DipLawMatic Dialogues

European Legal Responses to COVID-19: Monaco

Mon, 30 Nov 2020 14:00:00 GMT

This is a series of reports by the AALL FCIL-SIS European Law Interest Group.

The Government of Monaco announced the country’s first positive test for COVID-19 on February 28, 2020 and issued its first guidance related to the virus the same day. Weeks later, Prince Albert II—Monaco’s reigning monarch—became the first head of state known to have tested positive.

Minister of State Serge Telle issued a series of decisions in response to the pandemic, including one on March 17 which ordered the closure of schools, sports venues, and swimming pools, and another the same day which imposed a lockdown (with exceptions for essential activities) and which directed employers to allow telework where possible. Two ministerial decisions issued on March 18 required sanitary measures (including hand-washing; greeting others without shaking hands, embracing, or kissing; social distancing of at least 1 meter; coughing/sneezing into one’s elbow or tissue; and using single-use tissue) and ordered the closure of various establishments which receive the public. Additional ministerial decisions extending these measures and imposing further restrictions followed, including one on March 22 which imposed an evening curfew.

The country announced plans for mass testing and contact tracing as well as the distribution of free washable, reusable masks on April 16; more than 40% of Monégasques had been tested by June 1. On April 28, the government announced plans to lift its lockdown in three phases, with the first beginning on May 4 (see the associated ministerial decision here). In the first phase, all shops other than cafés, restaurants, and hotels could open; places of worship were allowed to open subject to 1.5 meters social distancing and the wearing of masks; hairdressers and beauty salons could reopen by appointment only; and bus services and some heliport service could resume. The second phase (beginning May 11) allowed schools to reopen over a staggered two-week period, though nurseries and crèches were not allowed to reopen. In the third phase (beginning June 1), the government would consider reopening restaurants and cafés, gaming rooms, theaters, cinemas, sporting activities, beaches and swimming pools, and gyms on a case-by-case basis.

Responding to the resurgence of infections and deaths in autumn 2020, the Minister of State issued another decision on October 30 which instituted a series of stricter measures including a curfew from 8:00 PM until 6:00 AM (with an exception until 9:30 PM for theaters, restaurants, and gaming halls, with customers allowed to return home by 10:00 PM ); an increase from 1 to 1.5 meters of space required between restaurant tables, and a ban on ambient music in restaurants; the closure of bars; and a requirement that masks be worn in all public places and in all private places open to the public. Notably, however, schools, shops, hotels, places of worship, and construction sites remained open.

RELEVANT WEBSITES

COVID19.mc

The Government of Monaco’s official website for information related to the pandemic. Available in French and English.

Princely Government: Coronavirus Policy & Practice

A separate government webpage with a list of all pandemic-related news updates and press releases since January 2020. Available in French and English (a handful of materials are available only in French).

Princely Government: Public Service: Covid-19 practical information

The Public Service’s webpage related to COVID-19 includes links to information about business assistance and unemployment compensation.

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE NEWS SOURCES

Monaco Life

English-language website with news from Monaco.

Monaco Tribune

News from Monaco and the Riviera in French, Italian, and English. Includes a dedicated page for news related to COVID-19.

Riviera Radio

English-language broadcaster whose website offers news from Monaco and the Riviera.

Join Us: Webinar on Legal Research in U.S. Territories!

Fri, 27 Nov 2020 14:00:00 GMT

Please join the FCIL-SIS Continuing Education Committee on December 9, 2020 at 2:00 PM – 3:00 PM U.S. Central Time for a webinar on Access and Preservation of Legal Information in US Territories. Register now at https://ucla.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJEkduGsqjssGty0HyEQwKxbx97OpG1rT1FK. The webinar will be recorded and all who register will receive a copy of the recording.

Historically, US territories have faced numerous challenges in preserving and providing access to both their foundational and historical legal documents and their current laws- but there are solutions!

In this webinar, Aesha Duval (US Virgin Islands Branch Librarian, US Courts for the Third Circuit), Gina Gutierrez (Head of Library Services, Administrative Office of the Court, Commonwealth of Puerto Rico), and Geraldine Cepeda (Compiler of Laws, Supreme Court of Guam and Executive Director/Librarian of the Guam Law Library) will discuss systemic issues and current experiences in preserving and providing access to their territories’ legal materials. Victoria Szymczak (Law Library Director, William S. Richardson School of Law, University of Hawaii) will describe a successful academic partnership at the University of Hawaii Law School that can serve as a model for law libraries in other jurisdictions.

Please feel free to reach out to us if you have any questions or are interested in recapping this webinar for the FCIL-SIS blog.

Teaching FCIL Research Online: Yes, You Can!

Tue, 24 Nov 2020 11:33:00 GMT

By Meredith Capps

In my prior posts, I discussed my decision to teach my Transnational Research Course online this fall, and the manner in which I structured the course (largely asynchronous, with a few synchronous elements). How did it go?

Successes!:

Student learning:
- Because I did not have time (while also teaching two 1L legal research sections online) to evaluate each student’s weekly research exercise, I merely reviewed for completion, trusting students to consult my posted answer keys and recap videos. While I did review two exercises synchronously during Zoom class sessions, we are all by now acutely aware of the difficulties inherent in gauging audience understanding in the virtual classroom.
- Fortunately, I was heartened to find that student work on the weekly graded assignments and other learning activities, for which I did provide individualized feedback, did not suggest any significant deficiencies in understanding the material.

Individual meetings:
- At around the midway point of the course, I asked students to schedule individual Zoom meetings with me, ostensibly to discuss their final projects and course questions. At 15-20 minutes each and with 25 students, these meetings required a fairly substantial time commitment from me during an otherwise busy time.
- However, I found the meetings to be quite valuable for several reasons: (1) students were oftentimes quite forthcoming in sharing their overall challenges faced with respect to learning in an online or hybrid environment, (2) in certain instances students wished to discuss research more generally and career concerns, approximating the rapport building that occurs more naturally during class or office hours, and (3) even when students had few questions and meetings were very brief, I simply found it reassuring to see student’s faces at least once, and to personally encourage them to contact me if they needed support.

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Of course, one always concludes the semester compiling a list of things they might change:

Streamline deadlines:
- I typically require students to submit each graded assignment covering the prior week’s material 24 hours before the next class meeting, allowing me to review all or most submissions before that meeting, and to discuss common difficulties during class time while the assignment is still somewhat fresh in students’ minds. I maintained that approach here, with class exercises and other activities then due the following day, by or during what would be our scheduled class time.
- I found, however, that students struggled more than usual with deadlines in the context of the online course. Furthermore, students seemed no more likely to recall that work was due when I tied the deadline to our scheduled course time versus any other time. If offering the class online in the future, I plan to select a single, easy-to-recall weekly deadline for all course work.

Carefully planning live sessions:
- While I felt that my initial live Zoom class during Week 1 was valuable in allowing me to establish course expectations when I knew students to be (somewhat, hopefully) attentive, my final live class in Week 6 felt less productive. Though I hoped that students may benefit from a final opportunity to raise questions before completing their final projects, I saw no particularly strong reason to cover that week’s substantive content as a group, and my strategy of sending students to breakout rooms to discuss sections of the week’s exercise and report back to the class, without further structure or activities, fell flat at this late point in the class—students simply weren’t engaged.

Clarify expectations surrounding student effort and collaboration:
- My, the tools students use these days to chat! Though we know students today communicate with their classmates in an array of ways that were not available to some of us instructors way back when we were “_Ls”, I realized as the course progressed that, absent in-person contact, my students were leaning even further into chat applications and similar tools to discuss the course amongst themselves, which raised certain questions regarding standards for collaboration. Though clarifying expectations regarding ethical standards is wise in any course setting, I learned that these expectations are particularly worth emphasizing in the fully virtual environment.

Nervous about teaching online? So was I! Creating an online course required me to learn new skills, thoughtfully re-examine my course goals and objectives, be flexible, and commit far more time than usual to designing my course page, offering feedback, and finding ways to connect with students. I’m confident, however, that the experience made me a better teacher, and that, most importantly, enrolled students benefited from the course and improved their research skills.

European Legal Responses to COVID-19: Luxembourg

Mon, 23 Nov 2020 13:00:00 GMT

This is a series of reports by the AALL FCIL-SIS European Law Interest Group.

By David Isom

Map of Luxembourg

Luxembourg confirmed its first case of COVID-19 on March 1, 2020. The Government Council (led by Prime Minister Xavier Bettel) instituted its first measures on March 12, issuing guidance for high-risk individuals; imposing precautionary requirements on care homes, homes for the elderly, and hospitals; closing schools and day-care centers beginning March 16; and limiting the size of both indoor and outdoor gatherings. This was followed by an order issued by the Ministry of Health on March 16 which restricted public activities and imposed social distancing of two meters; suspended cultural, social, festive, sporting, and recreation activities; allowed hotels to remain open but closed their restaurants and bars; and closed all businesses which accommodate the public, with the exception of essential businesses such as foodsellers and pharmacies.

A Grand Ducal regulation was issued in response to the pandemic on March 18. (As a parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy, such regulations are issued under the authority of the Grand Duke, though as a practical matter they are created by the government.) This regulation declared a state of emergency (which Article 32(4) of the Luxembourg Constitution permits during instances of “international crisis, real threats to the vital interests of all or a part of the population or imminent peril resulting from serious attacks on public security”). It also extended many of the restrictions imposed by the Ministry of Health’s March 16^th order and instituted penalties of €145 (and €250 for repeat offenses) on individuals who violate the lockdown restrictions and €4,000 on businesses that do so. This regulation has been revised numerous times—the consolidated version in force at the time of this writing is available here.

Luxembourg began lifting its lockdown measures on April 20, with construction projects, recycling centers, do-it-yourself stores, landscaping, and similar activities allowed to resume or reopen. Schools began reopening in phases in May. Weddings and funerals were allowed with a limit of 20 people and 2 meters of social distancing; other gatherings could resume beginning August 1. The country began testing all of its roughly 600,000 residents and 200,000 non-resident workers on May 27.

On July 17, the Chamber of Deputies (Luxembourg’s unicameral legislature) passed a law imposing a wide range of preventive and protective measures and establishing an information system to track those individuals who have been infected with COVID-19 and their contacts. Among other things, the law required the wearing of masks on public transport and in all places open to the public; bars and restaurants were required to reduce their capacity and to close by midnight; it modified the law related to maintaining supplies of medicines and allowed the Minister of Health to authorize the emergency distribution and use of medicines not otherwise approved; and it created an expedited process for the government to hire doctors, dentists, and veterinarians to assist in the fight against the pandemic.

