The development of international law in South and Southeast Asia exemplifies myriad ideological strands, historical origins, and significant contributions to contemporary international law doctrines’ formative and codification processes. From the beginnings of South and Southeast Asian participation in the international legal order, international law discourse from these regions has been thematically postcolonial and substantively development-oriented. Postcolonialism in South and Southeast Asian conceptions of international law is an ongoing dialectical project of revisioning international legal thought and its normative directions — towards identifying, collocating, and applying South and Southeast Asian values and philosophical traditions alongside the Euro-American ideologies that, since the classical Post-Westphalian era, have largely infused the content of positivist international law. Of increasing necessity to the intricacies of the postmodern international legal system and its institutions is how the postcolonial project of South and Southeast Asian international legal discourse focuses on areas of international law that create the most urgent development consequences: trade, investment, and the international economic order; the law of the sea and the environment; international humanitarian law, self-determination, socio-economic and cultural human rights.

This paper briefly outlines what copyright is, the main actors in the copyright phenomenon, and the need to maintain a balance among them. The paper further discusses the difficulty in upholding copyright in relation to access to information in the University of Ghana, problems associated with the use of digital materials, the inadequacy of the permitted use principle, and the failure of copyright legislation to address the needs of the library and other groups or institutions.

As the law moves inexorably to a digital publication model in which books no longer play a role, the problem of how to continue to make the law available to all becomes more acute. Open access initiatives already exist, and more are on the way, but all are limited by their inability to provide more than self-indexed search options for their users. Self-indexing, although a powerful alternative to the traditional pre-indexed searching made possible by systems like West's “Key Number” digests, has inherent limitations which make it a poor choice as the sole means of researching the law. But developing a new pre-indexed legal digest would be a prohibitively expensive and complex undertaking, making it unlikely that open access legal information sites can develop and maintain a fully-implemented digesting approach to legal research. This article proposes a reconceptualization of the information already contained within most American judicial opinions in order to permit open access sites to offer a form of pre-indexed research to their users. By mapping a case's location in a graphical representation of the doctrinal development of an issue under consideration, this approach allows the court's citations to prior authority to act as a pre-indexing tool, allows the researcher to update the law by showing more recent cases that have cited to the target case, and gives the researcher the opportunity to trace network links in order to uncover connections between cases that might otherwise have been difficult to discern.

This Article explores Microfinance and microcredit (“MFI”) programs from several perspectives, with particular emphasis on human rights issues. These programs involve making small loans to people who would otherwise be unable to borrow money to facilitate them starting their own businesses: frequently, the programs focus on women borrowers in developing countries. The emphasis of MFI programs on women in developing countries makes it important to consider these programs in terms of both women's and indigenous rights, while MFI as an approach to poverty merits a discussion of economic rights. Part I of the article will explore the concept and scope of current MFI programs, describing key components of these programs and assessing comments from both fans and critics. The Grameen Bank, which has been studied extensively and has acted as a model for several other programs, will be examined in detail. Part II of this Article considers MFI in the context of human rights considerations, including economic, indigenous, and women's rights. One particular aspect of Grameen's program, namely the use of Sixteen Decisions, is also critiqued, applying organizational behavior theory. Part III will compare MFI with other approaches to poverty, inclu property rights initiatives, women's cooperatives and social enterprise approaches.

War is a way of life – in some parts of the world it is an ongoing struggle with no end in sight. Years of perpetual conflict have adversely affected the way in which political, socio-economic, and cultural components of society have developed. Indeed, armed conflict negatively affects all aspects of society: not only does it destroy buildings and societies, but it also leaves surviving individuals and communities with deep wounds that can last a lifetime.

Whales have captivated the human imagination for millennia. Indeed, evidence of the first whale hunting dates back to at least 6,000 B.C. These incredible cetaceans have been a source of human food, fuel and tools, and have inspired art, myth and literature around the globe. Legal issues affecting whales are varied and far reaching. Only since the mid 20th century, with the establishment of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) under the terms of the International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW) have whales benefited from any type of conservation effort.

Libraries play a very important role in national socio-economic development. They comprise books, buildings, a wide variety of materials and other support systems and more recently, technology. Their purpose is to serve as agents of instruction, reference and research for educational institutions, professional organizations, industrial concerns and communities. Law libraries for instance have highly specialized materials to support the advancement of learning about law or for the practice of law.

The legal system in India follows the common law model prevalent in the countries which were at one time under British Rule or were part of the British Commonwealth. The jurisprudence followed in India is almost the same as the one prevalent in England, though it has been cross-fertilized by typical Indian values.

Most travelers eventually realize that they are the foreigners, and for me language was an early clue. From the mid-1980s through the mid-1990s, I spent eleven years teaching in Singapore and Hong Kong, where—despite the broad reach of American popular culture—some form of British English ruled. In Singapore, it is true, many people spoke “Singlish,” full of local words and expressions such as kopi tiam (coffee shop), kampong (village), “can or not” (yes or no), lah (untranslatable word of emphasis) or kiasu (the fear of missing out). But terms like these were rarely the source of my language problems.

Electronic commerce is important, and perhaps, inevitable. Thus to consider the legal implications of the growth and development of electronic commerce is essential. However, the lack of suitable dispute resolution mechanisms in cyberspace will constitute a serious obstacle to the further development of electronic commerce. Bearing this in mind, this paper argues that when Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) moves to cyberspace, particularly arbitration and mediation as the main types of ADR, the form of online alternative dispute resolution (OADR) can maximise the growth of e-commerce.

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and the internet are two very topical issues. Online alternative dispute resolution (OADR), or ADR online, refers to the use of internet technology, wholly or partially, as a medium by which to conduct the proceedings of Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), in order to resolve commercial disputes which arise from the use of the internet. Those proceedings are operated by neutral private bodies under published rules of procedure.

Having said that, it is important to address mandatory OADR. This means that the parties are bound to adhere to the OADR process. Indeed, it is imperative to display what risks internet users should be willing to take with mandatory OADR schemes. This paper concludes that the issue of consent should be at the forefront of any contemplated OADR solutions. Clearly, it is unacceptable to impose mandatory OADR on internet users without their knowledge and consent Instead, a complainant who wishes to avoid the mandatory nature of OADR proceeding must be able to bring the action in any court that has a jurisdiction over the dispute. Bearing this in mind, there is a strong reason to believe that mandatory OADR schemes would not be enforceable in courts, and that the entire scheme of mandatory OADR might be unworkable.