Government bodies

Organization of American States

The Organization for American States (OAS) is a regional forum for dialogue and cooperation on political, economic and social issues in the Americas. In addition to general information on its membership and programmes, the website contains the full-text of a number of OAS documents including its charter, annual report, conventions, treaties, all resolutions from the General Assembly and Permanent Council from 1994 onwards, and press releases from 1995 onwards. Also included are the transcripts of key speeches made by the Secretary General and the Assistant Secretary General since 1995.

Nordiska Rådet / Nordiska Ministerrådet

Website of the Nordic Council and Nordic Council of Ministers. The site provides information about official cooperation between the governments and parliaments of Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. It also has facts and figures about the Nordic region, news. The Resources section includes teaching materials for schools, maps, photographs and links to dictionaries of the Nordic languages. The site is available in English and the Scandinavian languages.

Althingi

Althingi is the name of the Icelandic parliament. Basic information is available in English and Danish, covering the nature and operation of the Icelandic parliamentary system. There is also a list of current members of parliament. More detailed information concerning parliamentary business and debates is offered in Icelandic only. The legislation of Iceland is also published here (in Icelandic), in the section entitled "Lagasafn".

United Nations Office at Geneva (UNOG)

The United Nations Office at Geneva is the largest and most active centre for multilateral conference diplomacy in the world. The main areas of its expertise are disarmament, human rights, humanitarian affairs and trade and economic activities. The site contains links to speeches by the Director-General and a searchable list of press releases, which are available in full-text in HTML and PDF formats. There are also links to the UNOG Library. A further feature of the site is an archive of documents which contains the full-text of key documents such as the UN charter.

SICE Foreign Trade Information System

The Foreign Trade Information System (Sistema de Informacion al Comercio Exterior, or SICE) is produced by the Organization of American States (OAS) as a central source of information about trade policy in the region. The SICE website provides full-text trade agreements, national legislation on trade-related matters, a glossary of trade terms and other information. The site is in English and Spanish.

Constitutional Council of France

Website of the French Conseil Constitutionnel, a permanent French court created by the Constitution of the 5th Republic on 4th October 1958. The Court has powers to decide on the lawfulness of presidential elections and the conduct of referendums, and can give its opinions when consulted by the French head of state. The site offers details of the Conseil's current business and recent decisions (Actualit?s), and gives a direct link to the Constitution of 1958.

Court of Justice of the European Union

Official website of the Court of Justice of the European Union. The site explains the the organisation, jurisdiction and procedure of the Court of Justice and General Court and provides their rules of procedure and practice directions. All the courts' case law is available (including decisions of the now-defunct Civil Service Tribunal) via numerical case indexes and a separate case database. For cases decided from January 2012 onwards, there are authenticated electronic reports (the Electronic Reports of Cases, or 'e-ECR').

Council of Europe

The Council of Europe (CoE) is an international organisation concerned with strengthening democracy, human rights and the rule of law in Europe. The CoE website has information about the history and current work of the Council, including publications, databases, treaties, news, statistics and educational resources.

UNHCR: the UN Refugee Agency

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees was created by the UN General Assembly in 1951. The site offers background information about the work of the UNHCR which includes advocacy, capacity building, fund raising and global needs assessment. There is a section dealing with the groups of people the UNHCR works with including children, women, elderly, disabled and asylem seekers and information on the areas of the world where the UNHRC operates. There are legal documents, statistics and global reports.

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