Here's something new. This issue of the International Journal of Legal Information (IJLI) is transitional. While it is still the annual proceedings issue, it contains material other than lectures or articles from the recent 37th International Association of Law Libraries Annual Course on Law and Legal Information. That event, by the way, occurred at the amazing Max Planck Institute Luxembourg for Procedural Law from September 30 to October 3, 2018.
At the most recent IALL Board meeting, the Board agreed that the IJLI should expand its published offerings in the annual proceedings issue to include material that extends beyond the material that was delivered at the most recent conference. I agree that this is a wise choice. After all, many IALL conference speakers wish to publish their comments in more narrowly tailored journals, specific to their areas of scholarship, in a language other than English, or for other professional or personal reasons. Other speakers have indicated to me that they do not wish their remarks to be published because their views may address politically, culturally, or legally sensitive topics in the host jurisdiction. Thus, the IJLI is expanding the scope of articles it publishes in this and in future annual proceedings issues.
The proceedings issues will continue to publish the work of lecturers from the IALL conferences who wish their works to appear in the IJLI, the annual President's Report, as well as program information from the most recent conference. And like all issues of the IJLI, this and future proceedings issues will contain the International Calendar, edited by Amy Flick, and book reviews, edited by Thomas Mills.
In addition to the regular aspects contained in proceedings issues outlined above, this issue of the IJLI contains a fascinating report from Dr. Lily Martinet dealing with how intellectual property law in international legal contexts engage with notions of traditional cultural expressions. Dr. Martinet is our featured author from the 2018 IALL conference in Luxembourg. Her article outlines the evolution of the applicable international law and explains the features of this rapidly developing legal concept; she further distinguishes it from related concepts. The author emphasizes the protection of traditional cultural expressions through the application of international intellectual property law.
The second piece in this issue is a truly unusual piece about how law librarians in Nigeria can enter a political discussion about restructuring that nation's political and economic foundations. It is co-authored by two law librarian colleagues from Nigeria: Harriet Seun Dapo-Asaju and Oludayo John Bamgbose. Readers may recognize Mr. Bamgbose's name as an author who has appeared in the IJLI in the recent past: issue 46.2, Summer 2018. In their piece in the present issue, Dapo-Asaju and Bamgbose advocate for an active role for law librarians in the ongoing, unresolved political debate(s) in Nigeria about the social, political, and economic foundation for that country's future. It is a provocative, well-argued call to action for our Nigerian colleagues, and a call to Nigeria's many intelligent and thoughtful law librarians to leverage their knowledge of the law and their other skills for the betterment of their country. Read it.
The final article is a really wonderful piece by our colleague, Loren Turner, on foreign law in civil cases before the US federal courts. There is a long debate about the “appropriateness” of citing foreign law in US cases – even though it certainly happens – and the extent of persuasive “weight” US courts can or should give to foreign cases or foreign law. Ms. Turner's carefully researched article takes on these issues and more in her beautifully organized and thoroughly researched piece. It is an important, significant work and I expect we will be hearing much more from Loren Turner in the future.
As you can see from the summary above, there are three very different feature articles in this issue of the IJLI. I believe that this issue maintains the unique character of a proceedings issue – this time from the 2018 Luxembourg IALL conference – but enriches that format with excellent writing from Nigeria and the United States. I hope you like it, too.
