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Posted by: Jenny Gesley
On October 24, 1648, the Peace of Westphalia formally ended the Thirty Years’ War in Europe. The Peace of Westphalia consists of two different documents, the Peace Treaty of Osnabrück (Instrumentum pacis Osnabrugensis) between the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation (HRE) and Sweden, and the Peace Treaty of Münster (Instrumentum Pacis Monasteriensis) between …
Posted in: Global Law
Posted by: Jenny Gesley
The following is a guest post by Micaela DelMonte, a lawyer from the European Parliamentary Research Service who volunteered at the Law Library of Congress during May 2017. News about Brexit and the so-called Article 50 procedure have dominated the news about the European Union (EU) lately. If you are interested in researching these or …
Posted in: Global Law, Guest Post, Research Guide
Posted by: Jenny Gesley
Every year on May 23, Germany celebrates the “Day of the Basic Law.” The Basic Law, Germany’s constitution, lays down fundamental rights, establishes the structure and administration of the Federal Republic of Germany, and sets out the legal framework of the three branches of government. Furthermore, it establishes the Federal Republic of Germany as a democratic, federal, …
Posted in: Global Law, In the News
Posted by: Jenny Gesley
Working and living in Washington, DC, lobbyists are no uncommon sight. K Street, where numerous lobbying firms are traditionally located, has become a metonym for the lobbying industry in general. A “lobbyist” is defined under federal law as any individual who is employed or retained by a client for financial or other compensation for services that include more …
Posted in: Global Law, Law Library, Legal Reports
Posted by: Jenny Gesley
The following is a guest post by Supreetha Sampath Kumar, a foreign law intern at the Law Library of Congress. This blog post is part of our Frequently Asked Legal Questions series. On November 8, 2016, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi, announced the “notebandi” initiative, declaring that the use of all Rupees (Rs.) 500 and …
Posted in: Frequently Asked Legal Questions (FALQ), Global Law, Guest Post, In the News
Posted by: Jenny Gesley
The North German Confederation (Norddeutscher Bund) is generally considered the first modern German Federation. Before that time, there were 39 different sovereign states, varying in size, that were loosely associated in the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund). The North German Federation came into existence with the adoption of the Constitution of the North German Confederation by the German Reichstag …
Posted in: Global Law
Posted by: Jenny Gesley
On March 25, 1957 – 60 years ago tomorrow – the governments of France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg signed the “Treaties of Rome”, thereby establishing what would later become the European Union (EU). The “Treaties of Rome” consist of two different treaties: the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC Treaty) and the Treaty establishing the European …
Posted in: Global Law, In the News
Posted by: Jenny Gesley
On June 23, 2016, the United Kingdom (UK) held a referendum on whether to leave or to remain in the European Union (so called “Brexit”) with 51.9% of the people voting in favor of leaving. The withdrawal procedure from the European Union (EU) is governed by article 50 of the Treaty on European Union (TEU), …
Posted in: Global Law, In the News
Posted by: Jenny Gesley
In September 2015, the German automaker Volkswagen (VW) admitted that it had manipulated software in around eleven million diesel vehicles worldwide to cheat on emissions tests. As more and more details emerged in the ensuing weeks and months, VW’s share value rapidly declined by 30 percent. U.S. regulators levied heavy fines of up to US$15.3 billion …
Posted in: Global Law, In the News