Legal Treatment of Embryos Created Through IVF: Australia • France • Germany • Italy • New Zealand Poland • Portugal • Sweden • United Kingdom

"Comparative Summary
Kelly Buchanan Chief, Foreign, Comparative, and International Law Division II

This report, prepared by staff of the Global Legal Research Directorate of the Law Library of Congress, surveys the rules in select jurisdictions regarding embryos created through artificial reproductive technology treatment cycles, such as those involving in vitro fertilization (IVF). The countries surveyed include Australia and New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and six European countries: France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, and Sweden.

The individual country surveys examine whether there is a legal limit on the number of embryos that can be created or transferred in a treatment cycle, and the actions that can be taken with respect to the embryos created (apart from transfer to a person’s uterus as part of that cycle), including preimplantation genetic testing, sex selection for nonmedical purposes, cryopreservation and storage, donation to another person or couple, disposal or destruction, and allowing the embryos to be used for research purposes. This is intended to be a high-level survey, and it is recognized that countries may have detailed rules related to, for example, consent and counseling requirements, record-keeping and reporting, the collection and use of donor gametes, surrogacy, and restrictions and requirements related to embryo research.

Aspects of the country surveys are summarized in the table below. The storage time limits relate to the storage of embryos for the purpose of possible use in subsequent treatment cycles; some jurisdictions, such as the United Kingdom and Sweden, have separate time limits where storage is for the purpose of using the embryos for research. In addition, in almost all the countries that have a legal limit on storage duration, extensions may be granted by the relevant authorities.

As shown in the table, Italy, Germany, and Poland have the most restrictive rules of the jurisdictions surveyed. In these countries, the rules limit or discourage the creation of multiple excess embryos. However, while in Italy and Germany the ability to donate embryos to another person or couple is prohibited or highly restricted, such donation is required in Poland after the storage time limit is reached. These three countries do not permit research involving or disposal of excess embryos. Aspects of the laws in Germany are currently under review by a commission established by the government. The law in Italy is complex and there is uncertainty regarding some aspects, with certain restrictions having been declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court.

All the other jurisdictions surveyed allow for excess embryos to be discarded, and disposal is required in several jurisdictions when the storage limits have been reached. This includes one Australian state, France, New Zealand, Portugal, Sweden, and the United Kingdom.."
Embryos and IVF 

Legal Reports (Publications of the Law Library of Congress)

"About this Collection

This collection features research reports and other publications on a wide range of legal topics prepared by the Law Library of Congress in response to requests or recurring interest from Congress and other federal government entities on issues concerning foreign, comparative, and international law (FCIL).

In addition to current research products on FCIL topics, this collection includes historical legal reports that have been previously unavailable to the public. The reports contain comparative analysis of foreign and international law from the period of the 1940s to the present. These digitized and born-digital historical reports will be released in phases. The information provided reflects research undertaken as of the date of writing, which has not been updated unless specifically noted, but will nonetheless be of historical interest. In processing historical reports for publication, the Law Library has made a good-faith effort to ensure that only final versions of those reports are included in this collection.

Browse reports by topic, region, year of publication, or simply browse all the reports.."
Law Library of Congress 

New Law Library Report on Safety and Security of Artificial Intelligence Systems Published

"The use of artificial intelligence (AI) has increased exponentially and is permeating every aspect of our lives, from personal to professional. While it can be used in many positive ways to solve global challenges, there are also security risks to be considered, such as fundamental rights infringements, personal data security, and harmful uses. In order to ensure that AI systems are used to benefit society, jurisdictions worldwide are looking into ways to regulate AI. The Global Legal Research Directorate (GLRD) of the Law Library of Congress recently completed research on legal requirements related to the safety and security of AI systems in Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU), New Zealand, and the United Kingdom (UK). We are excited to share with you the report that resulted from this research, Safety and Security of Artificial Intelligence Systems.

