E-books

State-sponsored homophobia

Series of reports issued every year or so by The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association (ILGA World). Available in English and Spanish, they provide a worldwide survey of national legal systems and laws, highlighting discrimination based on sexual orientation.

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.

A Primer on the Jurisdiction of the U.S. Courts of Appeals

Full text copy of "A Primer on the Jurisdiction of the U.S. Courts of Appeals" written by Thomas E. Baker of the Florida International University, College of Law and made freely available online by the Federal Judicial Center, an education and research agency for the federal courts in the United States. The primer was published in 2009 (and updated in 2023) and provides an "introduction to the complexity and nuance in the subject-matter jurisdiction of the U.S. Courts of Appeals".

Internet Law Treatise

Website of the Internet Law Treatise, a collaborative online project looking at the law relating to the internet. The project is no longer active, but the site remains available for historical purposes. The ILT initiative involved attorneys and law students and is hosted by the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a membership organisation concerned with the civil liberties issues surrounding technology.

Sharia Implementation in Northern Nigeria 1999-2006: A Sourcebook

Web version of "Sharia Implementation in Northern Nigeria 1999-2006: A Sourcebook", by Philip Ostien. The book was published by Spectrum Books in 2007 and provided here on the website of the University of Bayreuth in Germany. The book is arranged into five volumes with the following headings: historical background; Sharia Implementation Committee reports and related white papers; sanitizing society; Sharia penal and criminal procedure codes and two famous cases. Each section is subdivided into chapters.

Annotated Justinian Code

Online version of the Annotated Justinian Code by Fred H. Blume (edited by Timothy Kearley). This is an English translation of Justinian's code, taken from the authoritative Latin version, available on the website of the College of Law at the University of Wyoming. Other materials provided on the site include an introduction to the work, an article on the history of the code and a bibliographies of works by and about Justice Blume.

Free Culture

Website devoted to the book 'Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity' by Professor Lawrence Lessig of Stanford Law School. Published in 2004, it is available here under a Creative Commons licence. The book covers the effect of the internet on commercial and non-commercial culture and the increasing regulation that comes with the digitisation of culture. There are sections looking at the concepts of piracy and property and a discussion of the Eldred v. Ashcroft case with which Prof. Lessig was involved.

Biblioteca Jurídica Virtual

Online library of Mexican law books and journals, provided on an open-access basic by the Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de Mexico (UNAM). Journals are accessible from 1990 onwards and over 6,000 Mexican law books are provided. The library can be searched by author or title. The site is mostly in Spanish, but an English interface is available.

Tax Law Design and Drafting: volumes 1 and 2

Online version of "Tax Law Design and Drafting", edited by Victor Thuronyi, on the International Monetary Fund (IMF) website. The book is published by the IMF and provided in two volumes, published in 1996 and 1998. The site gives access to selected chapters from both volumes, in pdf format. Volume 1 looks at tax laws in developed countries and includes chapters covering the legal framework for taxation, drafting tax legislation, regulation of tax professionals, VAT, excises, tax on buildings and land, taxation of wealth and social security taxation.

Antique Rare IP Library e-Treatise Reading Room

Online collection of digitised intellectual property publications from the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries, on the website of the Franklin Pierce Law Center, an independent US law school. Around 250 items are available, in pdf format, on copyright, patents, trademarks or general IP law. The collection includes books, articles, speeches, laws, digests and judgments; the main focus is on the law of the UK and US, but some other jurisdictions are also covered. 

Subscribe to E-books