The House of Lords and its now famous "Law Lords" will become part of history, at least as such. The judicial function of the House of Lords will be replaced in October by the UK Supreme Court, which will sit in the Middlesex Guildhall of the Parliament Square, London. There is a video by one of the Law Lords, Lord Mance, posted on the BIALL Blog (British and Irish Law Libraries). Hat tip for the latter to Library Boy.

Several U.S. museums have recently returned priceless antiquities to European nations after suspicions were raised about possible looting.  Foreign and international law are relevant to these situations and there is a new resource to track down foreign laws in English.  The International Foundation for Art Research is providing translations of over 25 jurisdictions.  Useful links to relevant U.S. statutes and case law are also available.

Some recent library publications on the topic of cultural property include:

• Art and Cultural Heritage: Law, Policy, and Practice
• Who Owns the Past?: Cultural Policy, Cultural Property, and the Law
• Trade in Illicit Antiquities: The Destruction of the World's Archaeological Heritage

The Law Library has acquired the newly published Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History. This comprehensive, six-volume reference work covers U.S., international, and foreign legal subjects, tracing their development from ancient to modern periods. Like most subject-specific academic encyclopedias, the articles are written and signed by experts in the field, usually law professors (including several members of the GULC faculty), and they contain extensive cross-references and bibliographies.

The print version of the set is still being processed, but the Library has also purchased an online version which is available now. Please take a look at this valuable new resource.

    The WomanStats Project is designed to be the most complete online source for statistics on the status of women around the world.  The database is available free of charge and compiles over 260 variables and indicators of the status of women for 175 countries.  By registering for the site, researchers are able to construct their own tables of data by tailoring a search of variables to specific countries.  Variables include a variety of indicators, such as indicators of violence against women (ex: instances of rape and sexual assault), women's economic well-being (ex: employment restrictions based on gender), women's legal security (ex: citizenship laws), security for maternity (ex: social acceptance for breastfeeding), and health (ex: differential access to health care based on gender).

   The website and database are maintained by a group of scholars from three universities (Brigham Young University, University of Minnesota-Duluth, and University of California-Santa Barbara) who also have the goal of "assessing the linkage between the security of women on the one hand, and the security, stability, and behavior of nation-states on the other."  To provide users with more information both on new information and statistics available on the website as well as broader research findings, the organizers of the website also maintain a blog.

Yasmin Morais, Library Resident here at Georgetown Law Library, has published a guide to the Caribbean Court of Justice.

In the guide, Yasmin explains that the CCJ is "a new court which was inaugurated on April 16, 2005 in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. The court is expected to serve as a court of last resort for Caribbean states, eventually replacing the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in the United Kingdom."

The guide includes sections on the court's history, current operations, justices and judgments.  It also includes a bibliography of resources about the court and the Caribbean judicial system.