Best of the Blogs: Trivial Pursuits Edition

This week’s review of blog postings and news stories of note focuses on subjects that might seem trivial, but that interest me nonetheless.

1. Comic Books

My brother and I had an extensive collection of comic books when we were growing up.  We even owned two (two!) mint editions of Conan the Barbarian number 1.  If I still owned that collection today, it would easily pay for the first year of my daughter’s college tuition.

After reaching the age of puberty, I consigned my childhood love of comic books to the “trivial” category of youthful pursuits.  Perhaps that is why I was so delighted to read about the current exhibit at the Lillian Goldman Law Library at Yale University, entitled Superheroes in Court! Lawyers, Law and Comic Books.  As described by John Schwartz in the New York Times, this exhibit includes comic books with a legal setting, contracts and correspondence relating to legal disputes over the ownership of comic book characters, and reports submitted to Congress during the 1950s seeking federal legislation to address the alleged connection between comic books and juvenile delinquency.

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Top Ten Reasons to Study Abroad in Giessen, Germany

Here are the top ten reasons to attend the Summer Session In International and Comparative Law in Giessen, Germany sponsored annually by the Marquette University Law School and the University of Wisconsin Law School:

10. You can start a blog about your experience. 

9. Avoid the Milwaukee Brewers’ annual mid-season collapse.

8. Frankfurt is the perfect jumping off point for side trips around Europe.

7. Get to know law students from exotic places like Brazil, Norway and Racine (see photo 1).

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Best of the Blogs: International Law Edition

In one week, roughly two dozen students from Marquette University Law School and the University of Wisconsin Law School will return to America bringing with them many fond memories of Giessen, Germany, their jet-lagged bodies, and an inexplicable taste for beer mixed with coca-cola.  In recognition of this fact, this week’s “Best of the Blogs” features an international law edition.

What is the status of a Declaration of Independence under international law, and must the nations of the world respect the self-proclaimed independence of a break-away state?  That is the question that the International Court of Justice faced when it decided that Kosovo’s Declaration of Independence was legal.  Professor Christian Tams of the University of Glasgow discusses the ICJ’s ruling in the Kosovo Opinion and finds the criticism that many scholars leveled at the world court to be unwarranted.

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