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The law," including judicial opinions and statutes, is not copyrightable because neither individuals nor organizations own the law. This longstanding principle is supported by the public's due process right to access the law. The United States Supreme Court has never determined the status of a private organization's copyright on model codes or standards when a legislature adopts those materials into law. Federal courts have taken several different approaches to resolving this issue; however, their decisions are in direct conflict with each other. The Second and Ninth Circuits permit private authors to retain copyrights of materials subsequently enacted into law, while the Fifth Circuit does not. This Comment argues that the Fifth Circuit's decision in Veeck v. Southern Building Code Congress International, Inc., created an unsupported exception to copyright law when it held that private organizations whose works are passed into law cannot retain their copyrights. Further, this Comment argues that the U.S. Supreme Court should resolve the current circuit split in favor of enforcing copyright to ensure that privately authored materials' copyrights remain enforceable across the nation.

This pocket-sized field guide compiles key points from our hard bound complete edition of Child Sexual Exploitation for accessibility and simplicity. It encompasses the entire legal, social, and medical process of treating child sexual exploitation, explaining how predators work and how to prevent exploitation from occurring

Ever since Joseph Schacht, whose book An Introduction to Islamic Law is on the short list of books on Middle East law, said that Islamic law is the epitome of Islamic thought, in other words, you can't understand Islam without understanding Islamic law, Middle Eastern studies and their journals invariably include classical Islamic law in their coverage of the subject with little attention given to modern legislation. This is particularly obvious in the bibliography of periodical literature which disregards the increasing number of studies on the modern law of the Middle East appearing in law journals. Even entries described as positive law, a category recently added to John and Marianne Makdisi's eminently useful compilation on Islamic law, comes no closer to giving a realistic picture of the applicable law. To illustrate what I mean, titles under positive law dealing with insurance, banking, and interest, concentrate on Islamic law's position on these subject-matters at a time when modern legislation in most Arab states has completely discarded that position.

The Supreme Court of Canada's advisory opinion inReference re Secession of Quebec, 1998(also known, more simply, as the "Quebec reference case") has been the subject of much interpretation and comment, because of its obvious implications for the future of Canada.1However, it offers an arguably wider opportunity to consider the role of the judiciary within a liberal democracy. The professional nature of the legal process and its practitioners often has made legal and judicial institutions, to most of the public, distant and alien components of the political system. The technical aspects of many areas of law (such as contracts, torts, and civil procedure) may, in fact, make this area of public concern seem unapproachable to the average citizen; indeed, some legal practitioners may prefer that the law remain that way. That mystique often is transferred to the realm of constitutional law, where the use of technical terms (including Latin words and phrases) may serve, intentionally or not, to insulate legal arguments and proceedings from public scrutiny.2

This paper briefly discusses the transformation of the customary law of marriage in South Africa by the Recognition of Customary Marriages Act of 1998 Act (hereafter referred to as the Act), and the likely challenges of implementing the new law. The latter will be demonstrated by reference to section 7 of the Act, which regulates the matrimonial property.

This pioneering publication provides A Reference Guide to the significant contributions of decisions of the World Court, as the principal judicial organ of the United Nations and the world's most senior Court with the broadest material jurisdiction, to the development of the law of the sea as a part of the global system of peace and security. The Guide is dedicated to the Court's former President Stephen M. Schwebel in appreciation of his belief that it is important for the Court to further explore its pre-eminently unique role throughout the Third Millennium. Whereas the format of specific entries covered by this Reference Guide largely corresponds to the Parts and Annexes of the 1982 UN Law of the Sea Convention (UNCLOS) and the 1994 Part XI Agreement, the heading of each entry also contains, as appropriate, references to the 1930 League of Nations Hague Draft, the four 1958 UN Geneva Conventions and the 1995 UN Straddling Stocks Agreement, as well as to the 1972 UN Stockholm, the 1992 Rio UNCED and the 2002 Johannesbourg instruments. This will enable the reader to relate the Court's decisions to the respective UNCLOS provisions as originated from and as implemented by these global framework instruments at various stages of codification and progressive development of the law of the sea. The entries cover principally Judgments and Orders (including the related pleadings) of the PCIJ and the ICJ and those decisions of Arbitral Tribunals and other third party fora as well as national courts which have been relied upon in the Court's jurisprudence. In addition, the recent decisions of the ITLOS and some other fora, such as the Annex VII Southern Bluefin Tuna, Singapore v. Malaysia, Barbados/Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana/Suriname and the Mox Plant Arbitral Tribunals, as well as references to treaties are also listed under specific entries as appropriate. Tables of Cases and Treaties will importantly facilitate the use of A Reference Guide. It has proven to be an indispensable tool for the Judges and governmental and other practitioners in furthering the coherent development of the law of the sea by international courts and tribunals on the one hand, and for international community of academics in the adequate assessing of this development on the other hand