These are databases that provide access to legislation in full text
for more than one jurisdiction. Information regarding Internet Sources for individual jurisdictions
will be found at the end of the MAJOR PUBLICATIONS section for applicable
jurisdictions.
The African-Archaeology.Net website http://www.african-archaeology.net/heritagelaws.html contains legislation regarding cultural property.
AGIP is the website of Abu- Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) at http://www.agip.com. AGIP is a world-wide international law firm specializing in intellectual and industrial property matters, particularly in the Arab world. It is a modern and responsive website providing current consolidated English translations of patent, copyright, design and industrial property laws of 24 African and Middle Eastern states. The easiest access to translations is to type in the name of the jurisdiction sought in the “Search” box and then scroll down to the listing “Laws Results. ”
Annual review of population law.¤ After some 25 years, printing and distribution of the Annual review in book form by the United Nations Fund for Population and Harvard Law School Library was discontinued in 2000. The Harvard School of Public Health succeeded publication with an online sub-library containing official texts or English translations of “Abortion laws of the world” (national laws on abortion or excerpts or summaries of pertinent legislation) at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/population/abortion/abortionlaws.htm.
The International Bar Association’s International Anti-Money Laundering Forum website at http://anti-moneylaundering.org/ is a guide to legislation and compliance in connection with anti-money laundering legislation.
The Barrows Company, at http://www.barrowscompany.com, lists all its translations and reprints of laws. The service is only available to subscribers at substantial annual fees. Individual laws and translation are also available for purchase at a substantial cost.
CLEA (Collection of laws for electronic access). This is WIPO’s collection of copyright, industrial and intellectual property laws and regulations of the countries of the world at http://www.wipo.int/clea/en/. It continues, but does not replace, Copyright and neighboring rights, laws and treaties¤ and Industrial property laws and treaties of the world.¤ This is a comprehensive and current database containing laws and regulations enacted after 2000. Please note that while some material can be accessed directly, it is frequently the case that full text or English translation can only be reached through the entry “bibliographic record.” Occasionally full text is not (yet) available. This database was compiled in 2000 as an electronic continuation of the print service (not discontinued) and it does not necessarily replicate anything already in the print services.
COEDATA is a subsidiary website of the Council of Europe at http://www.coe.int/T/E/Legal_affairs/Legal_co-operation/Data_protection/Documents/National_laws/.
Constitutions of dependencies and territories. Edited by P. Raworth. Compiled by Oceana Publications. Complete, currently maintained texts via the Oxford University Press website for subscribers only at http://www.oup.co.uk/.
Constitutions of
the countries of the world. Edited by A. Blaustein [et al.]. Compiled by
Oceana Publications. Complete, currently maintained texts via the Oxford
University Press website for subscribers only at
http://www.oup.co.uk/.
The World Bank’s Doing Business database at http://www.doingbusiness.org/ provides measures of business regulations and their enforcement. The Doing Business indicators are comparable across 175 economies.
DREDF is presented by the Disability Rights Education Fund and Defense Fund at http://www.dredf.org/.
ECOLEX at
http://www.ecolex.org/ is the website for
the United Nations Environmental Program’s “Gateway to environmental laws.” It
contains laws and regulations dealing with the environment, natural resources,
conservation and even related industrial property matters. Display is of a
detailed summary in English, with a link to a full reprint of official text,
usually in the national or official language. The site is searchable by country,
with limits available for keyword and/or subject, date, etc. (one must remember
to double click).
FAOLEX is the website of the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations. Selected legislative texts
dealing with food and food safety and production and agricultural activities and
related laws and regulations are contained in the database and can be
reached at http://www.fao.org/. Once into FAOLEX, the user must
click on Legal Office, the databases, then faolex (this includes whatever is in
fishlex and waterlex), then search and then key in the name of the country or
region, etc. The display consists of lists of
the documents, not necessarily in any discernable order, for the country entered.
The search strategy used is unique to FAOLEX
and differs from the other two FAO databases
following.
The Foreign Tax Law Association, which included regularly updated full texts or English translations of tax and commercial laws has been removed from online access. The contents of the print version, which ceased publication in 2004, may still be current and relevant. The online version has been succeeded by RIA’s World Wide Tax Law Service at http://checkpoint.riag.com/.‡
The “francophonie” database is a development fostered by the French government. It is a major informational website for the Francophone states in the world, particularly in Africa, the Caribbean and Oceania, but also extending to the Canadian provinces, Monaco and Vietnam. This website accommodates legislation and jurisprudence, with full French text of primary and secondary legislation provided extensively for some nations and perhaps just the constitution for others (the espace juridique francophonie). Some Francophone states are not yet included. This website is best accessed at the home page, http://droit.francophonie.org/ (scroll Accès géographique, then click on the country desired and the year of the law or regulation sought). This is a useful and commendable database; however, even though supplementation has been carried out within the past 18 months, users will find that for most jurisdictions texts dated past the late 1990s or 2000 have not been added.
GLIN is the Law Library of Congress’ Global Information Network. It can be reached, as of Mar 2005, at http://www.glin.gov/. Formerly accessible only to members and participants, this extensive database is available to registered users free, with a password. Full texts of legislation are available from eight Latin American nations (Brazil, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay and Peru). Other participating sources extend to Central European and Middle Eastern nations. The database also provides searchable English-language summaries of legislation from nearly all Latin American nations. The dates of coverage vary, generally up to about five months ago. The Law Library of Congress is actively engaged in extending its full text databases to many other states. In the future one can anticipate full text availability for most legislation of the past decade for nearly all Latin American states.