In response to a significant rise in the number of infections and deaths in autumn 2020, the Chamber of Deputies passed a law on October 29 which amended the July 17 law. It further tightened restrictions on indoor dining and mandated the closure of restaurants by 11:00 PM; restricted non-essential travel on public roads between 11:00 PM and 6:00 AM; limited the capacity of commercial operations open to the public; limited private gatherings—whether indoors or in open air—to no more than four people (except for those who are part of the same household); required masks for all activities open to the public in closed places; and banned all gatherings of more than one hundred people (exempting political demonstrations and outdoor markets provided that masks are worn).

RELEVANT WEBSITES

Luxembourg Government: Coronavirus

The government’s official website for COVID-19 information in French, German, English, and Luxembourgish.

COVID-19 Task Force

Directed by the Ministry of Higher Education and Research, Luxembourg’s COVID-19 Task Force was established “to offer the health system the combined expertise available within the Luxembourg public research sector.”

Luxembourg Ministry of Health

Includes pages showing graphs of COVID-19 data as well as daily and weekly summaries.

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE NEWS SOURCES

Luxembourg Times

A subsidiary of the German-language Luxemburger Wort newspaper, the Luxembourg Times claims to be “the country’s leading quality online newspaper in English.”

Delano

English-language news website produced by an independent publisher in Luxembourg.

RTL Today

English-language news website produced by the RTL Group (the former Radio Television Lëtzebuerg, now majority-owned by Bertelsmann).

Got a AALL Program Idea? Propose it!

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 17:00:00 GMT

2021 AALL Program Proposals due by 11:59 p.m. (EST) on Monday, November 30.

FCIL-SIS Education Committee Chairs are here to help review your proposal.

Be flexible in format.

Embrace the opportunities!

Dear FCIL-SIS Colleagues,

We are now just about a month out from the program proposal submission deadline for the 2021 AALL Annual Conference. This is a reminder that the FCIL- SIS Education Committee Chairs, Dennis Sears and Hunter Whaley, are here for you to review any proposals you have!

The name of the game this year is flexibility. As you begin developing or refining your program, bear in mind the environmental factors may, like last year, change the nature of the Annual Conference. A program that can be easily adapted for face-to-face, live streamed, or pre-recorded sessions likely has a better chance of acceptance. Given this wide range of formatting, be realistic in your program goals and consider optimal and backup formats.

Embrace the opportunity to get creative in your program proposals! This is FCIL, we have friends and colleagues from around the world who, in the “before times” might not have been able to make the trip to the Annual Conference, now have a shot an presenting on your program. In many ways, the world is more connected than ever and this gives the FCIL-SIS a chance to highlight this. Do keep in mind though any additional costs in remote participants.

The AMPC has released its list of must-have programming topics, and there are a number of them that incorporate the FCIL perspective. We should also not feel constrained by the must-have topics, since we all know that FCIL touches just about every area of law, librarianship, and life!

If you would like Dennis and me to review your proposal, please send it to either of us by November 23.

We look forward to reading them!

Report no.14 on COVID-19: Venezuelan Refugees Left Stranded

Fri, 20 Nov 2020 14:00:00 GMT

This is a series of reports by the AALL FCIL-SIS Latin American Law Interest Group and Latino Caucus in a project monitoring COVID-19 legal responses in the Latin America and Caribbean region.

By Marcelo Rodriguez

Since the beginning of COVID-19 in the region, Venezuelan refugees are usually mentioned among the worst affected groups in every single country where they are currently located: Colombia, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Peru, Dominican Republic and Trinidad and Tobago. The pandemic has significantly exacerbated the already precarious situation for this particular group. Tenuous legal status, limited job opportunities, propensity to work in informal economies and/or sectors, lack of political attention and increasing discrimination are among the issues which COVID-19 has aggravated in all host countries which are also experiencing dramatic socio-economic upheavals and alarming infected/death rates.

Map of host countries with their respective number of Venezuelan refugees

The unsustainable and perilous situation has forced Venezuelan refugees to reckon with the possibility of returning to their home country. However, returning to Venezuela has proved to be a more dangerous antidote. The Simon Bolivar International bridge between Colombia and Venezuela is limited to only 300 people, 3 days a week or at times 1200 people per week and Venezuela’s President Maduro is limiting entry to only 400 Venezuelan citizens per day. The Organization of American States (OAS) has also reported that Venezuela’s president and national authorities have accused returning refugees and migrants of “bioterrorism” and they have stigmatized their reintegration to an already fragile situation in the country.

In this brief report, I will focus on the current situation of Venezuelan refugees amid the pandemic in the following neighboring countries: border closures in Colombia, Brazil and Guyana, collapse of informal economies in Peru and Ecuador and the risky waters with Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean Netherlands.

Border closures in Colombia, Brazil and Guyana

When it comes to land frontiers, Venezuela shares borders with Colombia, Brazil and Guyana. A comparatively more hospitable geography and historical ties have made the border with Colombia a more convenient path for Venezuelan refugees. However, COVID-19 has dramatically changed the situation when Colombia’s president, Ivan Duque decided to close the border on March 14, 2020. The porous border between the two countries and the desperation of Venezuelan refugees have allowed people to continue to finding ways of crossing the border, despite the official measures in place. Officially “humanitarian corridors” (corredores humanitarios in Spanish) have remained open between the two countries, particularly to allow Venezuelans wishing to return home. However, the rapid deterioration of the health crisis and the non-coordination of national authorities between both countries have led to confusion and misunderstandings as to how many people are allowed to cross these humanitarian corridors, which days and what alternatives exist for those stranded on either side of the border. Despite these uncertainties and precarious conditions, Colombia’s Ivan Duque contemplates keeping its border closed with Venezuela at least until December 1.

At the request of its northern state of Roraima, Brazil decided on March 17, 2020 (and renewed on June 30, 2020) to temporarily close its border with Venezuela and allow trucks to cross it only for humanitarian reasons. The border closure did not put an end to the massive pressure on Roraima’s health system which was already in dire situation considering the significant influx of refugees over the past 3-4 years. To alleviate the situation, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) built a field hospital in Boa Vista, Roraima specifically designed to cater to COVID-19 patients among Venezuelan refugees. Other programs have also striven to provide opportunities to Venezuelan refugees throughout Brazil. Compared to other host countries, Brazil is perceived among Venezuelan refugees to be a desired option, even after the measures taken during the current pandemic.

Historically, the border between Venezuela and Guyana has been a source of international legal dispute. As recent as June 2020, the International Court of Justice has been trying to make progress in the case of Guyana v. Venezuela. Despite the lack of official delimitation of borders between the two countries, thousands of refugees have tried to enter Guyana for years, as reported by Response for Venezuela (R4V). When Guyana’s national authorities decided to close its land borders on April 1, 2020, Venezuelan refugees in the country suffered almost immediately because of the suspension of government programs as well as businesses not deemed essential.

Collapse of informal economies and livelihoods in Peru and Ecuador

Despite the fact that neither Peru nor Ecuador shares a land border with Venezuela, both countries have some of the highest numbers of Venezuelan refugees in their countries. Another particularity in these countries is the type of Venezuelan refugee which tends to arrive at their borders. Based on a recent report by Migration Policy Institute, most Venezuelan refugees in Peru and Ecuador hold a technical degree or higher, work independently and in informal sectors. Since the first days of national lockdowns in both countries, small and independent businesses, especially in the informal sectors were among the most severely hit by the new and rapid national measures to contain the virus. Major cities such as Guayaquil and Lima with high concentrations of Venezuelan refugees had to face a fast deteriorating situation among these communities.

National governments have struggled to find viable solutions in order to help the number of refugees without proper documents and/or official registration. Most national initiatives to help vulnerable communities have arguably ignored the Venezuelan refugees for which no central agency seemed to have the exact numbers, contacts or networks to reach out to them. In the case of Ecuador, the country has tried to implement humanitarian visas in order to unlock immediate access to the refugees in dire need of help. However, some of these recent initiatives targeting Venezuelan refugees have been met with resistance, misinformation and xenophobia among local communities. A few sectors and groups within the host countries question the need to allocate funds and resources to serve communities which are considered foreigners and transient instead of employing the same funds to the fragile situation among local citizens.

Risky waters with Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean Netherlands

Response for Venezuelans (R4V)

The treacherous waters of the Caribbean Sea have not prevented Venezuelan refugees from reaching the coasts of Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean Netherlands, particularly Aruba and Curaçao. International organizations as well as local politicians have expressed concern as to how best navigate the flow of Venezuelan refugees to small islands while at the same time facing the collapse of their economies overwhelmingly dependent on international tourism as well as the fragile sustainability of scarce local resources.

A desire to remain neutral in the face of the political turmoil in neighboring Venezuela has driven the official Trinidad and Tobago’s reaction to the refugee crisis. This neutral stance has had to reckon with the reality of being so geographically close to Venezuela and the increasing flow of migrants and even accounts of human trafficking. International as well as local groups have criticized and called upon national authorities to provide a clear and regulated asylum policy to counteract such an emergency. Prime Minister Keith Rowley recently stated that the country will not implement an “open-door” policy. Instead, the government has enacted a series of new measures, including deportations, aiming at reducing the flow of refugees, especially during the current pandemic. International organizations based in the country are increasingly worried about the state of the Venezuelan refugees currently facing so much uncertainty and no viable alternatives.

The situation in the Dutch islands north of the coast of Venezuela is no different. The small size of these islands, fallout of their tourism industries and their shared responsibilities on migration issues with national authorities in Amsterdam and The Hague have created a dangerous and precarious combination for all inhabitants, particularly on vulnerable communities such as Venezuelan refugees. Detention centers, especially in Aruba and Curaçao, have come under increased scrutiny during COVID-19 due to the potential threat of outbreaks in the overcrowded facilities. For those refugees who have managed to create a life in the islands, there is a persistent threat of deportation as well as being denied much needed help because of the lack of proper documentation.

From the Reference Desk: "But I Want it in English!”

