Lex Ferenda

Paul Berman Schiff (Law, Connecticut) has edited a one-volume collection, Law and Society Approaches to Cyberspace. It’s due to be published in the autumn. The introductory essay has been published on SSRN; I’ve read it three times already! As it turns out, I seem to have read quite a few of the essays that are to be included (a lot are chapters or republished law review articles), but it has the making of a very interesting reference book (in the sense of something you would refer to constantly, not in the infomal sense of dictionary/encyclopaedia!). In his introduction, Berman takes us through the ‘three generations’ of cyberlaw (not 100% sure I buy it, but it’s sharp and clear and persuasive, so that’s good enough for now!), and also summarises the various articles (including virtual worlds, copyright, freedom of expression, privacy, minority rights…). He also discusses (in some detail) the interaction between ‘law and society’ and cyberlaw (including an annoying reference to cyberlaw as a laboratory for interesting legal problems - only annoying because I was using similar language because it made sense to me, and I keep finding that others got there first, and he’s another!)

Also, although I was mildly suspicious of one of the articles in a post last month, this special issue of the International Review of Law, Computers and Technology on Internet governance is an interesting state-of-the-debate story. I do think it’s hampered by the lack of contributions from the Internet regulation ‘A-list’ (how I hate that concept, but it’s useful for this argument), and would have been better as a mixture of new and old voices. Some of you may find it useful.

Irish readers will have seen recent news coverage relating to the unfortunate Globespan passengers stranded in New York (not to mention those waiting in Knock for the sad air carriage to come and get them for their trip). I did look into Globespan flights to Hamilton (southern Ontario - relating to Toronto as Beauvais is to Paris!) this year - I didn’t book with them - but at the time I was impressed at the sheer vitriol of former passengers (from the fun Airline Quality page). This morning, I took another look at the opinions - and yes, it appears to be getting worse! They launched their Irish routes (Knock-New York and Dublin/Shannon-Hamilton (”Toronto”) just a few months ago, and their reputation appears to be in tatters already…I think Air Transat’s status as the “cheap” Ireland-Canada option will stay safe for some time; can it get any worse for Globespan?