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United Nations Environment Programme

UNEP was established as a programme of the United Nations General Assembly as a result of the 1972 Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment. Its headquarters are in Nairobi and there are regional offices and specialised units around the world. This website at the Geneva Executive Centre describes the various conventions and treaties currently in force including the Basel Convention on Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and the Prior Informed Consent (PIC) procedure (hazardous chemicals), providing technical guidelines and downloadable documents.

World Trade Organization (WTO)

The World Trade Organization (WTO) website provides information on the work of the WTO, its history, structure and aims. It includes a dispute settlement gateway and a collection of WTO legal texts, such as the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Research reports, records of meetings, background papers and other documents are also provided. The site is available in English, Spanish and French.

World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the UN agency responsible for the protection of intellectual property (IP) rights worldwide and for the administration of multilateral IP treaties. Its website contains the full text of all the treaties administered by WIPO, with status information; arbitration decisions relating to domain names; a database of national IP laws (WIPO-Lex); and a patents database.

Customary Law Database

The Customary Law Database is an online version of 'Customary International Humanitarian Law', a study by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which was published by Cambridge University Press in 2005. Available on the ICRC website, the database has two parts: Rules and Practice. The Rules section analyses the 161 customary rules of international humanitarian law identified by the study, while the Practice section covers the underlying practice.

WIPO Reference

Portal to the World Intellectual Property Organization's collections of intellectual property resources and information. From this page is is possible to search the following databases: PATENTSCOPE (national and international patent information); Brands (various trademark databases); classifications of patents, marks and designs; domain name dispute information; national laws and treaties on intellectual property of WIPO, WTO and UN Members; international registrations of industrial designs and the full text of WIPO standards, recommendations and guidelines.

Swiss Bankers Association

The Swiss Bankers Association is the representative association for financial institutions in Switzerland. Publications include a code of conduct, papers on risk management, and press releases, and are available in PDF. The feature on SPSS discusses Swiss Performance Presentation Standards, which are used to ensure performance reporting by banks in Switzerland. A feature on legislation and self-regulation outlines the legislative and regulatory framework in the Swiss financial services sector.

Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC)

The website of the Swiss Data Protection Commissioner, in German, French, Italian or English. The English version includes basic information on data protection in Switzerland, an information sheet on unsolicited emails, selected Council of Europe texts, extracts from the Commissioner's annual report, and recent press releases. The full text of the Federal Law on Data Protection of 1992 is included. The German version contains all of these, as well as some recommendations of the Commissioner.

United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child

Online version of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, on the website of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR). This web page also contains links to the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and information on the status of ratifications, declarations and reservations. The Convention can be viewed in English, French, Chinese, Russian and Spanish.

NATLEX database

NATLEX is a database of information about national labour, social security and related human rights laws in over 190 countries and more than 160 territories. It is maintained by the International Labour Organization's International Labour Standards Department. The records which make up the database are written by legal professionals; they consist of abstracts and bibliographic details, with links to the full text of the laws where possible. NATLEX can be browsed by country or by subject and has a sophisticated search facility.

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