Thu, 19 Nov 2020 14:00:00 GMT

By Amy Flick

I regularly get requests for help with finding foreign language materials, but I think I have had even more of those requests than usual this semester. There were the journal students cite-checking articles with Israeli and German citations. There were professors who had seen New York Times or legal newsletter articles on German, Norwegian, Korean, and Taiwanese cases and wanted copies of the judgments or orders. There were the students writing comparative law papers, with the usual requests for Chinese and Korean law to compare with the United States, but also an unusual request for a comparison of mental health laws in South Korea and Finland. And always, they want it in English translation.

For many of the requests, finding an authoritative human translation is unlikely. And I must caution the researchers that a translation, even one by a human translator and from a government source, is not going to be official. Some countries make some statutes and judgments from higher courts available in English, but that judgment reported in today’s newspaper will not be translated yet. For many countries it is hard to find any laws at all (Gambia, anyone?), and for others it is difficult to find the requested cases or statutes in databases that require searching in other languages. But the students have statutes that they must find for their journal assignments, at least to see if the statements are generally true and to check citations and perhaps to check quotations in the original languages. The professors need to keep up with international legal developments, and they assure me that they understand that any translations found are not official – especially if they are from Google Translate. And the students with comparative projects usually have familiarity with the language of at least one of the countries they are comparing, if they can just find the laws.

My preference, and that of the patron, is to find a real human translation, and there are collections available for some countries. South Korea, Japan, and Taiwan have extensive databases of translated statutes. The student with the comparative paper and I were able to find South Korea’s Mental Health Law 14224 of 2016 with a search for “mental health.” Germany has some statutes and codes, including the requested Federal Data Protection Act. China has some select statutes available on government sites, and Emory also has the LexisNexis China Law database and the ChinaLawInfo database, both of which contain English translations of some primary material. Finland was a new discovery; it has the FinLEX Data Bank with translations of some statutes, including their Basic Education Act, which addresses “pupil welfare” including mental health.

The Foreign Law Guide database, GlobaLex, and the Law Library of Congress’ Guide to Law Online are good sources for finding links to translated statutes. Some subject sites like WIPO Lex for intellectual property and ECOLEX for environmental laws sometimes have English translations, also most of the WIPOLex entries offer machine translation.

It is less likely that we will find translations of the recent jurisprudence that the researchers want, but there are a few translated court judgments and opinions available, usually from courts of last resort or from constitutional courts. The Constitutional Court of Korea has translations of some decisions, but they are usually just summaries, including the case on insulting the national flag the professor wanted. The Supreme Court of Norway has translations of rulings “selected based on what we believe may be of interest outside of Norway,” as well as English language summaries. The German Federal Constitutional Court translates its press releases and some select decisions; I had to watch for the assisted suicide judgment for seven months, but the translation did finally appear. And Israel’s Supreme Court has select judgments in English translation, with a search that includes area of law and issue fields, but somehow never the judgments I am looking for. For most requests for foreign caselaw in English, the patron’s best source might be a good summary in a news article, including that New York Times article that the professor sent asking for the featured judgment.

If we cannot find a translation, I try to find the requested statute or judgment in the vernacular on an official or authoritative site. From there, the researcher can use machine translation, or seek help from someone fluent in the language. The key here is finding numbers. To find anything in a foreign language database, I prefer to work with a citation, or at least a date. Foreign Law Guide is very good for this, with citations to specific statutes by topic, sometimes with links. The Law Library of Congress’ Global Legal Monitor may also include citations in its news stories, or even links or documents saved using Perma.cc. Getting the Deal Through and Practical Law sometimes include citations to statutes in their comparative law articles. If the request isn’t for a recent case or statute, previous law journal articles should include citations. Newspaper articles rarely include legal citations, but they might provide dates and names. With a citation to a statute, I try Google first, adding country names or other terms; of course, I check my results for official or reliable sites. I sometimes use a Google Advanced Search to include pdf as the file type to increase my chances of finding the actual document.

But if I don’t have a citation or can’t find the document with a Google search, I go to the official sites. Foreign Law Guide, Guide to Law Online, and GlobaLex guides have links to sources for statutes and cases. Legal websites from France, Germany, and other countries using Latin alphabets are not too hard to negotiate, with a bit of help from Google Translate, to find the right field to search by citation or date, or to browse through recent laws or cases.

Sites from other countries are more difficult. The Foreign Law Guide provides a link to the Israeli Rights of Victims of Crime Law on the Knesset’s website. The student also had a citation to 2001 Sefer HaHukim No. 1817, an amendment to the 1991 law on domestic violence. For that citation we went to the website for the Reshumot (Official Gazette). The citation to 1817 could be entered into the second field. Google Translate was enough to confirm that we found Amendment No. 7 to the Law for the Prevention of Domestic Violence, but with the law only available in a PDF document, that was as far as I could go. I find that Google Translate works badly, if at all, with PDF documents. The student also had case citations to the Israeli High Court of Justice which were not in the select judgments in English on the site. One citation was to a “Jane Doe” case, High Court of Justice 5699/07. Navigating the Hebrew portion of the High Court site, we found that a citation can be entered in the first search block – case number 5699 of 2007. With the judgment available in html, which works reasonably well with Google Translate, the student could at least confirm that this was the case she was looking for.

For the professor’s request for the case from the Korean Constitutional Court on insulting the national flag, I had the citation from the English summary as 2016 Hun-Ba 96, December 27, 2019. Although there is a Korean language search page, this one worked better searching recent major decisions using the date field. From there, I can find a link to 2016 Heonba 96 and use the precise method of clicking all the buttons until one of them retrieves the judgment. Again, Google Translate is enough to confirm that this is the judgment that the professor wants.

Finding the Taiwanese patent case from the Taiwan Supreme Administrative Court was similar to finding the Korean case, with a lot of guesswork and failed attempts along the way. Although Taiwan’s Judicial Yuan Law and Regulations Retrieving System has some statutes and judicial interpretations available, for the case cited in a Lexology newsletter article, I needed to search the Chinese portion of the site. Fortunately, the article had a citation – 2020 Pan Zi No. 130, March 12, 2020. I found that the accessible version of the site gave me more search fields that worked with Google Translate, including the choice of court. I couldn’t find a page where the case number worked in my search, but I could search by date – with the small wrinkle that I needed to search by Republic of China year (109).

Of course, sometimes it is impossible to search a foreign language site, even with numbers to search. I found no fields that I could use for the Jordanian Official Gazette, even with a date and Google Translate. Sometimes it helps to add a simple keyword or two in the language to the search; besides using Google Translate for that, there are a few translation databases specific to legal and government terminology, pulling results from documents that have been translated into multiple languages. These include IATE and EuroVoc from the European Union, UNTERM from the United Nations, and Linguee.com. For requests for law from Latin America and Spain I use the vLex database, which offers a translation of search terms in its advanced search, and an automated parallel translation of results, so I can browse through in English and find the appropriate article or paragraph to cite in Spanish or Portuguese. It is particularly useful to students with some fluency in Spanish who need a little help with legal documents.

For most countries, I rely a great deal on Google Translate, which is sufficient for finding and identifying documents, but I acknowledge that it is problematic for legal documents. It sometimes translates personal names, it might translate jargon literally, and it can make a sentence grammatically awkward. But my two years of high school French did not equip me to read Chinese and Hebrew, or even legal French. I have found that Google Translate has gotten much better since its introduction; the resulting machine translation of html documents is fairly readable, if not completely accurate. Accordingly, I use it to find documents, but I always pass them along to the student or professor with a recommendation that they find someone fluent in the language to review the document before they rely on it, perhaps even to pay for a translation, and to never quote the Google translation.

European Legal Responses to COVID-19: Switzerland

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 14:00:00 GMT

This is a series of reports by the AALL FCIL-SIS European Law Interest Group.

By David Isom

Map of Switzerland

Switzerland’s Federal Council began issuing a series of orders in response to the COVID-19 pandemic on February 28, 2020. The Council acted under the emergency powers provision of Article 185(3) of the Federal Constitution (which authorizes it to “issue ordinances and rulings in order to counter existing or imminent threats of serious disruption to public order or internal or external security” for a limited duration) and as authorized by Article 7 of the Epidemics Act of 28 September 2012 (which allows the Federal Council to “order necessary measures for all or part of the country” if an “extraordinary situation requires it,” restricting the cantons to acting in areas outside the scope of the federal order).

The first order—in effect through March 15—was brief; it forbid gatherings of more than 1,000 people, required organizers of smaller gatherings to evaluate the risks of such events in consultation with cantonal authorities, and directed the cantons to enforce these restrictions.

The Federal Council issued a second ordinance on March 13 which was far more detailed and restrictive. Among other things, COVID-19 Ordinance 2 imposed restrictions on border crossings and the admission of foreign nationals coming from high-risk areas; restricted the export of personal protective equipment and essential medical goods; centralized the reporting of inventory and allocation of essential medical supplies; required schools and universities to discontinue classroom teaching; prohibited events of more than 100 people; and restricted restaurants and bars to hosting no more than 50 people at a time. Ordinance 2 also imposed requirements on hygiene and social distancing as recommended by the Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH), but did not require a nationwide lockdown (though the FOPH issued recommendations on isolation and quarantine). A series of amendments to Ordinance 2 relaxed various restrictions; a table from the FOPH summarizes such changes.

Ordinance 2 was abrogated and replaced by COVID-19 Ordinance 3 on June 22 (in force through December 31, 2020), which has fewer restrictions than Ordinance 2. Notably, it continues to restrict border crossings and entry by foreign nationals, maintains provisions intended to ensure supplies of essential medical goods, and provides for federal funding of SARS-CoV-2 tests.

Tracking of confirmed cases in Switzerland (as of Nov 2020)

The Federal Assembly passed the Federal Act on the Statutory Principles for Federal Council Ordinances on Combating the COVID-19 Epidemic on September 25, 2020, which authorized the Federal Council’s use of special powers “only to the extent that they are required to respond to the COVID-19 epidemic.” It also extended financial support to businesses whose revenues had fallen by 40% or more, to individuals whose income had fallen by 55% or more, and to the cultural and sports sectors.

RELEVANT WEBSITES

Federal Council

Switzerland’s executive authority, the Federal Council is composed of seven Councillors elected by the United Federal Assembly (both chambers of the bicameral legislature), with one Federal Councillor selected to serve in the ceremonial post of President of the Swiss Confederation for one year (currently Simonetta Sommaruga).

Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH)

Part of the Federal Department of Home Affairs, the FOPH is Switzerland’s principal federal public health agency. Its website includes a page specifically for COVID-19 news, and it also maintains a data platform showing cases and deaths attributed to COVID-19 across Switzerland.

SwissCovid

Based on the Decentralized Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (DP3T) project led by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich, and publicly released on June 25, 2020, SwissCovid is a contact tracing mobile application which alerts users if they have been within “2 m[eters] for more than 15 minutes to someone who has tested positive for the Coronavirus.”

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE NEWS SOURCES

Le News

English-language website with news from the “Lake Geneva region and beyond.”

SwissInfo

A service of the public Swiss Broadcasting Corporation, SwissInfo includes news in ten languages (including English).

World Radio Switzerland: News

“[T]he only mainstream English-language radio station in Switzerland,” WRS also includes news articles in English on its website.

Teaching FCIL Research Online: The Particulars

Tue, 17 Nov 2020 09:33:00 GMT

By Meredith Capps

In my last post, I discussed my decisions to (1) teach my Transnational Legal Research course online during the Fall 2020 semester and (2) to deliver the course primarily asynchronously, with a few synchronous elements. Here I will discuss the particulars of the course design.

Style and Substance?

Before I discuss substantive content, a word on web design. Early in the summer, I realized that the design, or lack thereof, of the pages I had maintained for prior courses would prove woefully, pathetically inadequate for an online course in which said page that would serve as students’ primary access point to the course content, to me, and to one another. Being by no means a web designer, I spent a good deal of time learning how to maximize the features available in Vanderbilt’s course management software, Brightspace, and considering which design elements I felt, after reviewing a great many sample course pages, were pleasing and effective. In creating a more robust course page I:

Incorporated a modest number of free web images and graphic icons to make the page more visually appealing, and in some instances more navigable (for example, including a video camera icon image next to hyperlinks for lecture or review videos).
For the same reasons, formatted text in my content descriptions where contrast or emphasis was appropriate.
Provided, in weekly modules, a narrative description of each week’s activities with embedded hyperlinks, as well as a list of activities for students who preferred navigating content in one or the other format.

Lecture Videos

For all six weeks of substantive course content, I recorded several lecture videos, posted in the Brightspace course page along with accompanying PowerPoint slides. I chose to use the Kaltura software program, which Vanderbilt integrated into Brightspace, for two reasons: (1) Kaltura’s automatic captioning tool is fast and quite accurate, and (2) once uploaded to the instructor’s media page, I could embed quiz questions into the video in Brightspace, and I felt that these may offer students a real-time assessment opportunity, and a means for me to emphasize key points. There being no perfect video tool, Kaltura did prove to have certain limitations. Processing time was often quite slow once the semester began, and students experienced some errors that I could not easily troubleshoot (and for which the vendor offered no customer support). Kaltura also offers limited editing capabilities, such that I often found it easier to simply re-record an unsatisfactory effort. (Did any other online teaching warriors feel, quite routinely, that their videos were unsatisfactory? Please say yes.)

Weekly Exercises and Assignments

I chose not to substantially alter any of the in-class exercises or weekly graded assignments that I had planned to provide, though I did supplement them in certain instances. Whereas ordinarily I provide the weekly class exercises as a handout, I posted them a week in advance with that week’s module, so students could complete them at any time during the week. For the two weeks in which I held a live class (the first and sixth weeks), students were asked to complete the exercise in advance to facilitate a more efficient review process, and in every week, they were asked to upload the completed exercise for participation credit. Time constraints prevented me from reviewing every exercise, but for the weeks in which we did not meet, I posted a model answer as well as a review video (recorded in Zoom, rather than Kaltura, so that students could see my face in some virtual format each week).

In the fully asynchronous weeks, I supplemented the typical exercise with one additional modest activity to promote student engagement or reflect. These supplemental activities included:

In the context of a group activity wherein students reviewed a particular resource for ICJ materials (adapted from a typical in-class exercise), posting a reflection discussing something that they learned from another group’s review;
In a Google document utilized as a discussion board, commenting on one another’s anticipated challenges in researching foreign law;
Posting a reflection discussing differences between researching U.S. law and EU law;
And, the most time-consuming activity, individual meetings with myself to discuss the final projects or other course questions or concerns.

How did it go? In my final post I will discuss what went well, what didn’t, and my overall assessment of the online course format. (Spoiler for those planning spring courses: take heart, it went generally quite well!)

Source-Pulling in the Time of COVID

Mon, 16 Nov 2020 12:00:00 GMT

This is the second of two posts on providing reference to journal students remotely. This week’s post focuses on source-pulling and the first looked at orientation training.

By Janet Kearney, Foreign & International Law Librarian, Fordham Law Library

I’m co-author on a book chapter titled Reference Work in Introduction to Law Librarianship (Cas Laskowski & Zanada Joyner eds., 2020 Forthcoming), https://ssrn.com/abstract=3672562. In reviewing the section on services for journal students, my wonderful co-authors talked about cite-checking a.k.a. source pulling. We define it thus: “Cite-checking is a process by which all citations of an article selected for publication by a law school journal are confirmed to support statements in the article and formatted to meet the citation manual of record for the journal (usually The Bluebook).” At 16.

My question to them was: should we also mention this is called sub-&-citing (substantiation and citation)? Even through the format of Google doc comments and Zoom check-ins, I could tell that neither of them had ever used that term and were befuddled by my use of it. It was then – in other words, I was today years old – when I realized that the word we used in my journal during law school was not the common term and was, in fact, far from universal. (Still, Roll Wave.) But as The Bard said, what’s in a name anyway? Whatever you want to call it: cite-checking, source-pulling (with or without the hyphen), or sub-&-citing – this task is one of the most frequent for academic law librarians. (Tell me in the comments what names y’all use!)

For me, as an FIL librarian, I spend TIME on this task. TIME with big, ole’ capital letters. Not only does Fordham have a large student population, but I am a big believer in teaching students to fish and not bringing them fish. I always take the time via email to include detailed directions and screenshots so students can be self-sufficient. For the most complicated questions in the pre-COVID times, like explaining how to find and cite bills that did not pass in the South Korean Assembly, I would have the students make an appointment or come by the reference desk. With the feeling that it MUST be explained in person so I can clearly see the question marks on their faces, and so I don’t have to spend 30 minutes drafting an email on the topic.

Did I mention long emails?

This aspect of being an FIL librarian during source-pulling has a relatively easy transition – I’m leaning in to the part of my personality that likes writing clear, specific, long emails, and Zoom is my most-visited website. I’m making a bunch of step-by-step instructional videos using Screencastify and my work YouTube account. Although making short videos on a question-by-question basis can take time, I’m slowly being able to reuse them and more importantly, it feels like a more personal reference interaction when the students can hear your voice. They are not perfect videos with great edits and effects, and I won’t be linking them on my CV anytime soon. But they show the students how to navigate and tell them what things they should take into consideration when evaluating their results. Bonus: you don’t have to coordinate schedules for a Zoom call.

This type of reference is only part of the source-pulling exercise. The other important piece is the library’s borrowing policies during COVID. How do students get books? What if the campus is closed? What if it’s open but the person is in Iowa, and they really just need two pages? If it’s an ILL, can we get the book, even if it’s just scanned book chapters – what if the other library is closed? In my last post, I mentioned that when Fordham’s campus closed, I was focused on finding toilet paper and teaching online – this is true but when writing this column I remembered there was a forgotten piece that took up substantial mental space: how incredibly glad I was that source-pulling for my journal had recently been completed. I love working with journal students, but adding this task when library policies weren’t yet solidified, when we didn’t even have access to the building, was something I was happy to avoid at the time.

Now that things have settled a bit for the foreseeable future (I feel a great sense of dread just writing that clause), the library powers that be have set some policies on coordinating this. Most importantly, those policies are written down on our website, and the page is updated as policies change. No solution is a perfect fit for all, except that I can confidently say that no matter how bad or good a borrowing policy is, if you establish a policy you should write it down and share it with your users. I’m relatively new to the librarian game, but having a direct piece of language to share with a journal student that shows, No I cannot go into the building when it is locked down and browse through every page of a book to find a quote that the author didn’t pincite, has been very helpful.

Even as we adapt and hope for a “normal” workplace, we will continue to do the same work to our highest standard, come pandemics, sleet, or snow so long as the WiFi continues to work. Without WiFi….well, I guess that would be an entirely differently post.

Got a AALL Program Idea? Propose it!

Fri, 13 Nov 2020 14:00:00 GMT

2021 AALL Program Proposals due by 11:59 p.m. (EST) on Monday, November 30.

FCIL-SIS Education Committee Chairs are here to help review your proposal.

Be flexible in format.

Embrace the opportunities!

Dear FCIL-SIS Colleagues,

If you would like Dennis and me to review your proposal, please send it to either of us by November 23.

We look forward to reading them!

Report no.14 on COVID-19: The Rule of Law in Ecuador During the Pandemic

Thu, 12 Nov 2020 13:00:00 GMT

This is a series of reports by the AALL FCIL-SIS Latin American Law Interest Group and Latino Caucus in a project monitoring COVID-19 legal responses in the Latin America and Caribbean region.

By Julienne Grant

The Ecuadorian health minister confirmed the country’s first case of Covid-19 on February 29, 2020. Ecuador’s early battle with the virus was well-documented globally, as it was the epicenter of the initial outbreak in Latin America. The port city of Guayaquil was particularly hit hard as its public health infrastructure collapsed amid a proliferating number of cases. In the early days of the pandemic, Spain’s El País characterized Guayaquil as the “Wuhan of Ecuador.”

Map of Ecuador

President Lenín Moreno declared a sixty-day state of emergency (estado de excepción) on March 16 under an executive decree (no. 1017). The decree, which restricted citizens’ freedom of movement and assembly, also allowed the government to use satellite and cell phone platforms to monitor people suspected of having Covid in order to ensure they were complying with isolation requirements (art. 11, p. 17). Ecuador has no personal data protection law in place, although there is a bill on that topic languishing in the National Assembly. On March 19, Ecuador’s Constitutional Court ruled that the executive decree and its tracking measures were constitutional, but contoured the scope of the government’s data collection activities (Case No. 1-20-EE, §§ 54–56).

On April 14, Ecuador’s El Comercio cited the Ministry of Health’s most current Covid-19 statistics: 7,529 cases, 355 deaths from the virus, and 424 deaths suspected to be Covid related, although all of these numbers were likely higher.

