The purpose of this guide is to help federal judges adjudicate civil cases alleging human rights violations under domestic and international law. In the common vernacular, the phrase "human rights" often is construed broadly to encompass many forms of civil rights and constitutional claims. The focus here is narrower. This guide addresses cases with an international dimension brought in federal court pursuant to specific U.S. statutes that provide jurisdiction over such claims. These cases include rights-based legal disputes involving foreign plaintiffs or defendants, cases involving violations occurring abroad, and cases relying on international human rights law. Related products: Find more resources about Human Rights here: https: //bookstore.gpo.gov/catalog/human-rights
This guide describes the records of the federal courts, as well as records of Congress and the executive branch, that are relevant to researching federal judicial history. Most federal records are held by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), either at NARA's main facilities in Washington, D.C., and College Park, Maryland, or at one of the National Archives' regional branches. Recent records may still be held by the government agency that created the records, or, pending their accession by the National Archives, at a Federal Records Center. Records at the National Archives are organized into “record groups,” with most government departments, offices, organizations, and agencies being assigned their own record group number. The records of the U.S. district courts, for example, are in Record Group (RG) 21, while the general records of the Department of the Treasury are in RG 56, and the records of the U.S. courts of appeals are in RG 276. Each chapter of this guide directs researchers to record groups related to various aspects of judicial history, as well as to materials that document the judiciary's relationship with the other two branches of the federal government.
Judicial Writing ManualA Pocket Guide for JudgesSecond EditionFederal Judicial CenterThe link between courts and the public is the written word. With rare exceptions, it is through judicial opinions that courts communicate with litigants, lawyers, other courts, and the community. Whatever the court's statutory and constitutional status, the written word, in the end, is the source and the measure of the court's authority. It is therefore not enough that a decision be correct—it must also be fair and reasonable and readily understood. The burden of the judicial opinion is to explain and to persuade and to satisfy the world that the decision is principled and sound. What the court says, and how it says it, is as important as what the court decides. It is important to the reader. But it is also important to the author because in the writing lies the test of the thinking that underlies it. “Good writing,” Ambrose Bierce said, “essentially is clear thinking made visible.” Ambrose Bierce, Write It Right 6 (rev. ed. 1986). To serve the cause of good opinion writing, the Federal Judicial Center has prepared this manual. It is not held out as an authoritative pronouncement on good writing, a subject on which the literature abounds. Rather, it distills the experience and reflects the views of a group of experienced judges, vetted by a distinguished board of editors. No one of them would approach the task of writing an opinion, or describe the process, precisely as any of the others would. Yet, though this is a highly personal endeavor, some generally accepted principles of good opinion writing emerge and they are the subject of this manual. We hope that judges and their law clerks will find this manual helpful and that it will advance the cause for which it has been prepared.William W SchwarzerDirector Emeritus, Federal Judicial Center
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