The World Bank/International Monetary Fund’s Global Banking Law Database (http://www.gbld.org/country_details.aspx?countryid=) has been taken off line and is no longer supported by the World Bank’s Financial Sector Knowledge and Information Services as of 11 Nov 2005. However, the World Bank (ever active and ambitious) is developing the Global Insolvency Law Database at http://web.worldbank.org…. This site is under development and is presently not easily accessible. One might assume that in the future it could be a source for insolvency laws.
Global Competition Forum at http://www.globalcompetitionforum.org/ is a database sponsored by the International Bar Association consisting of antitrust and competition laws and regulations. It is arranged by region and by country within region and the information provided (when available) is made up of a brief summary of a jurisdiction’s competition law and practice and full texts of legislation and pertinent regulation. The aim is to provide English translations whenever possible, unless the national language is French, German or Spanish in which case there is less of an effort to translate.
The International Center for Not-for-Profit Law at http://www.icnl.org/knowledge/library/Index.php is a valuable site for full texts, usually in the official language, but sometimes in English translations or versions of laws and regulations affecting organizations and non-profit associations. The term is interpreted broadly and extends to business associations, aspects of civil rights, taxation, labor relations, etc. From the Index home page, one can search by country for a display of all holdings. Amendments to recent year are usually consolidated.
The International Labour Organization maintains a website addressing HIV/AIDS in the workplace through employment and labour law at http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/trav/aids/laws/.
The U.N.’s International Money Laundering Information Network’s website (IMoLIN), administered by the Anti-Money Laundering Unit of the U.N.’s Office on Drugs and Crime, is at https://www.imolin.org/amlid/index.html. In principle, access is reserved for government and law officials only and full access is available only upon application and approval. However, by clicking on “Region,” and then within Region by country, one can often (not always) reach the full text of anti-money laundering legislation or related legislation (e.g., currency, foreign exchange or even full banking laws) of many countries. For whatever reason, access to English (or sometimes French or Spanish) texts is not displayed, while other jurisdictions have full access displayed. Also, bear in mind that this database is being developed in phases and that sometimes the display will read “Revised version completed. See 2nd round of analysis.” In this case, the user should “click here.” Also, for some French-speaking jurisdictions, the English display will be blank, but if the user clicks on French, about one third of the time, the French text of a law will be displayed.
“Legislationline” is the website of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. It is at http://www.legislationline.org.
Lexadin, the World Law Guide site at http://www.lexadin.nl provides access to a number of recent laws carried on various websites. This source is reasonably up to date and while not necessarily authoritative should not be overlooked.
LexInfoSys is a database created by the University of
Bremen’s “Law Reform in Transition States” project. It is supported by the
Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit mbh (GTZ) and provides
access to laws and information of various members of the Commonwealth of
Independent States. The site, at
http://www.cis-legal-reform.org, leads the user to a database containing
legal texts in Russian or the language of the country and occasionally in German
and English covering 1991–2004 for ten former Soviet republics. There is a
separate library for civil codes. The basic LexInfoSys is searchable in the ten
states by 21 separate subject categories, e.g., civil law, labor law, investment
law, etc., with responses that can be limited by date. The bulk of the
information is in Russian, but directions and search terms are in English.
The National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade maintains a website at
http://natlaw.com/interam/. While some information is free,
access to legal material is for subscribers only.
NATLEX is the International Labor Organisation’s website. It can be reached at
http://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/natlex_browse.home.
The OAS Foreign Trade Information System website at http://www.sice.oas.org/ (click on Information by Country) provides full text (click on Information by Country).
Panos Institute of West Africa at http://www.panos-ao.org/ provides a listing and full French texts of laws on freedom of the press, distribution of publications and related political laws, etc.
RIA World Wide Tax Law Service at http://checkpoint.riag.com/, available to subscribers only, is a reconstituted service formerly offered by the Foreign Tax Law Association’s Tax laws of the world and Commercial laws of the world. Its title notwithstanding, the new service continues to offer current, or reasonably current versions, or English translations of tax, commercial and business organizations law.
TRIS at http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/tris/ is the European Commission’s Technical Regulations Information System. This is a fairly complex, somewhat recently organized database, permitting access to English (and other EU language) translations of technical secondary legislation of European Union Member and Associated states. It covers construction, the environment, agriculture and fishing, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, energy, transportation, services, etc. It is searchable by country, regulation number, date or keyword. Coverage (not complete) extends back to 2001 and occasionally to non-European states.
The UNESCO cultural heritage law is an attempt at an international solution to combat the illicit traffic of cultural property. Its database is at http://www.unesco.org/culture/natlaws/index.php?&lng=eng. The database offers access to national legislation relating to cultural heritage in general.
The U.N. Department of the Law of the Sea website contains English translations of full legal texts of the national legislation of coastal States and treaties dealing with the delimitation of maritime boundaries at http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/ (click on region and then country).
The U.N. Environment Programme’s Partnership for the development of Environmental Laws and Institutions in Africa (PADELIA) website is at http://www.unep.org/padelia.
The U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime maintains a useful database for the text of laws on repression of drug trafficking and money laundering. Their website is at http://www.undcp.org/odccp/ (click on Treaty and Legal Affairs, then on Legislation/Legal Library, click on the Country Index and search).
The University of the South Pacific School Law’s Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute maintains a website for legislation, court decisions and constitutional developments for a number of South Pacific republics and dependencies or former dependencies. The site, at http://www.paclii.org/, is easy to access and simple to use; however, the response time for downloading larger pieces of legislation can be very slow.
The World Associations for Medical Law is at http://waml.haifa.ac.il/index/reference/legislation/ (click on the appropriate flag).