UPDATE: Women & Justice, Cornell & the LII

Last summer, we announced our plans to take over the operation of the Women & Justice caselaw collection, which has been created by Cornell Law’s Avon Center prior to its closure. We thought it was time for an update.

Under the leadership of Jocelyn Hackett, Cornell Law School Class of 2012, the collection continues to grow. Jocelyn was able to maintain and build upon earlier pro bono relationships between the former Avon Center and two major American law firms: White & Case and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher.  Attorneys from those firms are researching and writing about important cases affecting women’s rights in areas from employment to property to domestic violence and other criminal law in various jurisdictions across five continents. The list of jurisdictions is so long that just alphabetizing it seems like work:  Algeria,  Armenia, Austria, Bangladesh, Belarus, Belgium,  Belize,  Brazil, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, China, Costa Rica,  Cuba, Dominican Republic, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia,  Ethiopia, Finland, France, Germany, Ghana,  Guatemala, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Hong Kong, Hungary, Indonesia, Iran, Israel, Jamaica, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Lebanon, Lesotho, Liberia, Malawi, Malaysia,  Mali, Mexico, Morocco, Namibia, Nepal, Niger, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Paraguay, Philippines, Poland, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Singapore, Slovenia, South Africa, Suriname, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, UAE, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Venezuela, Vietnam, and Zambia.

In addition to national courts, researchers are considering materials from such bodies as the African Commission and Court on Human and Peoples’ Rights; The Committee Against Torture; The Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW); The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR Human Rights Committee); European Committee on Social Rights; European Court of Human Rights; European Court of Justice; and the Inter-American Commission and Court on Human Rights.

All involved are committed to exploring ways to improve and grow the database. These include revamping the technical aspects of the database as we port it over to the LII domain, teaming law students with the volunteer attorneys who do the research and writing, creating complete resource guides for several of the countries featured in the collection, and potentially someday offering searchable native language and English version of the collection’s various resources.

We’ll keep you posted on our progress with this exciting and important project!