Whereas the EU intends to adopt its legislative proposal for a specific Artificial Intelligence Act by the end of 2023, and the Canadian government introduced an Artificial Intelligence and Data Act (AIDA) in June 2022, other surveyed jurisdictions have not yet enacted or advanced similar specific legislation related to AI. However, some surveyed jurisdictions have general legislation mentioning AI in specific provisions and all surveyed jurisdictions apply general legislation to AI.

The report looks in particular at the definition of AI systems, cybersecurity requirements for AI systems, the security of personal data, and AI security policy across the supply chain, as applicable. Cybersecurity requirements include, among other things, compliance with requirements with regard to risk management systems; data and data governance; record keeping; transparency and provision of information to users; human oversight; appropriate levels of robustness, and conformity assessments.

We invite you to review the information provided in our report. This report is an addition to the Law Library’s Legal Reports (Publications of the Law Library of Congress) collection, which includes over 4,000 historical and contemporary legal reports covering a variety of jurisdictions, researched and written by foreign law specialists with expertise in each area. To receive alerts when new reports are published, you can subscribe to email updates and the RSS feed for Law Library Reports (click the “subscribe” button on the Law Library’s website). The Law Library also regularly publishes articles related to artificial intelligence in the Global Legal Monitor.."
Artificial Intelligence 

C-SPAN and Library of Congress Announce New Primetime Book Series for Fall 2023

"C-SPAN and Library of Congress Announce New Primetime Book Series for Fall 2023

"Books that Shaped America" Begins Sept. 18;
New Series Will Feature 10 Iconic American Books Tracing America's History

C-SPAN and the Library of Congress today announced a joint original feature production for fall 2023: "Books That Shaped America."

The 10-part series – which C-SPAN will air LIVE on Mondays, starting Sept. 18 at 9 p.m. ET – will be a literary journey, tracing America's history by exploring masterpieces in literature that have had, and still have today, a major impact on society.

The 10-week series will mark the various eras of American history and feature a diverse mix of stories and authors. The 10 featured books have:

• Provoked thought.
• Been best sellers.
• Led to significant cultural and policy changes.

"Books That Shaped America" Series schedule – all LIVE on C-SPAN at 9 p.m. ET:

Monday, Sept. 18 -
“Common Sense” by Thomas Paine (1776)

Monday, Sept. 25 -
“The Federalist” by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison & John Jay (1788)

Monday, Oct. 2 -
“History of the Expedition Under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark” (1814)

Monday, Oct. 9 -
“Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave” by Frederick Douglass (1845)

Monday, Oct. 16 -
“The Common Law” by Oliver Wendell Holmes (1881)

Monday, Oct. 23 -
“Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” by Mark Twain (1884).."
C-SPAN and Librrary of Congress 

Congressional Research Service

[Disruptive Library Technology Jester]

"One of the hidden gems of the Library of Congress is the Congressional Research Service(CRS). With a staff of about 600 researchers, analysts, and writers, the CRS provides “policy and legal analysis to committees and Members of both the House and Senate, regardless of party affiliation.” It is kind of like a “think tank” for the members of Congress. And an extensive selection of their reports are available from the CRS homepage and—as government publications—are not subject to copyright; any CRS Report may be reproduced and distributed without permission. And they publish a lot of reports. (Read more on their CRS frequently-asked-questions page.)

I remember learning about the CRS in library school, but what got me interested in them again was a post on Mastodon about an Introduction to Cryptocurrency report that they produced. At just 2 pages long, it was a concise yet thorough review of the topic, ranging from how they work to questions of regulation. Useful stuff! And that wasn’t the only useful report I (re-)discovered on the site.

An Automated Syndication FeedPermalink

The problem is that no automated RSS/Atom feeds of CRS reports exists. Use your favorite search engine to look for “Congressional Research Service RSS or Atom”; you’ll find a few attempts to gather selected reports or comprehensive archives that stopped functioning years ago. And that is a real shame because these reports are good, taxpayer-funded work that should be more widely known. So I created a syndication feed in Atom:https://feeds.dltj.org/crs.xml

You can subscribe to that in your feed reader to get updates. I’m also working on a Mastodon bot account that you can follow and automated saving of report PDFs in the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.."

