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International and Foreign Law Resources


MULTIPLE INTERNATIONAL LAW RESOURCES:

GENERAL:

  • American Society for International Law (ASIL):
    • EISIL, ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SYSTEM for INTERNATIONAL LAW [Law Text Database]
      "ASIL’s goal is to ensure, through EISIL, that web searchers can easily locate the highest quality primary materials, authoritative web sites and helpful research guides to international law on the Internet. To this end, EISIL has been designed as an open database of authenticated primary and other materials across the breadth of international law, which until now have been scattered in libraries, archives and specialized web sites."
  • CITATIONS:
    • LawCite (alpha) "is an international case citator and is the first product of a 3 year Australian Research Council funded project to research into automated systems for citation recognition. The LawCite database is generated on an entirely automatic basis with no editorial input and includes a fairly complete collection of all common law cases cited in the past decade plus most of the important uncited decisions before this. Please note that this is an Alpha version. It is still being built and refined and is being released for public comment only." NB: Bolding is my addition to the previous. DM

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    • Cardiff Index to LEGAL ABBREVIATIONS

    • INTERNATIONAL LEGAL CITATION MANUAL
      The manual is organized by country and within each is categorized by: Background and Legal System, Constitution, Statutes, Administrative Regulations, Codes, Case Law and Sources (of information). Not all categories are available for all countries at this time. It is published by the Washington University Global Studies Law Review.

  • Global Legal Monitor (GLM) "The Global Legal Monitor is an online publication from the Law Library of Congress covering legal news and developments worldwide. It draws on information from the Global Legal Information Network, official national legal publications, and reliable press sources." See also Global Legal Information Network (GLIN)

  • FOREIGN LAW TRANSLATIONS by the Institute of Transnational Law, University of Texas at Austin. "This site is a resource for French, German, Italian, Austrian and Israeli legal materials in the fields of constitutional, administrative, contract and tort law. The English translations of decisions from Germany and France include cases from the Reichsgericht, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, the Bundesgerichtshof, the Conseil Constitutionnel, the Conseil d'Etat and the Cour de Cassation." Click here for Foreign National Government Law text resources.

  • HEIN ONLINE (UW RESTRICTED) is a source for fulltext legal serials and books. The international offerings are expanding in scope and coverage.

  • UNIVERSITY of WASHINGTON, SCHOOL of LAW, MARIAN GOULD GALLAGHER LAW LIBRARY
    See especially: Reference & Legal Research.
    Within this page, be certain to see "Internet Legal Resources", then "Foreign and International Legal Indexing Sites". Electronic and print resources are intermingled.

  • World Legal Information Institute [WorldLII], "Free, independent and non-profit access to worldwide law. 860 databases from 123 countries and territories via the Free Access to Law Movement." Full text of case law is emphasized.

INTERNATIONAL LEGAL RESEARCH GUIDES:

  • GlobaLex: International, comparative and Foreign Law, Hauser Global Law School Program, New York University School of Law, by Mirela Roznovshci, Ed. Don't miss UPDATE: Basic Guide to Researching Foreign Law by Mary Rumsey, Foreign, Comparative & International Law Librarian at the University of Minnesota.

  • Global & Comparative Law Resources provided by the U.S. Library of Congress. Excellent source of international law databases and also citations to print legal materials.

  • An Introduction to Sources for Treaty Research By Mark Engsberg, Foreign and International Law Librarian at the Lillian Goldman Law Library, Yale Law School.

  • International Legal Research Tutorial.
    "This tutorial is designed to teach students research strategies and methodology for researching both print and electronic sources of international legal materials. The tutorial includes review questions and a final review to give students an understanding of how these materials are organized, and to teach them how to locate international legal documents such as treaties, agreements and the documentation of international organizations. This tutorial is a collaborative project between Duke University School of Law and University of California, Berkeley, School of Law and was created with support from the Duke Center for Instructional Technology."

  • Law Library Resource Xchange (LLRX) providing extensive key legal resources, both for the United States and elsewhere. See especially International Law Guides and Comparative & Foreign Law Guides.

