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On October 22, 2024, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit set aside judgments against American cruise ship companies for claimed violations of the Helms-Burton Act arising from their use of port facilities in Cuba. That statute provides a private cause of action against anyone who “traffics” in “property which was confiscated by the Cuban Government.” The Court ruled that because the plaintiff-appellee’s confiscated property interest was a 99-year usufructuary concession that would have expired in 2004, the cruise lines’ use of the property in 2016-2019 did not give rise to a claim for trafficking in confiscated property. (Havana Docks Corp. v. Royal Caribbean Cruises, Ltd., No. 23-10151.)
Background
After coming to power in 1959, the Cuban government under Fidel Castro began nationalizing property interests held by American companies. The U.S. government responded with federal legislation, the Cuban Claims Act of 1964, authorizing claims against the seized properties. Many claims were certified under the law, but the U.S. and Cuban governments have not settled these claims. (Decision at 13-14.)
Plaintiff-appellee Havana Docks Corp. held a 99-year concession that granted the company a usufruct in certain public spaces in and around port facilities in Havana. The concession was set to run from 1905 to 2004, at which time the concession would have expired and the property would have reverted to Cuba. (Decision at 11.)
In 1960, the Castro regime forcibly confiscated and took possession of the port facilities without compensation to Havana Docks. The company filed a claim under the Cuban Claims Act. The U.S. Foreign Claims Settlement Commission, which was authorized to gather information for an eventual negotiation on claims of confiscated properties in Cuba, certified Havana Docks’ claim and assessed the loss at over $9 million, before interest. (Decision at 15.)
The Cuban Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (LIBERTAD) Act, more commonly known as the Helms-Burton Act, provides a private cause of action for U.S. nationals against anyone who “traffics” in property confiscated by the Cuban government. In this litigation, Havana Docks claimed they were entitled to damages from the cruise lines because they trafficked in their confiscated property. The district court found that the cruise lines had engaged in such trafficking and awarded a judgment to Havana Docks. The cruise lines appealed.
Discussion and Holding
The court noted that the case raised a difficult issue of first impression. (Decision at 17.) The court said the way to interpret the Helms-Burton Act cause of action was to “view the property interest at issue . . . as if there had been no expropriation and then determine whether the alleged conduct constituted trafficking in that interest.” (Decision at 21.) The court thus framed the question as turning on whether but for the confiscation, Havana Docks would have had a property interest on the port facilities during the cruise lines’ use of them during 2016-2019. (Decision at 23.)
Addressing the nature of Havana Docks’ property interest, the court quoted Thompson on Real Property to define a “usufructuary concession” as “a personal servitude granting the right to use another’s property and take its ‘fruits’ or profits.” (Decision at 24.) This usufructuary concession gave Havana Docks an interest in property owned by the Cuban government that expired in 2004.
Quoting Buzz Lightyear, the court said Congress did not intend in the Helms-Burton Act to convert property interests that were temporally limited into interests in perpetuity to allow trafficking claims to be asserted through “infinity and beyond.” (Decision at 23.) The court noted the property interest would have expired in 2004 regardless of the Cuban Government’s taking of the facilities. (Decision at 23-24.) It observed that while Havana Docks has a certified claim against the Cuban government under the Cuban Claims Act, “the certified claim is not a means for expanding the nature of a limited property interest” for purposes of the cause of action under the Helms-Burton Act. (Decision at 26.)
Conclusion
While the court held that Havana Docks’ 2016-2019 claims do not satisfy the Helms-Burton Act, it noted its ruling does not preclude claims based on activities during 1996-2001. The Court agreed with both parties that the case should be remanded to the district court for further consideration of those claims. (Decision at 29.)
Louis Myers, Law Library of Congress
November 5, 2024
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The following is a guest post by Stephania Alvarez and Louis Gilbert, foreign law specialists at the Law Library of Congress. Stephania has previously published an FALQ post titled, FALQs: Guyana-Venezuela Territorial Dispute.
Please join us on November 21, 2024, at 2 p.m. EST for our next foreign, comparative, and international law webinar, “Review of LLC Research Reports Published in 2024.” This webinar is the latest installment in the Law Library’s Foreign and Comparative Law Webinar Series.
This presentation will highlight some of the Law Library of Congress’s legal reports published in 2024. This includes reports covering numerous topics at the forefront of legal discussions such as the Regulation of Robocalls and Robotexts, Regulation of Payments to Former Officials from Foreign Governments, Book and Media Censorship in Selected Countries, Climate change and Historic Preservation, Regulation of Assisted Dying, Legal Treatment of Embryos Created Through IVF, Biosecurity Laws, and Innovative Technology in Legislatures in Selected Countries, and more!
The presentation will also review some of the most popular blog posts and Global Legal Monitor articles from the past year.
Please register here.
Stephania Alvarez is a foreign law specialist at the Law Library of Congress. She conducts research and writes reports on a wide range of topics relating primarily to the laws of Central and South American jurisdictions. Stephania has a Bachelor of Laws from Icesi University in Colombia. She completed a dual degree program at Sciences Po in Paris, France, and Georgetown University Law Center earning a master’s in environmental policy and a Master of Laws in environmental and energy law respectively.
Louis Gilbert is a foreign law specialist at the Law Library of Congress. He conducts research and writes reports on topics relating to the laws of French-speaking jurisdictions. He holds a bachelor’s degree in law from the University of Essex, England, and a master’s in comparative law from the Université Paris X, France, and a J.D. from American University.
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I regularly run across items that I want to throw out into the universe in the hope that they find the right person. This is the case with something that I recently found relating to women working during war time. It comes from the Bulletin, a publication produced by the Women’s Bureau, an agency in the Department of Labor. The Bulletin covered many topics in its time, but my attention was caught by “Series of Studies on Employment of Women in Various Defense Industries,” Bulletin number 192, from 1943, a set of reports which include the following:
In part, the series provides a perspective on the real women embodied by Rosie the Riveter, an icon of World War II. As it turns out, the topic of women who worked in government or defense-related industries seems to have been topic of interest from the very first issue of the Bulletin, which discussed the “Proposed Employment of Women During the War in the Industries of Niagara Falls, N.Y.” in 1919. Subsequent issues of the Bulletin, which cover women in government and defense production, include:
Beyond the issues on women in government and the defense industry, the Bulletin published so much on women filling other jobs. There were articles on women in individual industries and occupations like candy making, day care, retail, manufacturing industries, telephone industries, etc., as well as pieces on women in the sciences (No. 223) and medicine (No. 203). It also published pieces on state laws and comprehensive statistical compilations, such as “Women’s Occupations Through Seven Decades” (No. 218) and, “Changes in Women’s Occupations, 1940-1950” (No. 253).
If you are interested in looking at the history of women in the workforce, we have a guide, Women in Business and the Workforce, and of course, the Bulletin is an excellent resource.
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The following is a guest post by Ray White, Senior Music Specialist, Music Division.
Halloween (or All Hallows’ Eve) marks the beginning of a “triduum” (a Latin term for a three-day period) in which the Western Christian church has traditionally contemplated persons who have died. All Hallows’ Day (or more commonly, All Saints’ Day), with origins dating back to the eighth century and usually observed on November 1, commemorates all Christian saints and martyrs. All Souls’ Day, November 2, is wider in scope, commemorating all Christians who have died. Some Christian practices now combine All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day into a single observance (usually called All Saints’ Day, and sometimes held on the first Sunday in November). The “Día de los Muertos” (Day of the Dead), a two-day observance on November 1 and 2, has its roots in this “triduum;” it was largely developed in Mexico but has come to be commemorated elsewhere as well.
In recognition of this season, the Music Division wishes to highlight an extraordinary recent acquisition—a manuscript volume now termed “Last Rites and Matins of the Dead.” This small volume measures just over eight inches tall and slightly less than six inches wide and was created for the use of itinerant Dominican priests (hence, its small size) as they visited the mortally ill and as they prayed over the deceased. It contains the liturgy, music, readings, and instructions for priests, on 53 handwritten pages (22 of them with the appropriate chants notated on four-line staves). It shows evidence of long and steady use.