Congressional Research Service 

Chronicling America Reaches 50 States

"Chronicling America, the searchable online database of historic American newspapers, will soon include digitized newspapers from all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and housed and maintained online at the Library of Congress, Chronicling America offers free online access to 19.9 million pages of newspapers published in the United States between 1777 and 1963.

NEH recently awarded its first grant award to a National Digital Newspaper Program partner for the state of New Hampshire, ensuring access to significant newspapers from the entire United States. Dartmouth College will serve as the New Hampshire state hub, partnering with the New Hampshire State Library, the New Hampshire Historical Society, and the University of New Hampshire Library to identify historical newspapers that reflect the state’s political, economic, and cultural history for inclusion in Chronicling America. Among the first newspapers to be digitized and added to the online repository are the New Hampshire Gazette, the first newspaper known to be printed by an enslaved person; The Dartmouth, founded in 1799 as the Dartmouth Gazette, the nation’s oldest school newspaper; and Among the Clouds, a newspaper printed on top of Mount Washington between 1889 and 1917.

“Building on 40 years of collaboration between NEH and the Library of Congress, Chronicling America is a uniquely rich national resource that documents the histories of the events, ideas, and individuals that make up the American story,” said NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo). “The addition of the 50th state partner to the National Digital Newspaper Program is a milestone achievement that will expand coverage of this unparalleled resource to encompass all U.S. states, giving the public access to the ‘first draft of history’ from the perspective of communities across the country.”.."
Chronicling America 

Library of Congress Adds 'A Century of Lawmaking' to Congress.gov

"The Library of Congress announced today that U.S. congressional records dating back to the days of printing presses and the telegraph are now easily accessible on mobile devices. With this latest update of Congress.gov — the official website for U.S. federal legislative information — the Library has transitioned over 33,000 bills and resolutions crafted by Congress between 1799 and 1873 (the 6^th to 42^nd U.S. Congresses) to a modern, user-friendly web format.

“When the founding fathers wrote into the constitution that Congress must keep and publish records of its proceedings, none of them could have imagined a day when all those records could fit in the palm of your hand,” said Jim Karamanis, director of IT design and development at the Library of Congress. “Congress.gov is designed to be the single, authoritative source for official legislative information, and we’re proud to be able to add this treasure trove of historical congressional records to the site.” 

The Library’s “Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation” collection has been a premier source of historic legal documents since it was first published online in 1998, serving as an access point to the lawmaking of early America. The bills and resolutions provide insight into events during the nation’s most formative years, from the Louisiana Purchase to the American Civil War and Reconstruction.

These records from the Century of Lawmaking site join existing congressional data on Congress.gov beginning in the mid-20^th century. Subsequent migrations over the next two years from the site will include other historical documents, such as “Journals of the Continental Congress,” the records of the daily proceedings of the first and second Continental Congresses, records from the Constitutional Convention and the state constitutional ratification debates.

Congress.gov provides access to accurate, timely and complete legislative information for members of Congress, legislative agencies and the public. It is presented by the Library of Congress using data from the Office of the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives, the Office of the Secretary of the Senate, the Government Publishing Office, Congressional Budget Office and the Congressional Research Service..."
Library of Congress and Lawmaking 

The Lifecycle of Copyright: 1925 Works Enter the Public Domain

"On January 1, a new raft of creative works of expression entered the public domain in the United States. The term of copyright has ended for works published or registered in 1925, which now join pre-1924 works already in the public domain and available for use by everyone without restrictions.

Expiration of copyright term is a critical phase in the lifecycle of copyright. Under the U.S. Constitution, the purpose of copyright is “to promote the progress of science.” Article I, section 8, clause 8, outlines a two-part structure for Congress to follow when enacting copyright laws so that they will further that goal.

