legal history

Taiwan legal research guide

Online guide to the law and legal resources of Taiwan written by Xiaomeng Zhang who is a Reference Librarian at the University of Michigan Law Library. The guide was published in 2012 (and updated in 2019) on the Globalex website and made freely available by the Hauser Global Law School Program at the New York University School of Law. The guide gives background and historical information about Taiwan and looks at the development of the legal system. There are sections on Taiwan’s legal status under international law and on the Constitution, legal system and legal profession.

Piracy trials

This website provides access to a digitised collection of pre-1923 piracy trials held by the Law Library of Congress in the United States. For each publication there is a catalogue record, brief title, the date of the trial and a link to the digital version of the full text book. The dates of the trials range from 1696 to 1904 and include trials that took place in a range of jurisdictions including Scotland, England, the United States and Canada.

Primary sources on copyright (1450 to 1900)

This website is provided by the Faculty of Law at the University of Cambridge. It covers the evolution of copyright law in Britain, Germany, France, Italy and the United States from 1450 to 1900. Documents available on the site include statutes, judicial decisions, contracts, treatises and privileges; for each one users can view the digital image, a transcription, commentary and, in some cases, a translation. The database can be searched by keyword or browsed by legislation, case law, institution, place or person.

Gammel's The Laws of Texas 1822-1897

Digitised version Gammel's 'The Laws of Texas', provided by the Government Documents Department of the University of North Texas Libraries. Gammel's work is a compilation of the laws of the US State of Texas from 1822 to 1897, including early colonisation laws, constitutions, congressional sessions, legislative sessions and select journals. The site has been designed to replicate a traditional page-by-page reading experience and includes a digitised version of the original Analytical Index, which is arranged alphabetically.

Bracton: De Legibus Et Consuetudinibus Angliae

On the Laws and Customs of England is a comprehensive work on English law, written in the 13th century by Henry of Bratton (Bracton) and others. This electronic version is a co-production of the Ames Foundation, the Harvard Law School Library, and the Legal Information Institute, Cornell Law School. Latin and English versions can be viewed separately, or together in a split-screen display.

Historical Laws of Hong Kong

Historical laws of Hong Kong, scanned from the original print sources, provided by University of Hong Kong Libraries. The contents are derived from the revised consolidations of Hong Kong laws from 1901, 1912, 1923, 1937, 1950 and 1964 (last updated to 1989). The laws are searchable  by chapter or ordinance number, title and edition; individual editions may be browsed by ordinance title. 

Legal History of Australia and the United Kingdom

A research guide on the legal history of Australia and the UK created and maintained by the Law Library at Melbourne Law School. Links are given to legal history resources and materials held in collections at the University of Melbourne. There are sections including legal history blogs, resources focusing on Australia and the Common Law Tradition and legal history societies and collections.

 

Lincoln and the Law

Online guide providing access to legal materials relating to Abraham Lincoln and his involvement with the law. The guide is made freely available by the Law Library of Congress as one of their series of Current Legal Topics. The first section covers his role as an Illinois lawyer and includes digitised versions of books about Abraham Lincoln, lectures and minutes of meetings of the Law Association of Philadelphia.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

This site provides historical information and documentation on the drafting of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It is a joint digitisation project of the UN's Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the Library of the UN Office at Geneva. The site has details of meetings which took place between 1946 and 1948, including meeting records and reports. Documents can be downloaded in English and French. Profiles of members of the Drafting Committee are also given.

English Crime and Execution Broadsides

This Harvard Law School Library website provides access to the digitised images of around 600 broadsides (a form of street literature) reporting crimes or public executions from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The collection can be searched by keyword or browsed by title, name or subject. There are short and full bibliographic records for each item, including links to the images. Search tips and FAQs are also provided, along with background information about the collection.

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