One of the most remarkable features of this volume is its sheer age. Although it is undated, the style of the manuscript notation indicates that it was produced in Southern France probably between the years 1375 and 1425, thus making it between 600 and 650 years old. It provides an excellent addition to the Music Division’s already-rich holdings of medieval chant manuscript sources but which do not include any example comparable to this one. Furthermore, France is the least-represented country of origin among the Music Division’s collection of books and fragments of liturgical chants, so this volume expands the opportunities to study the geographical differences in notation, format, and illuminations.
The first section of the manuscript relates to the Visitation of the Sick, during which the priest would bless the house with holy water, confess the individual, administer communion, and anoint the individual with holy oil. This part of the manuscript follows with the “commendation anime” (the commendation of the soul for its transition to the afterlife) which includes a lengthy litany and several prayers and blessings.
The second and longer section of the manuscript provides the liturgy performed on the eve of a funeral, consisting of antiphons, versicles and responses, nine readings from the biblical Book of Job, responsories, and alternative prayers for men, women, and bishops. In addition, there are prayers for the Absolution of the Dead, to be recited over the coffin after the funeral mass and before the entombment. The manuscript concludes with the opening of “In Paradisum” (In Paradise), which would be sung during the procession to the burial site.
And to return to the season of Halloween (or Allhallowtide), this manuscript is a significant addition to the Music Division’s resources for projects relating to music composed on the topic of death. The Music Division already holds scores for numerous Requiem mass settings as well as for many individual works relating to death, such as Franz Liszt’s “Totentanz” (or Dance of the Dead, for piano and orchestra, 1849/1859), Sergei Rachmaninov’s symphonic poem “Isle of the Dead” (1909), Frederic Chopin’s “Funeral March” (the third movement of his Piano Sonata No. 2 in B-flat major, composed in 1837) and hundreds of shorter works from every period of music history. This one volume broadens the scope of the Music Division’s holdings on this topic back to the Middle Ages and represents some of the earliest examples of this area of music.
This manuscript has been cataloged with the call number BX2035.6 .F85 1375 Music Case, and it may be examined in the Performing Arts Reading Room of the Library of Congress.
Author and academic Ned Blackhawk has been studying Native American history for a long time, and he thinks there are reasons to be optimistic about the future. He says that groundwork laid over the past several decades, particularly in the 1970s protest movements, has established a growing recognition of Native American influence on the foundations of U.S. culture and society.
“We’re kind of living through this literary and cultural — and one might even say media — renaissance,” he said in a presentation called “American History Is Native History” at the Library’s 2024 National Book Festival. “It’s paralleling or connected to the larger political and economic and social revolution that has been occurring across Indian Country for the past two generations.”
Blackhawk, a member of the Western Shoshone nation, is the Howard R. Lamar professor of history at Yale University and a well-known scholar in the field. His latest book, “The Rediscovery of America,” won the National Book Award for nonfiction this year. At the NBF, he was in conversation with fellow historian Kathleen DuVal, whose “Native Nations: A Millennium in North was published in April. The conversation was moderated by Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo), chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
That growth in representation has been taking place across American society, from politics to scholarship to grassroots government on tribal reservations.
In politics, Deb Haaland (Laguna Pueblo) became the first Native American to serve as the U.S. Secretary of the Interior in 2021, after rising to political prominence in her native New Mexico. In academics, the Native American Indigenous Studies Association has become one of the “growth fields” in academia over the past two decades, Blackhawk said, and is connecting with other indigenous studies associations across the globe.
Culturally, there are several examples. Joy Harjo of the Muscogee (Creek) nation became the first Native American to serve as the U.S. poet laureate when Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden named her to the position in 2019; she served for three years. Tommy Orange (Cheyenne/Arapaho) was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2019 for his novel “There There.” Filmmaker Sterlin Harjo (Seminole, Oklahoma) took “Reservation Dogs,” a comedy set on an Oklahoma reservation, for a three-year run on FX, concluding last year. He is a 2024 MacArthur fellow (commonly called the “genius” grant). Actress Lily Gladstone, raised on the Blackfeet Reservation in Montana, has gained critical acclaim in several roles, including earning a 2024 Oscar nomination for best actress for “Killers of the Flower Moon.”
Meanwhile, tribal governments have gained more autonomy over the past decades, perhaps most notably in the gaming industry. These and other gains are a hard-won act of survival and determination, Blackhawk said, despite centuries of attempts by white settlers to erase them from the map.
“Native nations have had decades — in some cases, centuries — of powerful people and institutions trying to make them not exist,” he said. But, he notes, “There are still tribes all across the United States, often within a 50-mile radius of most large urban centers, who maintain governments, who have citizens, who have delegated budgets and economies, who run hospitals or health care initiatives for their families.”
But the progress isn’t easy or neat. For more than two centuries, Blackhawk and DuVal both said, American history has been taught from only the settlers’ point of view, often dismissing Native viewpoints entirely, leaving behind a misleading account of how the nation was cobbled together.
The result, they said, is that their students are often ignorant of the most basic history of Native American societies that shaped America’s formation. Contact, negotiations and wars went on for more than 200 years between white settlers and Native nations, from the East Coast to the West, in disputes involving hundreds of tribes and across geography ranging from the wooded Northeast to the desert-dry Southwest.
For example, Blackhawk writes, history tends to cast the Colonial struggle with Britain over taxes, exemplified by the Boston Tea Party. But much of the conflict settlers had with the British government was on the western frontier, where settlers wanted to push forward into French and Native territories. Further, in the early days of the nation, most of the first international law the young nation had to deal with was with Native nations in treaties, setting precedents that applied for decades.
“For so long, and really on purpose, the story of American history was told from one perspective,” DuVal said. “And now I think in our classrooms and our books, we’re trying to tell it from multiple perspectives.”
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On August 19, 2024, the Philippines and the United States governments announced they have reached an agreement on allowing a limited number of Afghan nationals to travel to the Philippines and stay there temporarily in order to complete procedures to obtain Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs) and ultimately migrate to the U.S.
Background
Philippine authorities said the U.S. proposed this arrangement to provide SIVs for Afghans and their families who worked for the U.S. government while it conducted military operations in Afghanistan between 2001 and August 2021, when U.S. forces left the country.
Subsequently, the U.S. government launched a program to help certain groups of Afghan nationals to migrate to the United States, including those who worked with U.S. personnel during this period. It is known as “Operation Enduring Welcome” because the commitment does not have an end date. The program utilizes standard immigrant visas, Afghan SIVs, and the refugee admissions program to grant the new arrivals long-term immigration status.
Key Features of the Agreement
Under the agreement, applicants must be medically screened in Afghanistan, undergo security vetting by Philippine authorities, and obtain appropriate entry visas pursuant to its applicable laws and regulations before arriving in the Philippines.
Thereafter, the Philippines Bureau of Immigration has the authority to deny entry to any applicant in cases where applicable immigration examinations conducted at arrival so require.
Applicants will be authorized to stay in the Philippines for up to 59 days and will reside temporarily at a facility dedicated to Afghan relocation efforts.
The U.S. government has committed to ensuring that applicants have adequate educational and social support during their stay in this facility, in collaboration with the International Organization for Migration, which will serve as the facility manager.
The U.S. government will cover living expenses of the Afghans while in the Philippines, including housing, food, safety, transportation, and medical costs.
Status of the Agreement
According to the Philippine News Agency, an online news service of the Philippine government, the agreement must be ratified by Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. before it becomes effective. As of November 1, 2024, no information could be found on whether ratification had occured.
Gustavo Guerra, Law Library of Congress
November 4, 2024
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The following is a guest post by Charlotte Milliken, a former intern with the Creative Digital Publications Program of the Law Library of Congress. She is currently working towards a master’s degree in English at Tulane University.
Standardized time zones are something most Americans take for granted. Yet they are the result of an ambitious project, brought about by the coordinated efforts of transportation officials, railroad engineers, and scientists all over the country. To call this project important would be an understatement in my view; it created the organizational scaffolding upon which long-distance transportation could advance and exemplifies how new technology has restructured human society.
Time for Trains
Time in the late 19th century was a regional affair. Cities would set their clocks by measuring the path of the sun across the meridian. Across latitudinal distances, however, these times would vary, creating a patchwork of localized time zones, over 144 in North America! This presented challenges for long-distance travel, which was becoming more commonplace thanks to the explosive growth of railroads. Much of this growth can be attributed to the Pacific Railway Act of 1862, which funded the construction of a transcontinental railroad stretching from the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean. By 1865, there were an estimated 35,000 miles of track spanning the United States.