Specifically, Congress may secure to authors “the exclusive right to their respective writings.” Granting exclusive rights to authors acts as an incentive to writers, artists, composers, and others in creative fields and thus increases the universe of human knowledge and culture.

Additionally, the Constitution specifies that the protection shall be “for limited times.” This ensures that those works will become part of the storehouse of human creation and can serve as source material for further creation.

The critical role of the public domain in human culture is easily illustrated by the fact that so many new works are based on public domain works, such as the works of William Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Bram Stoker, Louisa May Alcott, the Brontë sisters, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle..."
Copyright 

Library of Congress Completes Digitization of 23 Early Presidential Collections

"The Library of Congress has completed a more than two decade-long initiative to digitize the papers of nearly two dozen early presidents. The Library holds the papers of 23 presidents from George Washington to Calvin Coolidge, all of which have been digitized and are now available online.

The Library plans to highlight each presidential collection on social media in the weeks leading up to the next presidential inauguration on Jan. 20, 2021.

“Arguably, no other body of material in the Manuscript Division is of greater significance for the study of American history than the presidential collections,” said Janice E. Ruth, chief of the Manuscript Division at the Library of Congress. “They cover the entire sweep of American history from the nation’s founding through the first decade after World War I, including periods of prosperity and depression, war and peace, unity of purpose and political and civil strife.”

The 23 presidential collections in the Library’s holdings, acquired through donation or purchase, are of such significant value that Congress enacted a law in 1957 directing the Library to arrange, index and microfilm the papers, an enormous job that concluded in 1976. With the dawn of the digital age, the collections of presidential papers were among the first manuscripts proposed for digitization. The conclusion of this effort marks the addition of more than 3.3 million images to the Library’s online archives..."
Presidential Collections 

Foreign Legal Gazettes

"The Law Library of Congress has been collecting foreign official gazettes since the mid-nineteenth century and maintains one of the largest collections of these sources in the world. Official gazettes are primary sources of law published by national governments to disseminate new legislation, regulations, and decisions of governmental bodies. These publications may also contain other information including the text of international agreements, court decisions, official announcements, and government notices. For countries with civil law systems, the official gazette often serves as the sole source of the authoritative texts of laws until updated codes are published. In most countries, a law enters into force on the date of publication in the official gazette.

For gazettes that are freely available online, please refer to the Law Library's Guide to Law Online..."
Foreign Gazettes 

Indigenous Law Web Archive

"The Law Library collects and preserves legal materials for American law, foreign law, and sovereign Indigenous nations. Many governments, including Indigenous national, tribal and community governments, are transitioning from print to solely digital formats for publishing their laws. The Law Library is working to collect and preserve these materials. To further these collection and preservation aims, the Library has created the Indigenous Law Web Archive, a collection of constitutions, codes, executive orders, and court forms and information of sovereign Indigenous governments and courts of 578 federally recognized nations, communities, and tribes in the United States, as well as some Indigenous legal information from Canada, published online. The Library attempts to acquire the most comprehensive collection possible. Collected resources are embargoed for a year prior to release, and so the collection was launched this summer. It’s a useful starting point for comparative research, and we hope that this tool will assist practitioners and scholars of Indigenous law in their work.,.."
Indigenous law archive 

Official Gazettes: Afghanistan to Zimbabwe

"While the United States does not publish an official gazette, most countries of the world do.  These primary law sources are invaluable for foreign legal research.  While no two countries’ gazettes are identical, most contain legislation, orders, regulations, statutory instruments, and international agreements.  Some even include decisions of courts and administrative agencies.  The currency of gazettes adds to their value.  A new law may be published in a gazette months before it appears in a statutory compilation or a bound volume of session laws.  In some cases, the official gazette becomes the only source of a legislative record.  The Law Library strives to collect official gazettes from all countries of the world (past, current, and future).

