Reference sources

Database of Federal Statute Names

Free database of popular names of US federal statutes, compiled by Yale’s Lillian Goldman Law Library. The main focus is on names which do not communicate clearly the subject of the legislation, for example the ‘Rankin Act’ and the ‘Serve America Act’. For each statute, the official citations and short title (if any) are given. Each statute title is categorised using the following list of types: Sponsor, Description, Honor, Case, Tribe, Victim, Political Description, Location, Undefined, Award, Abbreviation, Acrostic, Private Law, Institution.

ecoi: European Country of Origin Network

Collection of country-of-origin information intended for use by lawyers and others involved in asylum claims, provided by a department of the Austrian Red Cross. Ecoi.net has a page for each country of the world; each page provides key reports and other documents, national laws translated into English, maps and links to country profiles (by the UN, CIA, BBC and so on). Basic and advanced search facilities are available. The site also includes a blog.

English Reports Table

Alphabetical table of nominate reports giving the corresponding volume numbers in the English Reports, together with each report’s abbreviation and the time period and court that it covers. The table is provided by Lancaster University Library.

Death Penalty Worldwide

This website provides information and analysis relating to death penalty law and practice in around 90 countries. It was established by Professor Sandra Babcock of the Center for International Human Rights at Northwestern Law School's Bluhm Legal Clinic in the US, in partnership with the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty. The site’s main component is the Death Penalty Database, covering capital offences; treaty ratifications; national and international cases; methods of execution; statistics on death sentences and executions; and other topics.

LegalCitation.ie

This website makes available OSCOLA Ireland, a citation system for Irish law. It was developed by Irish academics and is based on the Oxford University Standard for the Citation of Legal Authorities (OSCOLA). The OSCOLA Ireland manual may be downloaded free of charge and there is a quick reference guide and a set of FAQs. The guide covers abbreviations, cases, legislation, books, articles, online sources and other materials; it also gives guidance on presentation, punctuation and cross-referencing. The site's Links page has information about using OSCOLA Ireland with EndNote and Zotero.

Acronym Finder

Directory of more than 750,000 abbreviations and acronymns, mainly from the fields of computing, government, the armed forces, computing, telecommunications, business and finance. Founded by US-based IT consultant and software developer Mike Molloy, the directory is global in scope. Legal researchers may find it useful for political, governmental, education and other non-law abbreviations (for legal abbreviations, see the Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations).

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.

Federal Judicial History

Website of the Federal Judicial History Office, part of the Federal Judicial Center in Washington DC. The Spotlight section has articles on federal judicial statutes, Supreme Court meeting places and many other topics. There are also federal court timelines, a monograph called 'Approaches to Federal Judicial History' and a three-volume compilation of historical documents, 'Debates on the Federal Judiciary: A Documentary History'.

Treaty Reference Guide

This reference guide is available free on the website of the United Nations Treaty Collection. Part I explains and defines the different types of international instrument, such as treaties, conventions, charters, protocols, declarations, memoranda of understanding and exchanges of notes. Part II is a glossary of terms relating to treaty actions, such as accession, deposit, entry into force, modification, ratification and signature ad referendum. The guide is in available in English or French; html, pdf or plain text versions are provided.

Subscribe to Reference sources