Railroads had developed their own internal system of precise timekeeping well before a larger system was ever implemented. Most adhered to the time zone of their home city, or another major city along the line. While many lines began to merge under common regional time zones, there were still an estimated 80 different time zones by the early 1880s. This made traveling by train a confusing ordeal; passengers needed to keep track of the different time standards used for the arrival and departure of trains, and stations used multiple clocks to keep track of the standards used by each railroad. As Charles F. Dowd wrote, “[t]he traveler’s watch was to him but a delusion; clocks at stations staring each other in the face defiant of harmony either with one another or with surrounding local time and all wildly at variance with the traveler’s watch, baffled all intelligent interpretation.”
Proposals at Play
Charles Dowd was the first to propose regional standardized time zones as a solution to this traveler’s dilemma. In 1870, he published a pamphlet entitled “A System of National Time and its Application, by Means of Hour and Minute Indexes, to the National Railway Time-table,” which detailed a plan to divide the country into four time zones, each set one hour apart. The first zone was centered on the 75th meridian west of Greenwich, with the others assigned at the 90th,105th, and 120th meridian. Dowd presented his plan to railroad officials but faced great hurdles in getting his plan approved. Sir Sanford Fleming, the chief engineer of the Governmental Railways of Canada, also proposed a universal time standard in his 1876 memoir Terrestrial Time. Unlike Dowd, Fleming sought to create an international time standard, operating on a 24-hour clock. In 1879, the American Meteorology Society established the Committee on Standard Time at the behest of Cleveland Abbe, who advocated for standardized time as a means of ensuring accurate weather forecasts.
Faced with mounting pressure to adopt a uniform time standard, the rail companies feared a government intervention that might undercut their profits. In October of 1881, railroad officials brought the issue to the General Time Convention, an organization of American railroad companies. Convention secretary and Traveler’s Official Railway Guide publisher, William F. Allen was commissioned to develop a proposal for standardized time. Allen drew from the ideas of Dowd, Fleming, and Abbe to devise a system of regional time zones. However, he also sought out the opinions of railroad engineers and officials, printing a notice in the Traveler’s Official Railroad Guide soliciting opinions on the subject. On October 11, 1883, the General Time Convention gathered at the Grand Pacific Hotel in Chicago, and Allen presented his plan. He called for the adoption of five time zones based upon the mean sun-time on the 75th, 90th, 105th, and 120th meridians west of Greenwich, each set one hour apart. The majority of the railroad officials voted in favor of his plan, and it was decided that railroad clocks across the country would be set to the new standard at noon on November 18, 1883.
The Day of Two Noons
Once they had agreed on a plan, the railroad companies needed to ensure the cooperation of the American public. Railroad officials visited city governments to persuade them to adopt the new time standard. Newspapers across the country detailed instructions for adjusting watches and clocks, and printed maps outlining the new time zones. Both the United States Naval Observatory and the Allegheny Observatory in Pittsburgh agreed to send out a telegraph signal to help the railroad companies synchronize their clocks. On November 18, 1883, the clock struck noon twice in several cities: once at the previous local time, and once at the new standard time. Thus it was colloquially referred to as the “Day of Two Noons.”
Thanks to the meticulous planning of railroad officials, the transition into standardized time was almost seamless. Most cities adopted the new time standard immediately, and many more converted within the next year. However, public opinion was divided. While most found the new system convenient, some objected to what they considered a violation of the natural order. The Indianapolis Sentinel published a particularly scathing condemnation of railroad time, as follows:
“People will have to marry by railroad time and die by railroad time. Ministers will be required to preach by railroad time—banks will open and close by railroad time—in fact, the Railroad Convention has taken charge of the time business, and the people may as well set about adjusting their affairs in accordance with its decree…We presume the sun, moon and stars will make an attempt to ignore the orders of the Railroad Convention, but they, too, will have to give in at last.”
While these concerns were clearly hyperbolic, the Indianapolis Sentinel had struck upon a very real truth: the operations of businesses would increasingly organize the lives of the American people. Standardized time was here to stay.
Living in Standardized Time
The system created by railroad officials remained the standard until 1918 when Congress passed the Standard Time Act (40 Stat. 450). This act incorporated standardized time into federal law and placed the authority to set time zone boundaries in the hands of the Interstate Commerce Commission. It also created Daylight Savings Time (DST), although this was repealed after World War I. However, in 1942, Congress enacted the War Time Act (56 Stat. 9), reintroducing DST year-round as a means of conserving energy until the war ended. At that time, the issue of DST was left with local governments, again creating a convoluted patchwork of regional time zones. In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson passed the Uniform Time Act (89 Stat. 387), ending the confusion by “promot[ing] the observance of a uniform system of time throughout the United States.”
The current system of standardized time in the United States remains largely the same as that first introduced by the railroad companies, although the boundaries of time zones have shifted here and there as counties have appealed for relocation. Despite passenger trains gradually falling out of fashion in favor of the automobile and airplane, time zones are an enduring legacy of the railroad.
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On November 1, 2024, the revised Emergency Response Law of the People’s Republic of China took effect. The law was originally enacted in 2007 and revised by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress on June 28, 2024.
The revision to the Emergency Response Law was prompted by new challenges that have arisen in recent years in China’s emergency management, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. According to an explanation made in 2021 by China’s then-Minister of Justice regarding the revision, these challenges include inefficiencies in the reporting and dissemination of information, unclear protections for safeguarding the legitimate rights of individuals and organizations, and gaps in the emergency support system with respect to the provision of essential resources. The updated law aims to address these issues and strengthen the overall management and response mechanisms for future emergencies.
Information Reporting and Dissemination Mechanisms
The 2024 revision of the Emergency Response Law strengthens the management of emergency information. Unlike the 2007 law, which required prompt release of emergency decisions (2007 Law art. 10), the new law creates a comprehensive national system to ensure timely, accurate information dissemination, preventing misinformation that could threaten social stability. It prohibits fabricating or spreading false information and requires the government to issue clarifications when such misinformation is detected. (Art. 7.) It also enforces government accountability, requiring immediate verification of emergency reports and swift referrals if when verification must occur outside an agency’s jurisdiction (art. 60), while prohibiting delays, falsification, or interference in reporting, including directing or organizing others to do so (art. 61).
The new law regulates media conduct by establishing a structured approach to news reporting. The government will “guide and support” media outlets in providing “timely, accurate, objective, and impartial” coverage, while media organizations are required to run public service campaigns to educate the public on emergency laws, prevention, response, and self-rescue techniques. (Art. 8.) Additionally, the law introduces a platform for release of early warning information through various channels, including broadcast, television, print, online platforms, and telecommunications providers, all free of charge. (Art. 65.)
Safeguards for Personal Rights
The new law requires emergency measures to match the threat’s nature and severity, and where multiple options are available, to prioritize those that best protect individuals, organizations, and the environment with minimal harm, adjusting them as conditions evolve for accuracy and effectiveness. (Art. 10.) Additionally, it prioritizes the protection of vulnerable groups, including minors, the elderly, persons with disabilities, pregnant and nursing women, and those in urgent need of medical care (art. 11), ensuring their rights and needs are safeguarded during emergencies.
The new law introduces several provisions on personal data protection, addressing concerns over the excessive use of health codes during the pandemic. Government may request necessary information for emergency response, but only within legal limits, ensuring confidentiality. Authorities must also safeguard citizens’ communication freedom and privacy of correspondence. (Art. 83.) Entities involved in emergency efforts must follow legal procedures when accessing personal data and ensure its security. These entities are prohibited from illegally collecting, using, disclosing, or selling such information. (Art. 84.) Personal data collected for emergencies can only be used for that specific purpose and must be destroyed afterward, unless legally required for retention. In such cases, authorities must ensure legality, necessity, and data security. (Art. 85.)
Management and Allocation of Funds and Resources
The new law introduces measures to improve the management and allocation of emergency funds and resources, aiming to enhance transparency and prevent misuse. It strengthens financing mechanisms by requiring local governments to include emergency response expenditures in their annual budgets and manage these funds efficiently. (Art. 44.) It emphasizes financial oversight during emergencies and prohibits unauthorized withholding, misappropriation, or private use of emergency resources. (Art. 54.) It also increases transparency in handling donations, with organizations required to publicly disclose how funds are received, used, and managed, subject to public oversight. (Art. 52.) Additionally, it mandates auditing and supervision of emergency funds and materials to ensure legality, necessity, and compliance with regulations (art. 93), providing an extra layer of accountability.