Government Gazette of Botswana

Collection maintenance / access

Official gazettes are a significant part of our collection and can pose a variety of maintenance issues.  Some countries see these publications as advance copies of legislation, and print their gazettes on cheap, low quality paper or newsprint.  This paper does not age well; it quickly turns yellow or brown and becomes brittle.  For gazettes published in this manner, we microfilm them to ensure continued access to this valuable information.  In fiscal year 2010, the Law Library sent 2,907,936 pages of gazettes for microfilming..."
Gazettes 

Library of Congress Launches New Tool to Search Historical Newspaper Images

"The public can now explore more than 1.5 million historical newspaper images online and free of charge. The latest machine learning experience from LC Labs, Newspaper Navigator allows users to search visual content in American newspapers dating from 1789-1963.

The user begins by entering a keyword that returns a selection of photos. Then the user can choose photos to search against, allowing the discovery of related images that were previously undetectable by search engines.

For decades, partners across the United States have collaborated to digitize newspapers through the Library’s Chronicling America website, a database of historical U.S. newspapers. The text of the newspapers is made searchable by character recognition technology, but users looking for specific images were required to page through the individual issues. Through the creative ingenuity of Innovator in Residence Benjamin Lee and advances in machine learning, Newspaper Navigator now makes images in the newspapers searchable by enabling users to search by visual similarity..."
Newspaper Navigator 

Limits on Freedom of Expression

"This report examines the scope of protection extended to freedom of speech in 13 selected countries. In particular, the report focuses on the limits of protection that may apply to the right to interrupt or affect in any other way public speech. The report also addresses the availability of mechanisms to control foreign broadcasters working on behalf of foreign governments. The terms “freedom of speech” and “freedom of expression” as used in this report are interchangeable..."
Freedom of Expression

Initiatives to Counter Fake News in Selected Countries

"This report examines the legal approaches of fifteen countries, representing all regions of the world, to the emerging problem of manipulation with “fake news” using mass and social media, especially the impact of fake news on ongoing political processes and elections, and the legislative measures undertaken to counteract the dissemination of false information. Fake news as a phenomenon is not new and has been known since ancient times, but the present-day proliferation of digital and social media platforms, which allow for much broader distribution of information to a global audience, makes the need to counter fake news much more acute. With the exception of Japan, which appears to be the only country in this study where fake news scandals are limited to newspapers and tweeted messages that have no outside influence, a fact explained by the difficulty of the Japanese language for foreigners, the widespread distribution of false information and its impact on decision making and democratic processes is becoming a challenge worldwide. In 2017, a parliamentary committee in Egypt identified the dissemination of 53,000 false rumors over a period of two months. In Germany, 59% of survey participants stated that they had encountered fake news, and in some segments of the population this number was up to almost 80%. In Kenya, a country where 90% of the population has access to high-speed internet, 90% of surveyed users said that they received false or inaccurate information regarding the recent elections through social media..."
Fake News

Library of Congress Web Archive Collection

"The Library of Congress Web Archive selects, preserves, and provides access to archived web content selected by subject experts from across the Library, so that it will be available for researchers today and in the future. Web sites are ephemeral and often considered at-risk born-digital content. New web sites form constantly, URLs change, content changes, and web sites sometimes disappear entirely. Web sites document current events, organizations, public reactions, government information, and cultural and scholarly information on a wide variety of topics. Materials that used to appear in print are increasingly published online.

This site provides general information about program activities, information for researchers who are interested in using the web archives, and information for site owners who might be included in the archives..."
Libary of Congress Web

Congressional Research Service Reports Now Available Online

[This is a guest post by Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden].
"I’m pleased to announce that, for the first time, the Library of Congress is providing Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports to the public. The reports are available online at crsreports.congress.gov. Created by experts in CRS, the reports present a legislative perspective on topics such as agriculture policy, counterterrorism operations, banking regulation, veteran’s issues and much more.

Founded over a century ago, CRS provides authoritative and confidential research and analysis for Congress’ deliberative use.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 directs the Library to also make CRS reports publicly available online. We worked closely with Congress to make sure that we had a mutual understanding of the law’s requirements and Congress’ expectations in our approach to this project.