TOPICAL:

ANTITRUST LAW:

ASIAN LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE (AsianLII), "Free access to Asian Law."

The AVALON PROJECT, Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy at the Yale Law School. "The Avalon Project will mount digital documents relevant to the fields of Law, History, Economics, Politics, Diplomacy and Government. We do not intend to mount only static text but rather to add value to the text by linking to supporting documents expressly referred to in the body of the text."

CIVIL SOCIETY and NOT-for-PROFIT LAW:

CONSTITUTIONS WORLDWIDE:

COPYRIGHT LAW:
Collection of National Copyright Laws "This site endeavours to provide access to national copyright and related rights legislation of UNESCO Member States."

COURTS:

CRIMINAL LAW AND STATISTICS:

ELECTION AND PARLIAMENTARY INFORMATION

EUROPEAN UNION LAW

FAOLEX "is a comprehensive and up-to-date computerized legislative database, one of the world's largest electronic collection of national laws and regulations on food, agriculture and renewable natural resources. Users of FAOLEX have direct access to the abstracts and indexing information about each text, as well as to the full text of most legislation contained in the database." (BY UN Food and Agriculture Organization)

"Forced Migration Online (FMO) provides instant access to a wide variety of online resources dealing with the situation of forced migrants worldwide...."

FOREIGN NATIONAL GOVERNMENT LAW:

Globalex: International, comparative and Foreign Law, Hauser Global Law School Program, New York University School of Law, by Mirela Roznovshci, Ed.

Guide to Foreign and International Legal Databases, by Law Library, New York Univeristy, School of Law. Is a very useful and far reaching resource.

HUMAN RIGHTS LAW

International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) "The so-called "right of humanitarian intervention" has been one of the most controversial foreign policy issues of the last decade - both when intervention has happened, as in Kosovo, and when it has failed to happen, as in Rwanda. United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, in his report to the 2000 General Assembly, challenged the international community to try to forge consensus, once and for all, around the basic questions of principle and process involved: when should intervention occur, under whose authority, and how. The independent International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty was established by the Government of Canada in September 2000 to respond to that challenge." THE RESPONSIBILITY TO PROTECT, the Report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty

International Court of Justice.

International Criminal Court.

International Development Law Organization (IDLO) "is an international intergovernmental organization dedicated to promoting the rule of law and good governance in developing countries, countries in economic transition and in those emerging from armed conflict"

LAWLINKS is compiled by the Templeman Library, University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom. A far reaching topical international law resource, with some extra emphasis on the law of the UK, other European Countries, and the European Union.

Legal Research on INTERNATIONAL LAW Issues Using the Internet, authored by Lyonette Louis-Jacques, Foreign and International Law Librarian and Lecturer in Law University of Chicago Law School, D'Angelo Law Library, an excellent resource. See also her "FOREIGN LAW: Legal Research Resources on the Internet".

Law Library Resource Xchange (LLRX) providing extensive key legal resources, both for the United States and elsewhere.

MARITIME/OCEAN LAW and ISSUES:
On the UN's International Maritime Organization webpage, don't miss the
Quick Links button on the left side of the page.
See also OCEANS AND WATER LAW below.

Migration (International) and Refugee Law.

Multilaterals Project, Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Boston, MA USA., providing extensive information on and texts of Multilateral Conventions and Treaties, and links to other international treaty sites.

NON-PROFIT LAW

  • Non-Profit and Social Entrepreneurship Overview by Karen Gilles, a librarian at Seattle Univ.'s Lemieux Library. "This guide is meant as a starting point for finding Not for Profit resources in [Seattle Univ.] Lemieux Library and on the internet" and is not primarily for providing legal materials and not primarily international in scope.

PACIFIC ISLANDS
Law of the Pacific Islands: A Guide to Web Based Resources by Ruth Bird, Law Librarian, University of Melbourne Law School on LLRX.com.

Patent and Trademark Information at the University of Washington Engineering Library.