Prepared by Jingjing Gao, Law Library Intern, under the supervision of Laney Zhang, Foreign Law Specialist
November 1, 2024
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Interested in learning more about what’s new in the Library of Congress’s digital collections? The Signal shares updates on new additions to our digital collections and we love showing off all the hard work of our colleagues from across the Library. Read on for a sample of what’s been added recently and some of our favorite highlights. Click here for all previous updates.
Spanning the years 1915-1968, with most dating from 1940 to 1960, these records document the work and procedures of the organization as it combated racial discrimination in the nation’s courts, establishing in the process a public interest legal practice that was unprecedented in American jurisprudence. The organization’s records cover a host of topics, including segregation in schools, on buses, and in public facilities, discrimination in housing and property ownership, voting rights, police brutality, racial violence, and countless other infringements of civil rights.
This initial release presents the first 23 items in a collection of more than 90 manuscript books about law dating from before 1600 AD and representing a variety of languages and jurisdictions. The dates of their production range from the early 13th century to the end of the 16th century, and the texts contained in them represent more than fifteen hundred years of legal tradition from classical antiquity through the Middle Ages. They pertain to jurisdictions covering the Mediterranean basin, Western Europe, and the British Isles, and they cover legal systems including Roman law, canon law, feudal law, and the customary law of the European kingdoms as well as those kingdoms’ statutes.
The journals of Benajah Jay Antrim (1819-1903), a chemist, photographer, mathematical instrument maker, and artist are now available on loc.gov. They are comprised of three volumes of handwritten diary entries, two complementary volumes of pencil or pen-and-ink drawings, and watercolor images of his February – April 1849 journey from Philadelphia, PA, to San Francisco, CA, through Mexico.
Additionally, over 1,700 new Foreign Legal Gazettes are now available from Slovakia, ranging from 2020-2023, and 50 new recordings were added to the PALABRA Archive. Read more about this exciting PALABRA release on the Library’s 4 Corners of the World blog: Fifty New Recordings from the PALABRA Archive Now Available.
A new dataset was created from the Motion Picture, Broadcasting & Recorded Sound Division’s “Show Music on Record” database. And there are now 11 different versions of the OpenStreetMap global data layers, covering 2014 to 2024. Want to learn more about accessing and using datasets from the Library? Check out this helpful resource: Datasets at the Library of Congress: A Research Guide.
The Library of Congress regularly receives digitized newspaper content from award recipients (contributors) in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP). Content is delivered in the form of batches, where each batch can contain one or more issues, from one or more newspapers. Recently loaded batches can be discovered on the Chronicling America Research Guide. More details about the batch can be discovered by clicking on the batch name link!
Thanks to a recent batch from the Library of Virginia containing the Virginia Gazette, Chronicling America now goes back to September 3, 1736, extending Chronicling America another 20 years! This newspaper was published using the Julian calendar, which was still being used in England and its colonies until 1752. You will notice that the first two weeks in September 1752 appear to be missing, though there are no missing issues from that month. This is because the Julian calendar dropped 11 days in that year to align with the more accurate Gregorian calendar. We still use the Gregorian calendar today.
Other titles that we recently added include:
New items are added every week into stacks.loc.gov – the Library’s primary onsite platform for accessing restricted digital content. To learn more about Stacks, check out this video from our team: Access the Digital Stacks On-Site at the Library of Congress!
Recent highlights from Stacks include new St. Marks poetry recordings from the Rare Book Division, content from the Pandemic Folk Architecture collection from American Folklife Center, and select titles from the Japanese Censorship collection from the Asian Division. Other highlights from Stacks include Pickleball fundamentals / USA Pickleball, Translating for museums, galleries and heritage sites, Art law: a concise guide for artists, curators, and museum professionals, and Peace by design.
And some seasonal additions to Stacks include Can you escape a haunted castle?: an interactive paranormal adventure, Our favorite Halloween recipes, Spooky haunted house: DIY cobwebs, coffins, and more, Great MLB World Series championships, The World Series: baseball’s fall classic.
Please reach out to a librarian at ask.loc.gov with questions about accessing these materials using Stacks.
Two web archive collections have been described and made more discoverable to users. The Local History and Genealogy Web Archive includes websites for local genealogical and historical societies in the United States, as well as ethnic-specific content for researchers interested in genealogy related to particular groups. And the Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan Government Web Archive includes a broad overview of national and regional politics, economics, social conditions, and the state of religious freedom in the titular countries of Central Asia (below).
The loss of a loved one brings grief, tears and heartache that often takes years to heal. Yet as the first of November rolls around each year, the air in many a Hispanic household fills with the sweet scent of pan de muerto, a soft, round bread infused with anise and orange zest. Home altars are filled with marigolds — their petals a fiery orange — candles and brightly painted sugar skulls.
These symbols of Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) in Hispanic culture are far from mournful or somber. Instead, they’re a joyful tribute to departed loved ones, blending pre-Columbian traditions with modern expressions of love and remembrance.
Día de los Muertos, celebrated throughout Latin America and by Hispanic communities in the U.S., is a vibrant tapestry that weaves together past and present, allowing us to connect with our ancestors while grounding us in our own lives.
The holiday traces its roots to the rituals of Indigenous peoples of Mexico, where skulls were crafted in spectacular ways to honor deceased relatives. When Spanish conquistadors arrived in the 16th century, these traditions merged with Catholic observances, shifting to align with All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day. In Catholic traditions that go back for centuries, these have been celebrated on Nov. 1 and Nov. 2, respectively. All Saints’ Day also has been long known as All Hallows’ Day — which, in Western Europe, long ago piggybacked onto the Celtic holiday of Samhain. This was a festival in which people would, in the darkening of the year, light bonfires and wear costumes to ward off ghosts. Over time, the two holidays combined. The night before All Hallows’ Day became known as All Hallows’ Eve. Or, as we now call it, Halloween.
In the Americas, this blending of beliefs gave way to communal celebrations that view death as part of the life cycle.
So although the Día de los Muertos relates to Halloween, the two have distinct beliefs and practices that should not be confused.
“Just as Halloween’s pre-Christian roots are Celtic, the Día de los Muertos has roots in Indigenous Mexican and Central American cultures,” said Stephen Winick, a folklife specialist at the Library’s American Folklife Center. “It’s generally a more solemn and reflective holiday, with a greater focus on remembrance of ancestors and deceased loved ones.”
He continues: “In the modern context, Día de los Muertos is also an occasion for social gatherings, music and culture festivals, parades and costume contests.”
The Library holds a wealth of resources in multiple formats — books, films, photos, graphics, recorded performances and recipe books — that delve into this rich history.
The AFC released late last year a series of never-before-seen photos of a Día de los Muertos festival in Oakland, California, in 1999. The annual one-day street festival began in 1996 as part of a revitalization effort of the Fruitvale commercial area in a primarily low-income Latino community.
The Library’s Hispanic Reading Room displays an elaborate altar every year that evokes those found in Mexico and among Mexican American communities throughout the U.S. These altars typically include freshly cut marigolds or cempasúchil flowers whose vibrant colors and strong fragrances are said to guide the souls on their journey home. There are also candles, photographs of departed loved ones, some of their favorite albums, foods, drinks, spirits and sentimental trinkets.
Mexican communities also organize parades and gatherings, complete with skeleton costumes, dancing and music. Playlists for the holiday would be lacking without a rendition of “La Llorona,” the weeping woman of Mexican and Latin American ghost lore.
It’s the tragic story of a woman who mourns her three children whom she killed in despair after her wealthy lover — and father of the children — abandoned her to marry another woman. Her anguished wails echo through lonely places as she seeks revenge on men for her heartbreak. There are multiple versions of this legendary character, surfacing as a ghost in some and as an immortal wanderer in others, but always weeping loudly at nightfall.
Other people in Latin America celebrate the holiday in a more subdued fashion, attending mass and visiting cemeteries to decorate burial sites with colorful wreaths. Fizzy drinks and savory meals are on the menu to dine with the dead, along with prayers and music. In Mexico and parts of Central America, tamales boiling on the stove and freshly baked pan de muerto are special treats for the occasion.