Even before the state of emergency was officially declared, President Moreno had convened the National Committee for Emergency Operations (Comité de Operaciones de Emergencia Nacional, COE), which was charged with mounting the nation’s response to the health emergency. Similar emergency operations committees were constituted at the regional and cantonal levels. The government cited the following as its legal basis for convening these committees: article 390 of the Ecuadorian Constitution and article 24 of the Regulation of the State’s Public Security Law(Reglamento de la Ley de Seguridad Pública del Estado).

Organizational chart of the National Committee of Emergency Operations in Spanish

The national COE has met virtually on a regular basis since March 14; its members include various government ministers and Ecuador’s vice president. As part of its ongoing work, the COE has released resoluciones, informes, and infografías, which are available online. The COE’s first resolution banned large public events (emphasizing religious processions), gatherings of more than thirty people in public spaces like theatres and cinemas, the entry of foreigners and nationals for three weeks, and visits to senior citizens’ living facilities. The resolution also ordered public transit vehicles to be cleaned every three hours and the cremation of the remains of Covid-19 victims.

Campaign against COVID-19

National ministries have also promulgated numerous acuerdos ministrales (ministerial agreements) during the pandemic. A full collection of acuerdos ministrales and other norms associated with the pandemic are available on the coronavirusecuador.com portal. The Ministry of Public Health’s website hosts a collection of its own norms and other Covid-related documents. Ecuador’s state of emergency was extended for thirty days on May 15 through another executive decree (no. 1052), and then again for sixty days on June 15 through executive decree (no. 1074). The latter decree acknowledged that, as of June 15, there were 47,322 Covid-19 cases and the country had lost 3,929 of its citizens to the virus (p. 8). On June 22, the National Assembly passed the Organic Law to Support the Humanitarian Response to Covid-19 (Ley Orgánica No. 46).

Various NGOs have been following Covid-19’s impact on Ecuador’s indigenous communities. The health ministry confirmed the first Covid-19 positive case among these groups on May 17. On May 20, the Waorani community filed a motion in a provincial court in Pichincha, asking that the court compel the Ecuadorian government to coordinate a Covid-19 plan with the group’s leadership. The provincial court ruled in the community’s favor on June 18, ordering the Ecuadorian government to take urgent actions to stop the spread of the virus in Waorani territory. In July, the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon created a platform to allocate and deliver Covid-19 services to Ecuador’s eleven groups of indigenous peoples. The platform is updated regularly, and it provides an array of Covid-19 data, including each group’s positivity rate, the number of suspected cases, the number of Covid fatalities, and recovery rates. The site is available in both Spanish and English. On October 6, Amazon Watch and other NGOs went before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (via Zoom), alleging that the government of Ecuador had not fulfilled its obligations to protect its indigenous populations.

Screen shot of the Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of the Ecuadorian Amazon website

In the judicial branch, the Judicial Council (Consejo de la Judicatura), through Resolution 031-2020 dated March 17, suspended all judicial work in the country except for those judicial units with competence to hear “flagrant matters” (materia de flagrancia) (art. 2) and habeas corpus petitions (art. 5). The resolution defined “flagrant matters” as those concerning criminal law, domestic violence, traffic, and juvenile infractions (art. 2). This resolution, however, was reportedly applied inconsistently across the country. On April 28, the Constitutional Court ordered the Judicial Council to adopt “clear and timely measures to guarantee Ecuadoreans’ access to justice. The Judiciary Council should urgently clarify that even during the current state of emergency, Ecuadorians will not be restricted in their fundamental right to access justice in cases of human rights violations” (see § 21 of the opinion). On July 3, the Judicial Council adopted Resolution 074-2020; its provisions included directing courts with access to the proper technology and technical expertise to “prioritize” virtual hearings. The Judicial Council posted a manual on the protocol for virtual hearings (July 2020) and instructional manuals and videos for Zoom, WebEx, and Microsoft Teams.

On August 14, the Moreno government sought to extend the country’s state of emergency through another executive decree (no. 1126). The Constitutional Court allowed a thirty-day extension, but indicated that it would approve no further extensions after September 12. The judges, in their ruling, noted that the state of emergency should not be considered a permanent and suitable way to face adverse situations of an indefinite nature, in reference to the Covid-19 pandemic (see § 9 of the opinion). The Court ordered the government to use the tools of the ordinary legal regime to control and mitigate the health crisis (see §§ 42–45 of the opinion). On September 13, the COE kept in place the obligatory wearing of masks outside the home and the requirement of a negative PCR test (within the past 10 days) for those arriving in the country, while schools remained closed with virtual learning. The freedom of movement and assembly, however, was restored.

An October 28 article in El Universo reported that, according to the Minister of Health, the rates of Covid-19 infections in some areas of the country were falling, although he still urged citizens to remain vigilant. A quick check on November 6, 2020, of Ecuador’s Covid-19 dashboard per the WHO showed 171,783 confirmed cases and 12,730 deaths. Ecuador’s population is about 17 million. The United States’ Center for Disease Control (CDC) indicates that Ecuador still has a high risk of Covid infection.

*For following legal developments in Ecuador, see El Universo and El Comercio (Spanish) and the Latin American Herald Tribune and Ecuador Times (English) as well as in our Venezuela, Colombia and Ecuador page. For an interesting read on the role of the Ecuadorian Constitutional Court during the early days of the pandemic, see the blog post, “How Ecuador’s Constitutional Court is Keeping the Executive Accountable During the Pandemic,” (Gustavo Prieto, April 28, 2020).

European Legal Responses to COVID-19: Belgium

Tue, 10 Nov 2020 14:00:00 GMT

This is a series of reports by the AALL FCIL-SIS European Law Interest Group.

By David Isom

Map of Belgium

As of October 31, 2020, Belgium had the second-highest number of deaths by COVID-19 per capita in the EU/EEA and UK, and third-highest in the world—100.26 per 100,000 people—though some have argued that the Belgian methodology exaggerates this figure by including deaths suspected but not confirmed to have been caused by COVID-19, in contrast to practices elsewhere.

The country’s initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic was complicated by the fact that a caretaker government with limited powers had been in place since the federal election of May 26, 2019 until March 19, 2020, when an agreement was reached to allow Prime Minister Sophie Wilmès to form a minority coalition government. Two laws passed on March 27 granted this newly-formed government special powers for three months to address the pandemic. After an agreement was reached to form a new, fully-functional coalition government, Wilmès was succeeded as Prime Minister by Alexander De Croo on October 1, 2020.

The structure of Belgian government also complicated its response to the crisis. A constitutional monarchy with a federal state and a parliamentary system, the country is divided into federated entities: three Communities (Flemish, French, and German), and three Regions (Flemish, Brussels-Capital, and Walloon); the Flemish Community and Region are unified as a single entity. Thus no centralized body has full authority over matters related to the pandemic—public health, for example, is a shared responsibility of the federal government, the Communities, and local governments. That said, “the core of the Belgian response to the crisis and, notably, the measures which limit fundamental rights most drastically by imposing an almost complete lockdown…have been adopted at the federal level” (Frédéric Bouhon et al., “States’ Reactions to COVID-19 Pandemic: An Overview of the Belgian Case”).

Minister of Security and the Interior Pieter De Crem has directed much of the federal response through a series of ministerial decrees. On March 13, 2020, he issued a decree launching the federal phase of the national emergency plan. This was followed by another decree on March 18 authorizing a range of measures intended to reduce the spread of SARS-CoV-2, including social distancing of 1.5 meters; requiring telework and the closing of nonessential businesses; forbidding public gatherings; suspending primary and secondary education and requiring distance learning for higher education; and mandating home confinement except for essential activities through April 5. Further decrees on March 23, March 24, April 3, and April 17 revised these requirements. The measures were later extended multiple times, through May 3, 2020, before beginning to be lifted in phases.

In response to a significant rise in infections and deaths in the autumn of 2020, a decree issued on October 28 reimposed emergency measures, with Prime Minister De Croo stating on October 30 that “[w]e are going back into a strict lockdown, which has only one purpose: to ensure that our healthcare system does not collapse.”

RELEVANT WEBSITES

Federal Public Service (FPS) Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment

Reporting to the Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health, the FPS Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment has four departments: Health Care Facilities Organization; Primary Health Care and Crisis Management; Animal, Plant and Foodstuffs; and Environment.

Info-Coronavirus

A service of the FPS Health, Food Chain Safety and Environment, Info-Coronavirus is Belgium’s central website for official information about the COVID-19 pandemic.

Sciensano

Belgium’s national public health institute, Sciensano was formed in 2018 by the merger of the Scientific Institute of Public Health (WIV-ISP) and the Veterinary and Agrochemical Research Centre (CERVA-CODA).

ENGLISH-LANGUAGE NEWS SOURCES

Brussels Times

English-language news website intended for “expats, foreigners and internationally oriented Belgians.”

The Bulletin

English-language news website intended “to provide a platform for the international community to express opinions, share information and fully participate in Belgian life.”

Flanders Today

English-language news website funded by the Flemish Region.

VRT NWS

Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie (Flemish Radio and Television Broadcasting Organization) is the public service broadcaster of the Flemish Community of Belgium, with news in Flemish (Dutch), French, German, and English.

Got a AALL Program Idea? Propose it!

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 16:00:00 GMT

2021 AALL Program Proposals due by 11:59 p.m. (EST) on Monday, November 30.

FCIL-SIS Education Committee Chairs are here to help review your proposal.

Be flexible in format.

Embrace the opportunities!

Dear FCIL-SIS Colleagues,

If you would like Dennis and me to review your proposal, please send it to either of us by November 23.

We look forward to reading them!

Introducing…Scott Vanderlin as the November 2020 FCIL-SIS Member of the Month

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 17:50:20 GMT

Scott in Lockdown Business Casual

1. Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Dixon, IL–a small town 100 miles west of Chicago best known as the home town of Ronald Reagan, former Dixon Comptroller Rita Crundwell, who perpetrated the largest municipal fraud in U.S. history, and for Class of 2001 DHS Student of the Year and Best Sense of Humor Yearbook Award winner Scott Vanderlin.

2. Why did you select law librarianship as a career?

I realized two things in law school–that I loved studying the law, and that I did not want to be a practicing attorney. I have an aunt who is a law librarian (shout out to Aunt Pam!), and I quickly realized that it was the perfect career for a kid who just wanted to read and research the law and help people. I couldn’t be happier that I made the decision.

