Describe your background My first encounter with the Library of Congress (LC) was as a young German legal historian with a fellowship to research the transplantation of European law and government structures into the original American colonies, in particular New Netherlands (New York). My chief adviser and director at the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and …
On Monday, December 10th, 2018, the Law Library of Congress invites you to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the UN adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with a panel discussion, “Repatriating Native American Cultural Property and Remains.” Repatriation is the process whereby specific kinds of American Indian cultural items in a museum collection are …
On September 20, 2017, Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico in the most catastrophic storm of island’s history since the Okeechobee Hurricane in 1928. The Category 4 storm entered through Yabucoa at 6:15 a.m., leaving behind massive destruction. Most of the island’s population was left without power, physical structures collapsed, and the people of Puerto Rico were devastated. …
The Law Library had a dynamic presence at the 18th annual National Book Festival. We had 11 staff members volunteer at the festival from our Global Legal Collection Directorate, Public Services Division, Office of Administrative Operations, and Office of External Relations as well as Maria Soto, a new member of the ABA Standing Committee on the …
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 …
I was recently doing research for a patron on marriage law of the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China), and I found the method used by the Chinese marriage law in calculating degrees of kinship very unique. Marriage law usually prohibits blood relatives within certain degrees of blood relatedness to get married. First cousins, …
In honor of the 97th anniversary of the 19th amendment guaranteeing women the right to vote, the Law Library of Congress celebrates pioneering women in Congress.
A little more than a year ago, I wrote about our national bird, the eagle. The eagle appears on the United States Great Seal and the post briefly discussed the design process for that seal under the Continental Congress. The process spanned over 6 years, involved three separate, specially appointed congressional committees, and an …