Papel picado (perforated paper), sugar skulls and other depictions of calaveras or skeleton figures, are also used to illustrate the symbolism of the legendary celebration. The Prints and Photographs Division houses one of the most extensive collections of works done by Mexican printmaker and lithographer José Guadalupe Posada in the U.S., including a treasure trove of prints, some featuring miniature Catrina calaveras — elegant female skull figures symbolizing death’s equality.
Spanish is rich with humorous phrases and sayings that celebrate life in the face of death. Some are used to mark someone’s passing, to mock death or for setting the tone for the holiday’s love-laughter-remembrance theme. People gather to share memories and stories and honor the legacy of loved ones because “to live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die.”
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Whether you think black cats are spooky, good luck, or simply adorable companions, the many images featuring these striking felines in the collections are evidence that photographers and other artists have found them compelling since at least the 19th century.
This photograph by Arthur Rothstein highlights the tonal contrast between the cat’s dark fur and the bright snow, with shadows providing additional texture.
Some black cats, such as the one in the image below, seem to hide in plain sight:
This 35mm film strip shows five and a half frames of a handsome black cat, lounging first on a chair, and then on a table:
The name and sign for this restaurant in Cape Cod pay tribute to the sleek black cat:
Visuals of black cats in our collections are not limited to photographs. The Black Cat magazine published short stories, including early work by Jack London and Henry Miller, and the magazine’s namesake often appeared on its covers.
Black cats were sometimes used in product labels, presumably because they were thought to appeal to the masses, as can be seen in this trademark for Black Cat Crochet Cotton brand thread:
The silhouette of the black cat on this poster was used to emphasize the point made by the text placed directly above it:
This photo of a black kitten provides a different take on an arched back — in this case, it’s purr-fectly adorable:
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The following is a guest post by Mary-Claire Sarafianos, a former intern with the Digital Resources Division of the Law Library of Congress. She is a second-year Ph.D. student in English at the University of Missouri. She studies silence and structure, both as problems in archives and as features of 19th-century American women’s writing.
In the village of Nyack, New York, an 18-room Victorian estate perches on the edge of the road, looming big and blue above the Hudson River. Local legend proclaimed that the house was haunted. Many a ghost story had been told about this home–a Navy lieutenant from the American Revolution lurking around the basement, an invisible force shaking beds, and a spirit floating and rocking in the middle of the living room. The house and the various spectral presences within it were well-known by the local people of Nyack, but these stories have gone beyond local legend–unlike any other house in American history, 1 La Veta Place was declared, as a matter of law, haunted.
But before the house’s ghosts became a matter of legal record, 1 La Veta Place was considered haunted by locals. The house was even “included in a five-home walking tour of Nyack and described in a November 27th newspaper article as ‘a riverfront Victorian (with ghost).’” (Stambovsky v. Ackley, 169 A.D.2d 254, 256 (N.Y. App. Div. 1991.) During her time living at 1 La Veta Place, Helen Ackley not only spoke publicly about the ghosts, she wrote about them on both a local and national level. Ackley wrote a story detailing her house’s various phantasmal residents in a local newspaper in 1982, in addition to an article she wrote for Reader’s Digest in 1977 that described the ghosts and their relationship to the human inhabitants of the home. (Stambovsky at 256.) Apparently, the ghosts at 1 La Veta Place were an odd but friendly group of phantoms, but when the house went up for sale, these ghost stories were confronted with the looming figure of the law, leading to the case of Stambovsky v. Ackley, or what is colloquially known as “The Ghostbuster Ruling.”
When Ackley put the home up for sale, she hired Ellis Realty, who would become her co-defendant in the ensuing legal trouble. Jeffrey Stambovsky, a New York City resident who was unfamiliar with the Nyack folklore and the reputation of the Ackley home, made an offer on the home for $650,000. (Stambovsky at 256.) But some time between making the down payment and closing on the house, Stambovsky discovered the reputation of 1 La Veta Place. According to the majority opinion, when Stambovsky discovered that he was purchasing an allegedly haunted house, he “sought to rescind the $650,000 contract of sale and obtain return of his $32,500 down payment without resort to litigation.” (Stambovsky at 261.) When this did not work, Stambovsky brought his complaint to court and requested not only to cancel the contract to purchase the home but also to request damages for fraudulent misrepresentation by Ackley and her real estate broker, Ellis Realty. (Stambovsky at 256.) And just like that, the house became less of a local legend and more of a legal entanglement.
The appeals court found that caveat emptor did not apply to Stambovsky’s case. As the majority opinion states, “[a]pplying the strict rule of caveat emptor to a contract involving a house possessed by poltergeists conjures up visions of a psychic or medium routinely accompanying the structural engineer and Terminix man on an inspection of every home subject to a contract of sale.” (Stambovsky at 257.) The appeals court allowed Stambovsky to seek rescission of the contract for sale of the home. (Stambovsky at 260-261.) What the case affirms is not that ghosts exist in a legal sense, but that if the house can be considered haunted enough to merit being a stop on a tour of haunted houses and be the subject of an article in Reader’s Digest, then that spooky reputation must be disclosed to potential buyers.
This verdict presents both sellers and buyers of real estate with complicated questions about the reputations and histories of property and, though not everyone believes in ghosts, houses are often haunted by the crimes, tragedies, and misfortunes that have happened within their walls. Such houses are considered stigmatized properties, which are properties that have been “psychologically impacted by an event which occurred, or was suspected to have occurred, on the property, such an event being one that has no physical impact of any kind.” Whether there is a reputation for ghosts, crime, or misfortune, the public perception of stigmatized property can make it difficult to sell, regardless of the quality of the land or structure. In the case of Stambovsky v. Ackley, the stigmatized nature of the property could actually attract buyers; 1 La Veta Place drew the attention of The Amazing Kreskin, a mentalist who wanted to buy the house, despite its haunted reputation.
The legal responsibilities of both sellers and buyers of stigmatized property vary from state to state. In New York today, deaths, crimes, or stigmatizing features of a property are not required to be disclosed to a seller, but the buyer may inquire as to any of these concerns and the seller may “choose whether or not to respond to the inquiry.” Pennsylvania law has upheld similar requirements, particularly in the case of Milliken v. Jacono, which concluded that “psychological damage to a property cannot be considered a material defect in the property which must be revealed by the seller to the buyer.” (Milliken v. Jacono, 60 A.3d 133, 138 (Pa. Super. Ct. 2012).) While many states follow New York and Pennsylvania, other states require that sellers disclose to buyers whether certain violent crimes were committed on a property. In Alaska, if a licensee knows that a murder or suicide occurred on the property within the last year, they are obligated to disclose this information to the buyer before an offer is made or accepted. In South Dakota, a similar law is in place that requires a property disclosure statement that includes the question: “Since you have owned the property, are you aware of a human death by homicide or suicide occurring on the property?”
Some states have no requirements or laws on the books that indicate whether a property’s tragic or torrid history needs to be disclosed to the buyer, but certainly no other states have put their caveat emptor doctrines to the test against ghosts in the way that New York has. In the interest of ending on a slightly more humorous note, I turn again to the majority opinion of Stambovsky v. Ackley, which brought a level of humor to the conclusions of the case that have earned it the nickname “The Ghostbusters Ruling.” The majority opinion references the movie Ghostbusters by name and uses even more ghostly puns than I have employed throughout this blog post. (Stambovsky at 257.) The humor of the majority opinion even weaves its way into the logic of the case where the judge states that “if the language of the contract is to be construed as broadly as defendant urges to encompass the presence of poltergeists in the house, it cannot be said that she has delivered the premises ‘vacant’ in accordance with her obligation under the provisions of the contract rider.” (Stambovsky at 260.) In keeping with the humor of the court opinion, this case remains a spot of humor in contract law curricula across the country. Stambovsky v. Ackley and cases like it continue to spark conversation and legislation around caveat emptor and stigmatized property.