3. When did you develop an interest in foreign, comparative, and/or international law?

As I’m sure many would report, one of my favorite things to do is travel, and I have been lucky to have visited 21 countries so far, and (hopefully) counting. While I’m sure it’s possible to divorce the two, I think that a love of travel is usually accompanied by a curiosity about different cultures, and a love for the sense of discovery that comes with experiencing different ways of life. Combine natural wanderlust with a recent…dissatisfaction, let’s say, with our home country and legal system, and I think that more and more of my thoughts, both professionally and personally, have been focused abroad.

4. Who is your current employer? How long have you worked there?

I have been at the University of Chicago’s D’Angelo Law Library for a little over 3 years.

5. Do you speak or read any foreign languages?
Not nearly as competently as I would like. In spite of being in a 13+ year relationship with a Polish partner whose second language is English, I am not nearly as proficient as I should be (as I’m reminded frequently by her mother). Once upon a time I was fairly proficient in speaking Spanish, but after years without practice outside of taquerias, I’m afraid it would be a stretch to claim anything resembling fluency.
Spoiler alert: I think I would say that this is the ability or skill I most wish I had.

6. What is your most significant professional achievement?

This year, I was honored to receive the 2020 Class Award by the University of Chicago Law graduating class. It’s awarded to one faculty or staff member each year for “Outstanding contributions to improving the quality of student life and the spirit of community at the Law School.” In a school full of celebrity faculty members, it was incredible to be singled out by students for having done a good job. I told people that I either won an award that Barack Obama won, or I won an award that Barack Obama couldn’t win, and both of those are cool (I haven’t been back in the law school to check which one it is).

7. What is your biggest food weakness?

Tide pods.

8. What song makes you want to get up and sing/dance?

I’ll let you know when I hear it. In the spirit of the question, however, I’ll reveal that I’m a big fan of indiepop, and there are many songs that make me smile and sort of rhythmically nod my head. Here are a few (feel free to let me know if these cause anyone to get up and sing/dance):

The Lucksmiths — T-Shirt Weather

Martha — Ice Cream and Sunscreen

Aberdeen — Sink or Float

Summer Cats — In JuneT

he Smittens — These Days

Allo Darlin’ — Still Young

9. What ability or skill do you most wish you had (that you don’t have already)?

Legitimately not playing to my audience, but it would definitely be the ability to speak more languages. For personal reasons, I would love to be fluent in Polish (for obvious reasons) and then Japanese (because I love the country and culture). For professional reasons, I guess I would choose French.

10. Aside from the basic necessities, what is one thing you can’t go a day without?

I want to say “books,” but 1) I’d probably get push-back from some on the definition of “necessity,” and 2) the more accurate answer these days is probably “podcasts.”

11. Anything else you would like to share with us?

Please vote.

European Legal Responses to COVID-19: Finland

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 14:00:00 GMT

This is a series of reports by the AALL FCIL-SIS European Law Interest Group.

By Sue Silverman

Map of Finland

Finland’s first case of coronavirus was confirmed on January 29, 2020;[1] its first death, March 22.[2] While the rate of infection remained stable over the summer[3], certain regions saw a sharp increase in September and October[4] before stabilizing again toward the end of October.[5] As of October 25, there have been 14,970 cases.[6] The Government recently decided on national and regional recommendations which are not legally binding based on the phase of the epidemic (stable, acceleration, community transmission)[7] within each region, as determined by the number of new infections in the region’s hospital districts.[8] In September, the Government adopted a resolution on a new testing-based operating model to ease restrictions on entry at the borders which will go into effect November 23.[9] In the meantime, Finland continues to impose country-specific restrictions on travel; entry may be lifted for traffic between Finland and those EU countries and the UK where the incidence of new cases has not exceeded 25 new cases per 100,000 persons in the previous 14 days (previously the limit was 8-10).[10]

To manage the pandemic, Prime Minister Sanna Marin declared a state of emergency on March 16[11] which remained in effect until June 16.[12] The national government also created the COVID-19 Coordination Group which consists of the permanent secretaries of all twelve ministries, and the directors of Government Security, Government Communications, and the National Institute for Health and Welfare.[13] The COVID-19 Coordination Group implements the decisions made by the national government to curb the epidemic.[14]

Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare

Each of the twelve ministries is responsible for the preparation and administration of matters within its mandate.[15] With regard to managing the coronavirus epidemic, the Government has recommended that the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health issue recommendations to the competent regional authorities and educational institutions and universities on the implementation of restrictive measures.[16] The Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health are to adopt a national recommendation on the use of teleworking.[17] The Ministry of the Interior oversees border management and police,[18] who in turn enforce border restrictions and limits on public gatherings.[19] The Institute for Occupational Health and Institute for Health and Welfare, which operate under the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health,[20] have issued recommendations and guidelines for reducing the transmission of coronavirus.[21] Finally, there are six Regional State Administrative Agencies in Finland which work with local authorities to carry out decisions made by the national government[22] by putting forth inter alia guidelines for restaurants[23] and regulations for holding public events.[24]

Relevant websites:

Finnish Government, Information & Advice on the Coronavirus https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/information-on-coronavirus
Ministry of Social Affairs and Health: https://stm.fi/en/frontpage
Ministry of the Interior, Preparing for Coronavirus Outbreak (with links to Q&A about the coronavirus and restrictions on movement) https://intermin.fi/en/current-issues/preparing-for-coronavirus-outbreak
Finnish Institute for Health & Welfare, Coronavirus COVID-19 – Latest Updates https://thl.fi/en/web/infectious-diseases-and-vaccinations/what-s-new/coronavirus-covid-19-latest-updates
Finnish Institute of Occupational Health: Guidelines for workplaces to prevent coronavirus infection, https://www.ttl.fi/en/fioh-coronavirus-instructions/
Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Questions on coronavirus & occupational safety and health https://www.tyosuojelu.fi/web/en/working-conditions/biological-agents/corona
Finnish National Agency for Education, Education in Finland and the Coronavirus, https://www.oph.fi/en/education-and-qualifications/education-finland-and-coronavirus
Regional State Administrative Agencies, Coronavirus COVID-19, http://www.avi.fi/en/web/avi-en/
The Finnish Border Guard, Information about COVID-19, https://www.raja.fi/coronavirus
Police of Finland, Coronavirus info, https://www.poliisi.fi/coronavirus_info

Legislation:

Finlex Data Bank

Emergency Powers Act 1552/2011(Finnish & Swedish only): https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/ajantasa/2011/20111552
Communicable Diseases Act 1227/2016 (Finnish & Swedish only): https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/alkup/2016/20161227
Government Decree on Communicable Diseases 146/2017 (Finnish & Swedish only): https://www.finlex.fi/fi/laki/alkup/2017/20170146 (amended Feb.14, 2020 to include the novel coronavirus).[25]
National Preparedness Plan for an Influenza Pandemic (Finnish only) http://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/handle/10024/72870 [26]
Legislative plan with information on proposals to be submitted to Parliament during each parliamentary session: https://valtioneuvosto.fi/lainsaadantosuunnitelma (in Finnish)

English-language News Sources

Helsinki Times: https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic.html
Daily Finland: http://www.dailyfinland.fi/health
Politico.eu https://www.politico.eu/coronavirus-in-europe/

[1] Anu Haveri, et al., Serological and molecular findings during SARS-CoV-2 infection: the first case study in Finland, January to February 2020, Eurosurveillance (Mar. 19, 2020), https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7096774/.

[2]Adam Oliver Smith, First coronavirus death occurs in Finland, first cases confirmed on Åland Islands, Helsinki Times (Mar. 22, 2020), https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/news-in-brief/17464-first-cases-of-coronavirus-confirmed-on-aland-islands.html.

[3] Number of new coronavirus infections stable over past three weeks, Finnish Inst. for Health and Welfare (Aug. 27, 2020), https://thl.fi/en/web/thlfi-en/-/number-of-new-coronavirus-infections-stable-over-past-three-weeks

[4] Significant increase in number of COVID-19 infections, Finnish Inst. for Health and Welfare (Oct. 15, 2020), https://thl.fi/en/web/thlfi-en/-/significant-increase-in-number-of-covid-19-infections

[5] Growth rate of new coronavirus cases stabilised compared to previous week, Finnish Inst. for Health and Welfare (Oct. 22, 2020), https://thl.fi/en/web/thlfi-en/-/growth-rate-of-new-coronavirus-cases-stabilised-compared-to-previous-week

[6] Number of coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in Finland since January 2020, by date of report, Statista (Oct. 26, 2020) https://www.statista.com/statistics/1102251/coronavirus-cases-development-in-finland/; See also COVID-19 confirmed cases in Finland and other countries, Helsinki Times (Oct. 28, 2020), https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic.html

[7] Government agrees on national and regional recommendations to prevent spread of COVID-19 epidemic, Gov’t Commc’n Dep’t (Oct. 15, 2020), https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/10616/government-agrees-on-national-and-regional-recommendations-to-prevent-spread-of-covid-19-epidemic

[8] Coronavirus epidemic: situation, recommendations and restrictions in the regions, Finnish Inst. for Health and Welfare, https://thl.fi/fi/web/infektiotaudit-ja-rokotukset/ajankohtaista/ajankohtaista-koronaviruksesta-covid-19/tilannekatsaus-koronaviruksesta/koronaepidemia-alueiden-tilanne-suositukset-ja-rajoitukset (last updated Oct. 28, 2020)

[9] Government adopts resolution on implementing the hybrid strategy for border traffic and travel, Gov’t Commc’n Dep’t, Ministry of Econ. Affairs & Emp.(Sept. 11, 2020), https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/10616/government-adopts-resolution-on-implementing-the-hybrid-strategy-for-border-traffic-and-travel

[10] Restrictions on entry into the country to be amended due to COVID-19, Ministry of Econ. Affairs & Emp. & Ministry of Social Affairs and Health (Sept. 11, 2020) https://intermin.fi/en/-/maahantulon-rajoituksia-muutetaan-koronatilanteen-perusteella

[11] Government, in cooperation with the President of the Republic, declares a state of emergency in Finland over coronavirus outbreak, Gov’t Commc’n Dep’t, Ministry of Educ. & Culture Ministry of Soc. Affairs and Health (Mar. 16, 2020), https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/article/-/asset_publisher/10616/hallitus-totesi-suomen-olevan-poikkeusoloissa-koronavirustilanteen-vuoksi; For a discussion of the containment measures enacted by the Finnish Government, see Kaisa-Maria Kimmel & Rosa Maria Ballardini, Restrictions in the Name of Health During COVID-19 in Finland, Petrie-Flom Center, Harvard Law School: Bill of Health (May 14, 2020), http://blog.petrieflom.law.harvard.edu/2020/05/14/finland-global-responses-covid19/; For a discussion of the Emergency Powers Act, see Martin Scheinin, The COVID-19 Emergency in Finland: Best Practice and Problems, Verfassungsblog (Apr. 16, 2020), https://verfassungsblog.de/the-covid-19-emergency-in-finland-best-practice-and-problems/.