PEACE, CONCILIATION, RECONCILIATION, and TRUTH COMMISSIONS:

  • Conciliation Resources, "serves as an international resource for local or national organisations pursuing peace or conflict prevention initiatives. The principal objective is to support sustained practical activities of those working at the community and national levels to prevent or transform violent conflict into opportunities for social, political and economic development based on more just relationships."
  • Hague Appeal for Peace.
  • INCORE (Institutue for Conflict Resolution)Peace Agreements. Clickable map which leads to fulltexts in Abobe Acrobat (.pdf) format. See additional resources at the INCORE homepage.
  • The Peace Agreements Digital Collection "strives to contain the full text of agreements signed by the major contending parties ending inter- and intra-state conflicts worldwide since 1989 by the United States Institute of Peace Library."
  • Peace Palace Library "The Library of the Peace Palace has one of the world's largest collections in the field of international law, public and private law, and foreign national law, as well as an extensive collection on international political and diplomatic history and the history of peace movements. Also, we house the Grotius Collection, the collection on the important 16th century Dutchman Hugo de Groot, founder of the science of international law." Located in The Hague, Netherlands. See the excellent topical series of Bibliographies.
REFUGEE LAW:
TREATIES:
  • United Nations Treaty Collection
    Includes UNTS, Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Sec. General, and much more.
    For help in using, see UNTS ( within UN Treaty Collection) help by by Susan Kurtas of the Reference Team, UN Dag Hammarsjkold Library.
  • World Treaty Index, "An electronic treaty database spanning the 20th century.... Once fully complete, the World Treaty Index will feature every known international agreement in the 20th Century. This includes tens of thousands agreements entered into by hundreds of countries and international organizations. We offer a variety of methods to access the underlying data. Currently, this website only contains treaties signed between 1945 and 1999. Remaining treaties are being added through 2010 and early 2011." It is an index, providing citations to treaties found in other sources, mostly print.

  • Flare Index to Treaties "The Flare Index to Treaties is a searchable database of basic information on over 1,500 of the most significant multilateral treaties from 1856 to the present, with details of where the full text of each treaty may be obtained in paper and, if available, electronic form on the Internet...." conceived and compiled by Dr Peter Clinch, Cardiff University, Wales UK and hosted by Institute of Advanced Legal Studies School of Advanced Study, University of London, UK.

  • Treaties and Other International Agreements by the U.of Washington Law Library, covering web and print resources.


  • American Society for International Law (ASIL):
    • EISIL, ELECTRONIC INFORMATION SYSTEM for INTERNATIONAL LAW [Law Text Database] "ASIL’s goal is to ensure, through EISIL, that web searchers can easily locate the highest quality primary materials, authoritative web sites and helpful research guides to international law on the Internet. To this end, EISIL has been designed as an open database of authenticated primary and other materials across the breadth of international law, which until now have been scattered in libraries, archives and specialized web sites."
  • Researching Non-U.S. Treaties By Stefanie Weigmann, reference librarian at the International Legal Studies Library at Harvard Law School.
  • U.S. Dept. of State, "Texts of Agreements" "The Office of the Assistant Legal Adviser for Treaty Affairs is striving to provide an accessible and searchable link, or series of links, to the texts of U.S. treaties and international agreements...." See primarily the sections on "The United Nations" and "Depositaries".
  • WORLD TREATY INDEX provided by the University of Washington Libraries (NB: Test Database). Allows various kinds of searches for treaties and provides citations to text sources.

