of the Judiciary Act of 1789, the Department of Justice was not authorized until over eighty years later, in 1870. Section 35 of the Judiciary Act provided And …

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Researching New Zealand’s Laws Related to “Doing Business”

Posted by: Kelly Buchanan

On October 31, 2017, the World Bank released the fifteenth edition of its Doing Business report, subtitled “Reforming to Create Jobs.” As with the fourteenth edition, New Zealand was given the highest “ease of doing business” ranking among 190 countries. The report explains that “[t]he overall measure of the ease of doing business gives an …

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Join the Law Library at the 17th Annual National Book Festival!

Posted by: Liah Caravalho

The Library of Congress 17th annual National Book Festival kicks off at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, September 2 in the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Law Library of Congress staff are delighted once again to have an opportunity to discuss our legal collection and services, and share a number of family-friendly activities with festival attendees. …