[12] Aleksi Teivainen, Many restrictions remain in place despite end of state of emergency in Finland, Helsinki Times (Jun. 16, 2020), https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/17775-many-restrictions-remain-in-place-despite-end-of-state-of-emergency-in-finland.html; Use of powers under the Emergency Powers Act to end – state of emergency to be lifted on Tuesday 16 June, Gov’t Commc’n Dep’t (Jun. 15, 2020), https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/artikkeli/-/asset_publisher/10616/valmiuslain-mukaisten-toimivaltuuksien-kaytosta-luovutaan-poikkeusolot-paattyvat-tiistaina-16-kesakuuta; For a discussion of proposed legislation to address a potential second wave, see Government discusses development of legislation on normal conditions in preparation for possible second wave of COVID-19 epidemic, Gov’t Commc’n Dep’t (Jun. 9, 2020), https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/-/10616/hallitus-kasitteli-neuvottelussaan-normaaliolojen-lainsaadannon-kehittamista-varauduttaessa-epidemian-mahdolliseen-toiseen-aaltoon.

[13] Central government management of the coronavirus situation, Finnish Gov’t, https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/information-on-coronavirus/central-government (last visited Oct. 28, 2020).

[14] Id.

[15] How does the government work?, Finnish Gov’t, https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/government/how-does-the-government-work-(last visited Oct. 28, 2020).

[16] Government resolution on recommendations related to the implementation of the hybrid strategy action plan, Ministry of Soc. Affairs and Health (Oct. 23, 2020), https://valtioneuvosto.fi/paatokset/paatos?decisionId=0900908f806e74ce; See also Liisa-Maria Voipio-Pulkki, Action plan to implement recommendations and restrictions under the hybrid strategy after the first phase of the COVID-19 outbreak, Ministry of Soc. Affairs and Health (in Finnish)(Sept. 7, 2020), https://julkaisut.valtioneuvosto.fi/handle/10024/162421

[17] Government resolution on recommendations related to the implementation of the hybrid strategy action plan, Ministry of Soc. Affairs and Health (Oct. 23, 2020), https://valtioneuvosto.fi/paatokset/paatos?decisionId=0900908f806e74ce

[18] Areas of Expertise, Ministry of the Interior (Jul. 23, 2020), https://intermin.fi/en/areas-of-expertise.

[19] Information about COVID-19, The Finnish Border Guard, https://www.raja.fi/coronavirus (last visited Oct. 28, 2020); The effects of the coronavirus on police operations, Police of Finland, https://www.poliisi.fi/coronavirus_info (last visited Oct. 28, 2020) .

[20] What is THL?, Finnish Inst. for Health and Welfare, https://thl.fi/en/web/thlfi-en/about-us/what-is-thl- (last updated Sept. 20, 2019); About Us, Finnish Inst. for Occupational Health,https://www.ttl.fi/en/about-us/ (last visited Oct. 28, 2020).

[21] Guidelines for workplaces to prevent coronavirus infection, Finnish Inst. for Occupational Health, https://www.ttl.fi/en/fioh-coronavirus-instructions/ (last updated Sept. 30, 2020); Coronavirus COVID-19 – Latest Updates, Finnish Inst. for Health and Welfare, https://thl.fi/en/web/infectious-diseases-and-vaccinations/what-s-new/coronavirus-covid-19-latest-updates (last visited Oct. 28, 2020).

[22] Coronavirus COVID-19, Reg’l State Admin. Agencies, http://www.avi.fi/en/web/avi-en/ (last updated Aug. 30, 2020) .

[23] Guidelines for Restaurants, Reg’l State Admin. Agencies, http://www.avi.fi/en/web/avi-en/ohje-suunnitelman-tekemiseksi (last updated Oct. 1, 2020) .

[24] Restrictions during the coronavirus epidemic – Events, gatherings and meetings, Finnish Gov’t, https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/information-on-coronavirus/current-restrictions (last visited Oct. 28, 2020); See also, COVID-19 FAQ, Reg’l State Admin. Agencies,

http://www.avi.fi/web/avi/usein-kysytyt-kysymykset#yleiso-01 (in Finnish) (last updated Oct. 26, 2020).

[25] Preparedness for the COVID-19 disease, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finnish Gov’t, https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/information-on-coronavirus/ministry-of-social-affairs-and-health (last updated Oct. 14, 2020).

[26] Finland’s preparedness measures are based on the national preparedness plan for an influenza pandemic, see Preparedness for the COVID-19 disease, Ministry of Social Affairs and Health, Finnish Gov’t, https://valtioneuvosto.fi/en/information-on-coronavirus/ministry-of-social-affairs-and-health (last updated Oct. 14, 2020).

Teaching FCIL Research Online: To Synch or Not to Synch

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 09:56:00 GMT

By Meredith Capps

In this series I’ll reflect, over three posts, on my experience teaching my FCIL research course online. Understanding that you, my esteemed colleagues, have your own insights to share, I look forward to the day when we can exchange ideas verbally while in the same physical space, but welcome suggestions or questions in any medium until then.

To go virtual, or ‘flex it?

In May 2020, the research librarians at Vanderbilt learned of our administration’s decision to hold fall semester 1L doctrinal courses in person (with hyflex virtual options), but to provide the required legal writing and research courses exclusively online. While coping with my array of emotions as to this development, and immersing myself in Vanderbilt’s excellent online instructional support materials, the fate of my 7-week, 1-credit fall Transnational Legal Research course, I discovered, lay with me.

Though I initially felt strongly about teaching the course in person, my determination flagged as I considered the limitations inherent in wearing masks in the classroom (advisable though they may be from a public and personal health perspective), as I considered supporting students attending class virtually along with those attending in-person, and as I gained a level of comfort preparing online course materials for my 1Ls. The evening before registration was to open, I made the (bold?) choice to move my class fully online.

In deciding that a Transnational Legal Research course, in particular, could be offered effectively online, I considered the following:

Enrollment in the course is limited to 2 and 3L students, who have already taken a U.S. legal research course, and are thus somewhat familiar with research course expectations, and with our course management software.
Many (though not all) students who enroll in the course are enrolled in international law courses and extracurricular activities, and have some familiarity with substantive topics therein. Furthermore, as upper-level students they could likely navigate questions they may have surrounding those concepts independently.
A great deal of student learning in this course happens outside the classroom, and even during class, skews towards independent rather than collaborative work.

Fortunately, my existing course materials were largely updated and revised when I opted to make the change, but with only a few weeks to determine how to restructure the course, I encountered one consequential decision…

To synch or not to synch?

In determining whether to adopt a synchronous, asynchronous, or blended course model, I opted for a blend, and found a few choices to be quite easy. Recording lecture videos seemed an immensely desirable alternative to lecturing live online each week. (More to come, in subsequent posts, on the topic of video lectures.) Course materials such as weekly exercises that I previously provided as handouts in class would be posted in the course page, with material posted well in advance of any scheduled class time or activity to allow students ample flexibility.

Photo by Prateek Katyal on Pexels.com

The decision regarding whether to hold any live virtual class sessions, or otherwise confine certain learning activities to scheduled class time proved, for me, far more difficult. While I did not, perhaps, experience literal nightmares regarding a WiFi failure during a live class, throughout the summer I envisioned with anxiety such a technology failure every time I saw the dreaded “Internet Unstable” message during a Zoom meeting or, worse, suffered a complete loss of connection. Having today moved, emotionally, past my fear of technology humiliation (or at least accepted its inevitability), this concern seems a bit overblown. However, my related concern that my students may experience similarly technology issues and concerns was born out when I discovered that some used their phones for class meetings, and that at least one student was participating from another continent.

Though I cagily refused to commit to a definitive schedule at the course’s start, reserving the option to adjust, I ultimately decided to hold a live class meeting during Week 1 and Week 6 (6 being the final week of content coverage before a week of student presentations), and required students to schedule individual virtual meetings with me to discuss their final projects during Week 3 or 4. In other weeks, students were required to submit the research exercise we ordinarily would have completed during class, with some other brief activity to encourage engagement and critical thinking (discussions in shared documents, brief group collaborations, posting of reflections).

So, how did it go? More to come!

European Legal Responses to COVID-19: Sweden

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 13:00:00 GMT

This is a series of reports by the AALL FCIL-SIS European Law Interest Group.

By Erin Gow

Map of Sweden

Sweden’s response to the COVID-19 global pandemic has been markedly different from the rest of Europe. Sweden’s first coronavirus case was confirmed on January 31, 2020 in Jönköping, with the first case in Stockholm confirmed at the end of February.[1] As of October 2020, there continue to be high infection rates in Sweden compared to neighboring countries like Norway and Finland,[2] but some commentators suggest that Sweden may be poised to avoid the second wave of infection spreading through much of Europe.[3]

The Swedish government classified COVID-19 as “a disease that constitutes a danger to society” on February 1, 2020,[4] and subsequently issued guidelines and recommendations regarding COVID-19 under the guidance of epidemiologist Anders Tegnell. Citizens are encouraged to work from home, limit travel, and social distance, for example, but compliance is voluntary rather than legally mandated. As a result, there is a relatively short list of restrictions and less binding legislation in Sweden in comparison to many other nations.[5] The Swedish Parliament did approve additional emergency powers for the government to respond to the COVID-19 outbreak,[6] and some laws and regulations were passed to address issues such as sick benefits (regulation 2020:582),[7] large public events (Public Order Act 2 chapter, §§ 1-3), and restaurants (Act 2020:526)[8]. The Swedish approach still relies primarily on the voluntary efforts of citizens to follow guidelines and advice, however, rather than centering around legally binding rules and regulations.[9]

In addition to Swedish government and parliamentary information, researchers will also find COVID-19 guidance and information issued by the Public Health Agency. Since Sweden is a member of the European Union, researchers may also wish to consult guidance and documentation issued by that organization. These and additional useful resources are listed below.