  • OTHER TREATY RESOURCES
  • Australian Treaties Library. Much of the ATS (Australian Treaty Series) 1901 forward is online here. Look for the many mulitlateral treaty links throughout this page. As a major world country, Australia is party to many multilateral treaties and can potentially be a source for text and information about such treaties, including treaties within the South Pacific and SE Asian region. Also is a good source for Australia's bilateral treaties.
  • Environmental Treaties and Resource Indicators (ENTRI Portal) at CIESIN/SEDAC.
  • Frequently-Cited Treaties and Other International Instruments by the U. of Minnesota Law Library. "As an aid to law review citation-checking, the following is a list of treaties frequently cited in law review articles, along with available sources of hard copy...."
  • ICRC databases on international humanitarian law for law texts, by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). Includes the so called "Red Cross or Geneva treaties/conventions on war", on this page "1949 Conventions & Additional Protocols".
    See also International humanitarian law (IHL). "Section explaining international humanitarian law (IHL), its role in the protection of victims of war and its relationship with the work of the ICRC. The main treaties are the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols."
  • Multilateral treaties : index and current status / compiled and annotated within the University of Nottingham Treaty Centre by M.J. Bowman and D.J. Harris, 1984 (print) in UW Libraries with limited suppl. Click here (print) for UW Law Library copy, including supplements.
  • Multilateral treaty calendar = Répertoire des traités multilatéraux, 1648-1995 / Christian L. Wiktor (print) in Marian Gould Gallagher Law Library, University of Washington.
  • United Nations Diplomatic Conferences "The traditional method for the negotiation of treaties has been through the holding of a diplomatic conference of plenipotentiaries specifically convened for that purpose. This technique predates the United Nations, with prominent examples including the Hague Conferences of 1899 and 1907. In the contemporary practice of treaty-making many multilateral treaties are negotiated and adopted by the organs of international organizations such as the United Nations, partly for reasons of practicality and cost-effectiveness. Nonetheless, diplomatic conferences continue to be held, from time to time, in order to negotiate and adopt multilateral treaties of particular significance to the international community."

  • NB: Many other websites found throughout this "International and Foreign Law Resources" page, Human Rights, Etc. contain treaty texts and information.

Truth commission websites:
(See also
PEACE, CONCILIATION, RECONCILIATION...)

  • Strategic Choices in the Design of Truth Commissions. "Truth commissions serve the primary purpose of unveiling the truth about past human rights violations. But in the eyes of many societies, there are corollary purposes that are closely aligned with uncovering the truth: to provide victims with acknowledgement, apologies and/ or compensation from the state; to ensure - through structural and legislative reform - that past human rights abuses will happen 'never again'; to bring those who have perpetrated grave human rights violations to justice; and to take care of the victims and survivors of human rights violations."
  • The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).
  • "Brahm, Eric, Truth Commissions, Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: June 2004."
  • Truth Commissions. "The Truth Commissions Digital Collection contains decrees establishing truth commissions and similar bodies of inquiry worldwide, and the reports issued by such groups." By the The United States Institute of Peace.

United Nations "International Law" webpage and more.

United States International Law:

  • NB: Many pages above and below in "International and Foreign Law Resources" cover U.S. international law.
  • Altlaw "provides the first free, full-text searchable database of Supreme Court and Federal Appellate case reports. It is a resource for attorneys, legal scholars, and the general public." Altlaw is not limited to international law.

WashLaw.
Washburn University School of Law Library's "WashLaw", another extensive source for foreign and international law texts, contacts and academic resources.

Women in International Law: Research Resources by Lyonette Louis-Jacques, Foreign and International Law Librarian and Lecturer in Law, D'Angelo Law Library, The University of Chicago Law School. "The following are suggested books and articles to read for background information on women and international law issues." Most references are hot linked in this very substantive page.

"World Legal Information Institute (WLII) "Free, independent and non-profit access to worldwide law. 860 databases from 123 countries and territories via the Free Access to Law Movement." Full text of case law is emphasized.

World Bank Law and Development webpage. "Effective legal frameworks and institutions are pivotal for alleviating poverty. This website's objective is to share legal knowledge for development."

World Legal Systems
"The initial idea to create this Website on "world legal systems" stems from a particular interest: the fact that both civil law and common law are taught at the Law Faculty of the University of Ottawa. The Faculty, through its National Program, further offers its students the possibility of taking a degree in both legal systems within a four-year time period, thereby improving their employment prospects. Thus it seemed desirable to afford them, through this Website, a true perspective of the importance of each of these two legal systems on an international level."

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INTERNATIONAL COMMERCIAL TRADE LAW


United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)

International Commercial Trade Law Databases:

International Commercial Trade Law Websites:

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INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL LAW and POLICIES


Multiple Environmental Topics including Law Text Websites:

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OCEANS AND WATER LAW:



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Contact: David Maack (maack@u.washington.edu)
Last modified: Monday August 23, 2010