The result is a new public website for CRS reports based on the same search functionality that Congress uses – designed to be as user friendly as possible – that allows reports to be found by common keywords. We believe the site will be intuitive for the public to use and will also be easily updated with enhancements made to the congressional site in the future.

Moving forward, all new or updated reports will be added to the website as they are made available to Congress. The Library is also working to make available the back catalog of previously published reports as expeditiously as possible. More details about this process can be found on the site’s Frequently Asked Questions page.

CRS reports supplement the official congressional information the Library provides on its congress.gov website.

In keeping with our desire to engage users with the Library and its materials, we are happy to see these reports put to the widest use possible. I hope that you find them a useful addition to the many resources available to you from the Library of Congress..."
Congressional Research Service

Susan B. Anthony Papers at Library of Congress

"The papers of reformer and suffragist Susan B. Anthony (1820-1906) span the period 1846-1934 with the bulk of the material dating from 1846 to 1906. The collection, consisting of approximately 500 items (6,265 images) on seven recently digitized microfilm reels, includes correspondence, diaries, a daybook, scrapbooks, speeches, and miscellaneous items. Donated by her niece, Lucy E. Anthony, the papers relate to Susan B. Anthony's interests in abolition and women's education, her campaign for women's property rights and suffrage in New York, and her work with the National Woman Suffrage Association, the organization she and Elizabeth Cady Stanton founded in 1869 when the suffrage movement split into two rival camps at odds about whether to press for a federal women's suffrage amendment or to seek state-by-state enfranchisement. With the possible exception of her close collaborator Stanton, no woman is more associated with the campaign for women's voting rights than Anthony, whose name became so synonymous with suffrage that the federal amendment, which formally became the Nineteenth Amendment, was called for many years by its supporters as simply the Anthony Amendment.

A volume of correspondence, 1846-1905, consists primarily of Anthony's letters to Rachel Foster Avery concerning the details of Anthony's extensive lecture circuit, her finances, the activities of the National Woman Suffrage Association, and her work on the multivolume History of Woman Suffrage which she coedited with Stanton and others. The file also includes several letters from Anthony to the Reverend Anna Howard Shaw and letters from Wendell Phillips. Although most letters concern suffrage, a few deal with personal and family matters..."
Susan B. Anthony

New Book Celebrates the History of the Library of Congress

"A new book from Library of Congress Historian John Y. Cole, “America’s Greatest Library: An Illustrated History of the Library of Congress,” tells the story of the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and how it came to be the world’s largest library.

Librarian of Congress Carla D. Hayden calls the Library “a place where you can touch history and imagine your future,” and the story of its creation and evolution comes alive in this rich chronology. The book is the first authoritative history of the Library published in nearly 20 years.

“America’s Greatest Library,” which will be published Jan. 9 by D Giles Limited in association with the Library of Congress, highlights the personalities and events that created and sustained the institution over its 217-year history, starting at a time when Washington had no other libraries or cultural institutions. Packed with fascinating stories, compelling images and little-known nuggets of information, the narrative traces the growth of the collections with the development of the nation’s capital through a combination of concise milestones, brief essays and vivid photographs and illustrations..."
Library of Congress

Historical Versions of the United States Code Now Online

"More than 60 years of U.S. laws are now published online and accessible for free for the first time after being acquired by the Library of Congress. The Library has made available the main editions and supplements of the United States Code from 1925 through the 1988 edition

The U.S. Code is a compilation of federal laws arranged by subject by the Office of the Law Revision Counsel of the House of Representatives. The Library’s U.S. Code Collection is fully searchable. Filters allow users to narrow their searches by date, title and/or subject. PDF versions of each chapter can be viewed and downloaded.

The collection is online at loc.gov/collections/united-states-code/. This provides access to editions of the U.S. Code that previously were not available to the public online for free..."
U.S. Code Online