Swedish Government Strategy in Response to COVID-19: www.government.se/articles/2020/04/strategy-in-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic
Public Health Agency of Sweden: www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/the-public-health-agency-of-sweden
Emergency Information from the Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency: www.krisinformation.se/en/hazards-and-risks/disasters-and-incidents/2020/official-information-on-the-new-coronavirus
Public Health & Medical Care, Government Offices of Sweden: www.government.se/government-policy/public-health-and-medical-care
Emergency Preparedness, Government Offices of Sweden: www.government.se/government-policy/emergency-preparedness
Parliament’s Work in Connection with Coronavirus: www.riksdagen.se/en/the-riksdags-work-in-connection-with-the-coronavirus
European Union Response to COVID-19: https://europa.eu/european-union/coronavirus-response_en
Information about the EU travel ban in Sweden: www.government.se/articles/2020/04/faqs–entry-to-the-eu-via-sweden-banned
English-language News: www.thelocal.se

[1] Emma Löfgren, Sweden confirms five new coronavirus cases, including first patient in Stockholm, The Local (Feb. 27, 2020) www.thelocal.se/20200227/five-new-cases-of-the-coronavirus-in-sweden.

[2] WHO Health Emergency Dashboard (COVID-19) Homepage, World Health Organization, https://covid19.who.int/region/euro/country/se (last visited Oct. 26, 2020).

[3] Does Sweden have the answer to living with Covid-19?, The Guardian (Oct. 19, 2020) www.theguardian.com/australia-news/audio/2020/oct/20/does-sweden-have-the-answer-to-living-with-covid-19.

[4] “Strategy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.” Government Offices of Sweden, Apr. 6, 2020, www.government.se/articles/2020/04/strategy-in-response-to-the-covid-19-pandemic.

[5] Restrictions and prohibitions, Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (Oct. 21, 2020) www.krisinformation.se/en/hazards-and-risks/disasters-and-incidents/2020/official-information-on-the-new-coronavirus/restriktioner-och-forbud.

[6] Elin Hofverberg, Sweden: Swedish Parliament Gives Swedish Government Temporary Emergency Powers Because of COVID-19 Outbreak, Global Legal Monitor (Apr. 22, 2020) www.loc.gov/law/foreign-news/article/sweden-swedish-parliament-gives-swedish-government-temporary-emergency-powers-because-of-covid-19-outbreak.

[7] Ordinance on benefits related to Covid-19. Förordning (2020:582) om viss sjukpenning i förebyggande syfte och viss smittbärarpenning med anledning av sjukdomen covid-19 (June 25, 2020) www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/dokument/svensk-forfattningssamling/forordning-2020582-om-viss-sjukpenning-i_sfs-2020-582.

[8] Act on temporary infection control measures at businesses serving food or drink. Lag (2020:526) om tillfälliga smittskyddsåtgärder på serveringsställen (June 17, 2020) www.riksdagen.se/sv/dokument-lagar/dokument/svensk-forfattningssamling/lag-2020526-om-tillfalliga-smittskyddsatgarder_sfs-2020-526.

[9] Covid-19: Is Sweden getting it right?, BBC News (Oct. 15, 2020) www.bbc.com/news/av/world-europe-54561201.

Report no.12 on COVID-19: Remote Adjudication in the Brazilian Judiciary

Tue, 27 Oct 2020 13:00:00 GMT

This is a series of reports by the AALL FCIL-SIS Latin American Law Interest Group and Latino Caucus in a project monitoring COVID-19 legal responses in the Latin America and Caribbean region.

By Marilia Mello and Abby Dos Santos (Em Português)

After President Jair Bolsonaro declared a state of public emergency due to the transmission of the coronavirus, the judiciary adopted several measures in order to preserve the health of judges, civil servants, employees and the public and, also, to maintain adjudications.

Courts had little time to adapt to the new reality and, naturally, in the first months there were a lot of complaints from the lawyers. According to the Association of Lawyers of the State of São Paulo, the main complaints of these professionals during this period are related to the suspension of procedural deadlines for physical cases; the lack of standardization of normative acts between the courts, and the difficulty of orders in chambers with the judges.

Associação de Advogados do Estado de São Paulo (AASP)

The initiatives varied taking into consideration the differences of each court in Brazil, but over time, there has been a joint effort so that remote adjudication remained business as usual. Since the beginning of the pandemic, the Federal Regional Court of the 1st Region, for example, guaranteed essential services by the Federal Justice of the 1st Region, maintaining urgent jurisdictional activities, as determined in Resolution No. 9985909, such as the assessment of habeas corpus and injunctions.

According to the National Council of Justice (CNJ) (the public institution responsible for the control and administrative and procedural transparency of the Brazilian Judiciary), “the use of videoconferencing tools to assist citizens during the pandemic of the new coronavirus (Covid-19) brought positive results in the productivity of the Judiciary. And the emergency situation also led to a paradigm shift. (Original text: “o uso de ferramentas de videoconferência para atender os cidadãos durante a pandemia do novo coronavírus (Covid-19) trouxe resultados positivos na produtividade do Poder Judiciário. E a situação de emergência levou ainda a uma quebra de paradigma.”).” Likewise, civil servants and employees who work in the courts have performed their activities at home, through various technological applications that were already in use, without reducing the quality of jurisdictional and administrative activities. “These recent times have cooperated to make us realize that the technological advances already offered us much more than we imagined. The fact is that tradition made us resist taking advantage of all this potential. During the pandemic, fortunately, tradition gave way to the unfathomable jurisdiction and we were forced to adapt to the new reality (original text: “Os tempos recentes cooperaram para percebermos que os avanços tecnológicos já nos ofereciam bem mais do que imaginávamos. O fato é que a tradição nos fazia resistir ao aproveitamento de todo esse potencial. Durante a pandemia, felizmente a tradição cedeu à inafastabilidade da jurisdição e fomos obrigados a nos adaptar à nova realidade”),” explained Minister Luiz Fux, president of the CNJ, during the 318th Ordinary Session of the Council.

Conselho Nacional de Justiça (CNJ)

The investment in technology, specifically in digitization of proceedings and artificial intelligence, has been paramount in order to streamline the judicial process and transform physical proceedings into a digital format, making the electronic system more efficient and also accessible to the visually and hearing impaired.

In some courts, online trials have been going on for some time and have intensified in this pandemic period. Law No. 11,900 / 2009, from January 8, 2009, which amended the Code of Criminal Procedure, for example, allows for the interrogation of an incarcerated defendant by videoconference and also witness testimonies. The Code of Civil Procedure, section II, also provides for virtual hearings. In April of this year, Federal Law 13,944 / 2020 was enacted, which establishes the mandatory appearance of the parties in the virtual settlement hearings, under penalty of extinguishment or default. The technologies used for hearings and judgments are optional for each court, but the CNJ implemented the Emergency Video Conferencing Platform for procedural acts to provide yet another option to the Brazilian courts and judges. As of October 2020, more than 685,000 videoconferences have been held.

Technological innovations are ongoing in the Brazilian Judiciary. On October 6, 2020, the recently sworn in president of the National Council of Justice and the Federal Supreme Court approved the implementation of the “100% Digital Justice” (Resolution No. 345) to run procedural acts exclusively electronically and remotely. However, it is optional and will be exercised by the plaintiff upon filing the action, and the defendant may oppose this option until the moment the answer is due.

Researching Hate Crime Laws Around the World

Mon, 26 Oct 2020 13:00:00 GMT

By Erin Gow

Hate crimes are a tragic and ongoing form of crime around the world. While the idea of hate crime as a separate legal entity is relatively recent, it is inarguable that the types of crimes we now recognize as hate crimes have always existed. For such a widespread problem, the legal response to hate crimes varies noticeably around the world, and may surprise the American legal researcher.

Regardless of jurisdiction, hate crime laws generally work in one of two ways: either by increasing the penalty for existing crimes when there is a hate element, or by creating a whole new statute solely to address hate crimes. In practical terms this means that the prosecution of hate crimes may be handled differently, depending on which type of law is in effect. It will be important for researchers to know what type of legislation regulates the prosecution of hate crime in the specific jurisdiction (or jurisdictions) they are interested in, so they know at which point the hate element is likely to be introduced into a case. This understanding will simplify the process of searching a national collection of case law or foreign law reports for relevant cases.

European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights

Hate crime legislation almost universally includes a list of protected characteristics, which often reflect the historical and societal divisions in a jurisdiction. This means that the characteristics protected in different areas can vary widely, depending on the history of the region. Characteristics that may cause deep animosity and which represent marked divisions between communities in one area may be relatively unnoticed in another area. Laws protecting race and religion are widespread, for example, but some U.S. states protect less commonly cited characteristics such as profession or gender identity. The unique history of each nation often determines the most sensitive group characteristics prone to being targeted by hate crimes that increase fear, anger, and hostility. Researchers will most likely need to identify which characteristics are covered by hate crime laws in the jurisdiction they are interested in, and may find noticeable variation in the protected characteristics that appear in a comparative study.

In addition to researching hate crime in collections of foreign national case law and statutes, researchers may be interested in considering a multi-national or international perspective. When researching international cases involving hate crime, it is often worthwhile to look at international human rights organizations with judicial bodies that rule on hate crimes. Useful resources include:

The United Nations Human Rights Office of the High Commissioner: juris.ohchr.org
The Council of Europe, European Court of Human Rights: www.echr.coe.int/ECHR/Homepage_EN

European Court of Human Rights

Other international or multi-national organizations observe, research, and report on hate crimes. These organizations can be excellent sources of information on current approaches and responses to hate crime across jurisdictions. Useful resources include:

Amnesty International: www.amnesty.org/en
The International Network for Hate Studies: internationalhatestudies.com
The European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights: fra.europa.eu/en/themes/hate-crime

International Network for Hate Studies (INHS)

These are just a few of the resources that can serve as a starting point for the legal researcher interested in international aspects of hate crime law, and a snapshot of some of the questions FCIL librarians should encourage researchers to consider early in a project on hate crime law.