If you are interested in learning about how English law handles the disclosure of hauntings, see the previous In Custodia Legis post, “Revealing the Presence of Ghosts.“
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On August 9, 2024, the National Committee for Setting the Minimum Wage (the Committee) issued Notification No. 1/2024, which amends the minimum wage rate for workers. Notification No.1/2024 granted an additional daily allowance of Myanmar kyat (MMK) 1000 (US$0.48), in addition to setting a new minimum wage rate of MMK 6,800 (US$3.24) for an eight-hour workday, effective August 1, 2024. The notification exempts small and family-owned businesses with fewer than ten workers.
Background
The Minimum Wage Law 2013 (2013 MWL) established the National Committee for Setting the Minimum Wage, which is made up of representatives from government, employers, and labor. (2013 MWL, Sec. 2(H).) The committee determines the minimum wage following negotiations with representatives from various sectors. (Sec. 10 (D).)
The 2013 MWL provides that the minimum wage rate shall be reviewed at least every two years. (Sec. 5(H.) When determining the minimum wage, the Committee must consider various factors including the needs of workers and their families, existing salaries, living costs, employment opportunities, the economy, health hazards, and other relevant facts as approved by the Ministry of Labor, Employment, and Social Security and the Union Government. (Sec. 7.)
In August 2015, the Committee issued Notification 2/2015, which announced a general minimum wage of 3,600 MMK (US$1.72) for an eight-hour workday. That notification exempted small enterprises and family-owned and self-managed enterprises with 15 or fewer employees.
In May 2018, the Committee issued Notification 2/2018, which increased the minimum wage to MMK 4,800 (US$2.29) for an eight-hour workday. Small and family-owned self-managed enterprises with 10 or fewer employees were exempted.
After 5 years without any changes, in October 2023, the Committee issued Notification No. 2/2023. Notification No.2/2023 introduced an additional daily allowance of MMK 1,000 that was added to the minimum daily wage of MMK 4,800 for an eight-hour workday. This adjustment was not applicable to businesses with 10 or fewer workers.
Notification 1/2024 stipulates that effective August 1, 2024, workers will receive an additional allowance of K1,000 in addition to the K1,000 allowance granted by Notification No. 2/2023, applicable on working days, public holidays, and paid leave.
Prepared by CH Seng Myaw, Foreign Law Intern, under the supervision of Sayuri Umeda, Foreign Law Specialist
Law Library of Congress, October 31, 2024
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One of the perplexing aspects of the surge in witch trials that took place in Europe between the 15th and the 18th centuries is the question of how much the personal experiences of that era’s legal personnel influenced the practice of criminal justice throughout the period. In a previous post on this blog, we saw that the political philosopher and witchcraft theorist Jean Bodin cited the existence of a (mostly) invisible guiding spirit that helped to steel his resolve against demonic foes. In this post, we will take a look at Joost de Damhouder, the author of an important 16th century handbook on criminal law, who described an anomalous experience involving an amulet that shaped his views on the use of torture, a story that seems actually to have taken place.
In the first half of the 16th century, the legal field underwent a process of professionalization throughout much of Western Europe. This was driven in part by the expansion of the use of the printing press, which gave legal practitioners access to a much wider body of legal texts and information than was possible before the age of printing. That change also triggered new demand for small-format general practice guides that could put immediate and practical knowledge in the hands of the lawyers, magistrates and lower officials that managed the daily business of the law in Renaissance Europe.
Within a couple decades, the market for subject-specific practice books and treatises began to expand as well. On the subject of criminal procedure, two important examples of this literature appeared in Venice, Italy to solid commercial success, Practica causarum criminalis of Hippolytus de Marsiliis [Venice, 1529] and Practica Nova Causarum Criminalium of Lodovico Carerio (Venice, 1546). These were joined by others in short order. For example, Joost de Damhouder (1507-1581), a lawyer from Bruges who had worked in criminal law and who was a member of the fiscal council of the Netherlands in Brussels (which is now in Belgium), seized the opportunity to capitalize on this trend. He published in 1554 a work that captured the current state of criminal practice law in his home region of Flanders. (Dauchy et. al., ch. , 3sect. 26.) That work was Praxis rerum criminalium (Criminal Matters Practice).
Damhouder first published Praxis rerum criminalium under the title Enchiridion rerum criminalium (Guidebook of Criminal Matters) in Leuven in 1554 and changed the title in subsequent editions. It went on to be printed many times and became over a handful of years perhaps the most influential short handbook on the subject of criminal law in Europe. (Dauchy et al., ch. 3, sect. 26.) In some respects, this was because of the qualities of the text, which presented succinct and clear statements on a number of areas within the subject of criminal law, including rules governing accusation, investigation of crime, torture, incarceration, and various categories of criminal activity. Some of these categories are very familiar: theft, fraud, assault and battery, murder, rape, arson, and more. Others sound antiquated: throwing waste out of a window, adultery, banditry, and grave robbery, for instance. (Dauchy et al., ch. 3, sect. 26.) Some belong to a world that is distinctly alien to most of the audience of this post: blasphemy, sacrilege, treason against God, and witchcraft. Categories along these lines sufficed, apparently, to make the book widely useful.
A large measure of its success, however, must also be due to the 57 wood engravings that Damhouder commissioned for the book’s publication. Unlike many books of that format and price point, Praxis rerum ciminialium was more-or-less festooned with images. These depicted crimes, tribunals, and penalties suffered by the convicted. Illustrations of this or any quality were more typically found in books that sold at luxury prices. This title, however, was both offered in a less expensive format and illustrated with fascinating images of the world of crime and punishment. (Dauchy et. al., ch. 3, sect. 26.)
An interesting point about Damhouder’s book is that it is, almost in its entirety, a Latin translation of a pre-existing manuscript that was written by another author. The original that stands behind Praxis rerum criminalium, was a Flemish work by Philips Wielant (1441 or 1442-1520), a magistrate who served on the Council of Flanders. That book was called Corte instructie in materie criminele. (Dauchy et al., ch. 3, sect. 26.) Wielant prepared a first version of the text in 1510 and a second, augmented version, in 1515. A French version dating to 1519 also exists. (Monballyu, p. 293.) Wielant, who was a couple generations older than Damhouder, never had the book printed, and it did not appear in print until an edition of Wielant’s works was made from existing manuscripts in 1872. That publication led to the discovery that Damhouder’s book cannibalized Wielant’s text. (Dauchy et al., ch. 3, sect. 26.)
The originality of Damhouder’s work has to do first with its publication in the Latin language, which made it far more accessible to the overall European community than the Dutch original, and secondly with the images that he added, which had something like the same effect. But we do see a flash of independence in another area, in a place in which Damhouder deviates from Wielant’s text. That is regarding the crime of witchcraft. (Monballyu, p. 299 and following.)
Where Damhouder provides a bit of original material is in his chapters on torture. (Monballyu, p. 293.) Of interest to him is that people who practice magic sometimes use magical means to avoid suffering the pain of torture. And if the torture victim suffers no pain from the ordeal, then she will not be compelled to answer the investigator’s questions. This renders the magistrates helpless to produce a confession. If this is allowed to take place, many accused will escape punishment. To avoid this, Damhouder makes a particular plea that investigators should never neglect to shave the entire body of a person accused of witchcraft. The purpose of this surprising measure is simple: one must expose to sight any place on the body of the accused where she might hide a talisman or a charm, since magical objects were often used to nullify the pain that the investigators were trying to inflict. Damhouder is especially insistent that shame and embarrassment should not prevent investigators from shaving the accused entirely. (Monballyu, p. 293.) In the French version of the book, Pratique judiciaire des causes criminelles, published in Anvers in 1564, Damhouder relates an experience he claims to have had that convinced him of the need for this precaution. The story appears in chapter 37 of the 1564 work, from paragraph 19 onward (ff. 38v.-41r.).
The story he tells took place when Damhouder resided in Bruges, a period between 1537 and 1550, during which time he was a city alderman. There was an old woman living in town who was said to be able to effect miraculous cures for people who had injuries or illnesses. In general, she was highly regarded by the public, which valued her healing skills and tended to think of her as a quite devout, even saintly, Christian, “an apostle of Christ,” in Damhouder’s telling. This reputation did not impress certain aldermen of Bruges who sought to have her investigated on grounds she might be using illicit magic to work her cures. In consequence of this, she was apprehended in the middle of the night and incarcerated with a view to questioning her. The interrogation was, at first, entirely useless, despite the investigators’ use of torture. The old woman insisted throughout that she was doing nothing at all out of line and that she was a devout Christian. In a strange episode, the mayor of Bruges, who was present, gasped several times on account of suffering a severe case of arthritis. When the woman commented on it, he offered her payment to cure him. She agreed, and when one of the men present asked what means she would use, she assured the mayor that he needed to do nothing but believe that she could heal him. These were fateful words. Upon hearing them, the men who were present warned the mayor that her answer revealed that she was not relying on God, but on some other power to effect her cures and that he should have nothing to do with it. Apostles of Christ, they said, always mention God’s name.
