Global law

Socialist Lawyer

The journal of the London-based Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, an association independent of any political party. The journal is available the Society’s website from issue 42 (November 2005) onwards. It covers legal developments in the UK and overseas, with a focus on civil liberties and social justice. Past issues of the journal are provided in full, in pdf format, while access to the current issue is limited to selected articles.

International investment agreements navigator

Free database of around 2,800 international investment agreements (IIAs), compiled by the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). Covers both bilateral investment treaties (BITs) and multilateral agreements. Users may browse by 'economy' (meaning 'country') or by international organisation; there is also a search facility. Dates of signature and entry into force are available, together with the text of each agreement; many are available in English even where there are no English-speaking parties. (At the time of writing, the interactive map on this site did not appear to work.)

Jurist: World Law

The World Law page of the Jurist website offers a set of guides to the legal systems of the world. Each country’s guide covers the Constitution, government and legislation, courts and judgments, human rights, the legal profession and law schools. Links to key websites for each country are also provided. Jurist is a legal education website provided by the University of Pittsburgh School of Law.

Country based search engines

Directory of internet search engines that cover the websites of individual countries. Also includes search engines that cover a specific region within a country and search engines that cover supra-national regions such as the Middle East, the Baltic and Europe. The directory is provided by Phil Bradley, a UK IT consultant

Constitution Finder

A global directory of constitutions on the web, provided by the School of Law at the University of Richmond in the United States. Consists of an alphabetical list of countries, with links to their constitutions; both current and historical constitutions are included. Most are available in English translation, but a few are only in other languages.

Doing business: law library

Gateway to business laws and regulations from all over the world, compiled by the World Bank’s Doing Business project. Gives links to official sources as far as possible, and many of the texts are in English translation. Can be browsed by country or region. The areas of law covered are: banking, bankruptcy, civil codes, civil procedure, commercial and company law, constitutional law, employment law, land and building law, privacy, securities, tax and trade.

Canon Law

Article on canon law, as published in the Catholic Encyclopedia online, made available on the New Advent website. The article was written by A. Boudinhon, and transcribed by David DeWolf. It discusses the differences between canon law and ecclesiastical law, and describes the sources and divisions of the body of laws of the Christian Church. It outlines the historical development of collections of canon law texts from the early Christian Church to modern times, and describes the different types of text (bulls, briefs, concordats, etc).

Lexadin

An extensive collection of structured links to world legal information resources on the internet, maintained by Lexadin, the legal technology service based in the Netherlands. The guide offers thousands of links to legal sites in more than 40 countries. The links are organised under the following headings, and subdivided by country: law firms, legislation, law schools, courts and cases, articles and organisations. The site offers users the option to suggest other useful resources under its "add a site" button.

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