Foreign and International Law

Foreign and International Law Collections

We remained committed to our foreign and international law collection development efforts during the pandemic, with a continual focus on about twenty jurisdictions (France, Germany, Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Mexico and Venezuela, China, Taiwan, Japan, Koreas, Singapore and Malaysia, Australia, Canada, India, Ireland, Luxembourg, Austria, and Switzerland), and a set of subjects. We actively collect in Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. Although not as vigorously, we collect monographs in English for any jurisdiction in the world. Notable acquisitions included South China Morning Post (SCMP.com); The China Wire; and Westlaw UK. Lucie Olejnikova spearheaded efforts to continue building our foreign and international law collection by coordinating with our team of foreign law selectors and streamlining processes with our Technical Services colleagues to adapt to needs of remote work. We continued our collaborative collection efforts, participating in Northeast Foreign Law Librarians Cooperative Group (NEFLLCG) meetings and hosted the inaugural virtual Zoom (NEFLLCG) meeting in June 2020. The two-credit ten-week course Research Methods in Foreign and International Law was offered remotely in spring 2021 and 2022, and both offerings enjoyed healthy enrollments. We embraced the flexibility of remote instruction and invited out-of-state and overseas speakers. Susan Goard, Reference Librarian at the Dag Hammarskjold Library at the UN Headquarters, presented on the United Nations structure and researching its UN documentation. In spring 2021, we also welcomed Iris Mueller, the thematic legal adviser in the ICRC legal division, Ismaël Raboud, the ICRC Reference Librarian for the collections related to both the Diplomatic and International Conferences, and Sonia Crenn, the Reference Librarian in charge of International Humanitarian Law at the ICRC who together delivered a lecture introducing the foundation of International Humanitarian Law, drafting history of Geneva Conventions including the treaties database and digitized travaux, as well as how to research state practice implementing International Humanitarian Law.