What followed was a series of fruitless interrogations assisted by torture. In the third session, Damhouder tells us, she mocked her captors and even fell asleep during the questioning. At length, it was noticed that while her hair was shaved in preparation for the fourth round of questioning, that the interrogators had neglected to shave all of her body hair before continuing. When they finally did so, they discovered, hidden on her person, a small parchment on which was written strange writing and the symbol of the cross. Once it was removed from her body, she was returned to be tortured again. During that session, she confessed to relying on the aid of the devil to perform her cures. In view of her age and gender, the authorities agreed to subject her to a brief public humiliation and then to banish her from the city rather than to execute her. In time, she was arrested again, this time by magistrates in Middlebourg, a town in Zeeland. There she was burned at the stake.
Some facts of this story can be verified. History scholar Jan Monballyu has identified a woman whose fate matches the fate of the woman in this story, both in the details of her detainment and questioning – and subsequent banishment – in Bruges. The person depicted in the account is likely Catherine Onbaerts, a widow of a laborer in Westkapelle named Boudin Baarnaert. She was banished from Bruges on August 26, 1538, and later sentenced by a tribunal of aldermen in Vlissingen to death by burning on January 20, 1541. (Monballyu, pp. 305-306.) Some details of the story – for example, the discovery of the amulet or the turnaround in the woman’s resistance to questioning – cannot be corroborated.
I repeat Damhouder’s tale here only in scant detail. Monballyu has paraphrased in modern French the entire story that Damhouder tells in his article cited below. The original French of the 1564 edition, however, is manageable for French readers. The story is remarkable, since Damhouder shares almost no other details about his life in any edition of this book. How to interpret it is an open question, but it does offer a window into how a person of those times who had active involvement in a particularly terrible chapter in European history, and whose book led many others to follow his example, tried to make sense of his own actions.
Secondary Sources:
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On October 4, 2024, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that aspects of the Fédération Internationale de Football Association’s (FIFA’s) Regulations on the Status and Transfer of Players (RSTP) are contrary to European Union (EU) law, particularly in relation to the free movement of workers and competition law. (Fédération Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) v. Diarra (C-650/22).)
Background
The ruling echoes concerns previously highlighted in the 1995 Bosman case (C-415/93) regarding the compatibility of soccer’s regulatory frameworks with EU law. That was the first case in which the CJEU ruled that professional soccer associations in the EU must comply with European law and respect players’ rights as employees. The practice of requiring transfer payments for a player even after the end of their contract with the former club, as well as restrictions on the number of foreign players from other EU countries in certain leagues, were abolished following the ruling.
Case Overview
The current case arose following a contractual dispute between Lassana Diarra, a French soccer player, and the Russian soccer club Lokomotiv Moscow. After Diarra unilaterally terminated his contract with the club, he sought to transfer to another club in Belgium. However, FIFA’s RSTP presented substantial legal barriers to this transfer, in particular because they imposed liabilities on the new club in cases of unresolved disputes with the former employer. Diarra challenged these provisions in a Belgian court, arguing that they restricted his ability to move freely and secure new employment, thereby infringing upon his rights under article 45 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). He further contended that FIFA’s regulations violated article 101 of the TFEU, which prohibits agreements that restrict competition. The Court of Appeals in Mons, Belgium, referred the case to the CJEU, requesting a preliminary ruling on the compatibility of the FIFA regulations with EU law.
Key Legal Findings
The court ruled that the current transfer system under FIFA’s RSTP violates both the right to free movement of workers under article 45 and the prohibition of competition-restricting agreements under article 101. While the CJEU acknowledged that FIFA, as a regulatory body, has a legitimate interest in maintaining stability within soccer competitions and ensuring contractual stability, it emphasized that any such regulatory measures must adhere to the principles of proportionality and transparency. (Decision, paras. 76-85.) It held that FIFA’s transfer regulations, as applied in Diarra’s case, created substantial barriers to the free movement of workers guaranteed under article 45. (Paras. 86–114.) Measured against the legitimate aim of maintaining the integrity of soccer competitions, it found the provisions in question to be disproportionate. (Paras. 100, 113.) Specifically, the court determined that the rules governing the unilateral termination of contracts and the corresponding compensation mechanisms disproportionately favored clubs by imposing significant financial risks on new employers, thereby deterring clubs from signing players involved in contractual disputes. (Paras. 107-110.)
Furthermore, the court criticized the lack of legal certainty in the regulatory framework, particularly regarding the definition of terms such as “just cause” for contract termination. (Paras. 105, 106.) The indeterminate nature of these terms, the court ruled, allows for arbitrary and inconsistent application, further restricting the free movement of players within the EU labor market.
The judgment also addressed the compatibility of FIFA’s transfer regulations with EU competition law under article 101 of the TFEU. (Paras. 115-158.) Article 101 provides that agreements or decisions that may affect trade between EU member states and have as their object or effect the prevention, restriction, or distortion of competition within the internal market are prohibited. The court found that the transfer system operated as a “restriction of competition by object” by creating disincentives for clubs to engage in the hiring of players with unresolved disputes, thus functioning as a form of market partitioning. (Para. 148.) By reducing the pool of potential employers for such players, the regulations restricted the competitive dynamics of the labor market in soccer, in violation of article 101 para. 1.
In general, the court criticized the current system for being overly complex and unpredictable. It stressed that rules governing the movement of players must not impose burdens that exceed what is necessary to achieve legitimate regulatory objectives. (Para. 95.)
Similar Developments in U.S. Sports Law
In 2021, the U.S. Supreme Court addressed the rules of a sport’s governing body when it issued its ruling in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) v. Alston. The court held that the NCAA’s restrictions on education-related benefits for student-athletes violated antitrust laws, emphasizing that the NCAA cannot limit the financial aid schools can provide to athletes for academic-related expenses.
Prepared by Maximilian Spitzley, Law Library Intern, under the supervision of Jenny Gesley, Foreign Law Specialist
Law Library of Congress, October 30, 2024
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Each year on October 30, the Library’s Music Division presents its Founder’s Day concert. This homage to Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge (1864-1953), namesake of our concert hall and founder of our world-renowned concert series, is a longstanding tradition that ensures our appreciation for Mrs. Coolidge’s impact remains strong. We also find joy in sharing Mrs. Coolidge’s story and impact with audiences who are new to the series. This year’s Founder’s Day concert (October 30, 2024, 8 p.m.) features flutist Emi Ferguson and ruckus in an eclectic concert that juxtaposes the music of Georg Philipp Telemann and György Ligeti. Click here to learn more.
Mrs. Coolidge was born and raised in Chicago to two parents who doted on her and were major supporters of the arts. She trained as a pianist, studied composition, and became one of the first women to appear as a soloist with the Chicago Symphony. After attending boarding school and traveling throughout Europe, she returned to the U.S. and married Frederic Shurtleff Coolidge (1865-1915). Tragedy struck in 1915 and 1916, with Coolidge’s father, mother, and husband all passing away within 18 months of each other. During this period, she began to carry on her father’s work as a philanthropist, providing an initial $100,000 endowment to create Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s musicians’ pension fund. She also built her first of four concert halls, Sprague Hall at Yale University, as a tribute to her late father. She also built the South Mountain Concert Hall (Pittsfield, Massachusetts; 1918), the Coolidge Auditorium (Library of Congress, Washington, DC; 1925), and the concert hall at Mills College (Oakland, California; 1928).
Mrs. Coolidge was a devoted listener and performer of chamber music, both standard repertoire and contemporary. She believed firmly in the importance of exposing American audiences to chamber music and invested extensive financial resources in presenting chamber music concerts at festivals, libraries, and cultural institutions. She also believed in advancing chamber music repertoire by commissioning living composers and ensuring their works would be performed and heard, even if they were not always to her own liking.
In the early 1920s, Mrs. Coolidge developed a friendship with Carl Engel (1883-1944), who was the Chief of the Music Division at the time. The two spent many months corresponding about Mrs. Coolidge’s desire to find a home for the manuscripts of works she commissioned and to explore the possibility of her sponsoring concerts in Washington, D.C. These discussions were in part motivated by Mrs. Coolidge’s desire to ensure that her efforts in promoting chamber music would sustain far past her own time on earth. Having a stable institutional partner was viewed as the key ingredient.
After many months of advocating to Librarian of Congress Dr. Herbert Putnam, Coolidge and Engel received the approval to present a series of “pilot” concerts in February 7-9, 1924, at the Smithsonian Institution’s Freer Gallery, which had recently built a charming auditorium suitable for chamber music. These performances drew members of Congress, diplomats, and dignitaries from as far away as Boston and New York. They were a huge success and gave Coolidge and Engel the proof of concept needed to go to the next stage of their plan: to establish a concert series at the Library of Congress.
While several obstacles stood in their way, Mrs. Coolidge and Engel persisted in their efforts. When they were told there could not be concerts at the Library because there was no concert hall, Mrs. Coolidge said she would fund the construction of an auditorium. When she was told there was no legal mechanism for the Library to accept private funds to build the concert hall, save a new act of Congress, she was more than happy to go straight to Congress to get support for her plan. The first legislation to accept Mrs. Coolidge’s funds for the building the hall was introduced in November 1924 and it was on President Coolidge’s desk (no relation) in January of 1925 for signature. Separate legislation was required to accept and create the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation in the Library of Congress, which would fund the concerts and commissioning program in perpetuity. Mrs. Coolidge’s endowment was the first trust fund established within the Library of Congress using private funds.
The Coolidge Auditorium was miraculously built in ten months, a feat that nobody can envision being repeated in modern times. Coolidge moved the federal government in a way few have managed, but her staying power is revealed in the purpose of her efforts, as she expressed to Putnam in 1926:
“If the Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge Foundation might foster the interests of musicians, both creative and interpretative, by freeing them from the power of advertising middlemen such as manufacturers, managers, publishers and critics, I should consider it a service, rendered by a small corner of our Government, to Art, to America, and therefore to the idealism of the world.”
Elizabeth Sprague Coolidge desired to invite others into the world of music that saved her during her darkest hours. She believed in the good that government could do in nurturing the arts, and her vision was larger than just building concert halls and presenting free concerts. She wanted the arts to be central to American civic identity.
Since 1925, the Music Division has presented thousands of concerts, radio broadcasts, lectures, films, and educational programs. While Mrs. Coolidge’s efforts inspired many to follow in her footsteps with financial support—including the Friends of Music, Gertrude Clarke Whittall, and more—she is, without question, the reason why the series exists. Millions of Americans and people around the world have been touched by the concert series, whether through tuning in to a concert on the radio from California or traveling to the Library to hear unique performance by leading artists, presented in the presence of the manuscripts and archival material that tell the story of the creative process.
All of us in the Music Division owe Mrs. Coolidge our gratitude for her vision, fortitude and savvy as a philanthropist. The traditions she started at the Library have resulted in almost 700 new works in the musical canon (the manuscripts of which become part of the Library’s collections), enriching cultural experiences that many experience over decades and proof that a “government of the people, for the people, and by the people” (The Gettysburg Address, President Abraham Lincoln, 1863) can and should have a role in preserving and advancing the arts.
We invite you to experience Concerts from the Library of Congress this season, as we continue our celebration of its centennial.
Spooky season is here, and people are telling stories of ghosts and witches to get ready for Halloween. Many Americans think of Salem, Massachusetts, when they think of witches and witch trials, not realizing that there were witch trials in colonial Virginia. It is believed that there were 2 dozen witch trials in Virginia between 1626 and 1730, although specifics are not known because many trial records of the Commonwealth were lost during the Civil War. Penalties in Virginian witchcraft cases were generally not as severe as the penalties imposed in the Massachusetts cases, as apparently no one died in the Virginia cases. In the most notable Virginian witchcraft case, however, the accused, Grace Sherwood, was held in the county jail for a trial in the colonial capitol, and it seems likely that her property was seized.
Grace Sherwood and her husband, James, brought two separate suits for slander against neighbors in 1698; one neighbor accused her of bewitching their pigs and their cotton, and another claimed she visited them in the night, turned into a black cat and left through the keyhole. The Sherwoods lost both suits and had to pay court costs and transportation for the defendants (Hudson, 91). James Sherwood died in 1701, not long after their unsuccessful suits. Grace Sherwood was left a propertied widow worth 3000 pounds of tobacco; she never remarried (Hudson, 91). In late 1705, Grace Sherwood and a neighbor, Elizabeth Hill, got into a fight and on December 7, 1705, Mrs. Sherwood sued Luke and Elizabeth Hill for assault and battery; she won the judgment. A short time later, on January 3, 1706, Luke Hill and his wife accused Sherwood of witchcraft. On February 7, 1706, “Whereas a complt [complaint] was brought agt Grace Sherrwood on Suspition of witchcraft by Luke Hill, etc.; and the matter being after a long time debated and order that the s[ai]d Hill pay all fees of this Compl[ain]t and that the s[ai]d Grace be here next Court to be Searched according to the Compl[ain]t by a Jury of women to decide the s[ai]d Differr: and the Sherr is Likewise ord[e]r to Soman able Jury accordingly.”
Sherwood’s body was inspected by a jury of women; the women stated that she had “two things like titts with: severall other spots (Cushing, 74).” It was common practice in England and Scotland to search for witches’ marks on the bodies of those accused of witchcraft, as these moles, birthmarks, scars and warts were then believed to be a mark of a pact with the devil. Following the find of Sherwood’s moles, the court tried to assemble a jury of women, but they failed to appear; the court asked the sheriff to assemble another jury of women, but he could not do so (Cushing, 71).
Subsequently the Princess Anne County court decided “being willing to have all means possible tried either to acquit her or to give more strength to ye. Suspicion [that] she might be dealt with as deserved therefore It was Order. yt. ys. day by her own consent to be tried in ye. water by ducking (Cushing, 71).” The first proposed day for the ducking, July 5, 1706, the weather was “very rainy & bad s[u]n…might endanger her health” and so the ducking trial was saved for the following Wednesday, July 10, 1706, when she would be taken to “Jno. Harpers plantacon”, which was on a branch of the Lynnhaven River, and put in “above mans debth & try her how she swims therein” (Cushing, 77); witch ducking stopped in England in the 17th century. Sherwood either floated, or was able to swim to safety. After the ducking test, she was examined again for witches marks by five women who said again on oath that she had two black moles on her private parts, like no other woman (Cushing, 77). The justices of the county decided that she should be taken into custody and sent to jail to wait for a future trial, presumably in Williamsburg at the colonial government seat. There are no records of a second trial. Scholars know that Sherwood paid a debt to the county court in 1708, and in 1714 she petitioned for a reinstatement of her land; if she was sentenced to prison, she must have been released by then. Her will was proved in 1740, so that is commonly believed to be the year she died. The fact that she had property to leave to her sons demonstrates that her final years may have been more peaceful.
In recent years, Grace Sherwood has become a popular figure; a street has been named Witchduck Road and the area where she was tested is now called Witchduck Point. There is a statue of her and a memorial plaque in Virginia Beach; the mayor declared July 10, 2006 as Grace Sherwood Day, and then-Governor Tim Kaine informally pardoned Sherwood, as a woman who had suffered a miscarriage of justice. She is known as the Witch of Pungo, after her birthplace. She remains the only person trialled by water for witchcraft in Virginia.
Additional Resources:
F221 .V82 Virginia Historical Society. Collections of the Virginia Historical Society. By Jonathan P. Cushing.
Edward W. James, “Grace Sherwood, the Virginia Witch,” The William and Mary Quarterly Historical Magazine 3, no. 2 (1894), 99-101.
BF1573.A2 B8 Narratives of the witchcraft cases, 1648-1706, ed. by George Lincoln Burr … with three facsimiles.
BF1577.V8 H833 2019 Hudson, Carson O. Witchcraft in colonial Virginia.
BF1578.S54 M66 2024 Moore, Scott O. The Witch of Pungo: Grace Sherwood in Virginia history and legend.
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