Library Erd
Cornell Law Library
Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository
Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers
Faculty Scholarship
4-10-2010
Digitizing the World 's Laws
Claire M. Germain
Cornell Law School, cmg13@cornell.edu
Recommended Citation
Germain, Claire M., "Digitizing the World 's Laws" (2010). Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers. Paper 72. http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clsops_papers/72 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact jmp8@cornell.edu.
1
Digitizing the World’s Laws
Working Paper
April 2010
Forthcoming in:
International Legal Information Management Handbook (Ashgate, 2010)
Claire M. Germain
Edward Cornell Law Librarian & Professor of Law
Cornell Law School cmg13@cornell.edu 2
Introduction
Where does one find the foreign investment laws of Botswana? What about the copyright law of the Netherlands, the corporation laws of Japan, or the English translation of the
Egyptian Civil Code? Already back in 1991, just before the internet, Wallace Baker remarked that “foreign law has become the daily bread of lawyers everywhere who formally had totally domestic practices.” (Germain 1991, xii) 1 Since then, the need to access the content of foreign law has increased exponentially. The importance of global access to foreign laws on the internet and how to improve it was recently highlighted at an international Meeting of Experts on Global Co-operation on the Provision of Online Legal
Information on National Laws organized by the Hague Conference on Private International
Law in October 2008. 2 This chapter purports to evaluate the current state of progress in online access to the content of foreign
Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository
Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers
Faculty Scholarship
4-10-2010
Digitizing the World 's Laws
Claire M. Germain
Cornell Law School, cmg13@cornell.edu
Recommended Citation
Germain, Claire M., "Digitizing the World 's Laws" (2010). Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers. Paper 72. http://scholarship.law.cornell.edu/clsops_papers/72 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Cornell Law Faculty Working Papers by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Cornell Law: A Digital Repository. For more information, please contact jmp8@cornell.edu.
1
Digitizing the World’s Laws
Working Paper
April 2010
Forthcoming in:
International Legal Information Management Handbook (Ashgate, 2010)
Claire M. Germain
Edward Cornell Law Librarian & Professor of Law
Cornell Law School cmg13@cornell.edu 2
Introduction
Where does one find the foreign investment laws of Botswana? What about the copyright law of the Netherlands, the corporation laws of Japan, or the English translation of the
Egyptian Civil Code? Already back in 1991, just before the internet, Wallace Baker remarked that “foreign law has become the daily bread of lawyers everywhere who formally had totally domestic practices.” (Germain 1991, xii) 1 Since then, the need to access the content of foreign law has increased exponentially. The importance of global access to foreign laws on the internet and how to improve it was recently highlighted at an international Meeting of Experts on Global Co-operation on the Provision of Online Legal
Information on National Laws organized by the Hague Conference on Private International
Law in October 2008. 2 This chapter purports to evaluate the current state of progress in online access to the content of foreign
References: Baranès, William & Marie-Anne Frison-Roche, Le Principle Constitutionnel de l’Accessibilité et de l’Intelligibilité de la Loi, Dalloz, 2000, Chron Publications Office of the European Union, 2009. Cartier, Emmanuel, Accessibilité et communicabilité du droit, 2008. Jurisdoctoria No. 1, 2008 https://www.jurisdoctoria.net/pdf/numero/aut1_CARTIER.pdf. Cottin, Stéphane, Historique de la Documentation Juridique Electronique, 2002 http://www.servicedoc.info/article.php3?id_article=88&lang=fr. Dockendorf, Dee Dee, The Chesapeake Project: Preserving “born digital” Documents, 2009, 58 Virginia Lawyer 53 (2009). Germain, Claire M., Introduction to Special AALL Briefing on Permanent Public Access to Legal Information, 10 AALL Spectrum, Insert 1 (2006) in http://www/aallnet.org/products/pubsp0512/pub_sp0512_MB.pdf. Germain, Claire M., Digital Legal Information: Ensuring Access to the ‘Official’ Word of the Law, 26 Cornell Law Forum 11-14 (1999)l Digital Legal Information: Here Today, Gone Germain, Claire M. Legal Information Management in a Global and Digital Age: Revolution and Tradition, 35 International Journal of Legal Information 134 (Summer 2007). Germain, Claire M., Transnational Law Research: A Guide for Attorneys, Transnational Pub., 1991. simultaneously as 21 Legal Reference Services Quarterly Nos. 2-4; Binghamton, NY, 2002. Laferrière, J., De l’Authenticité du Texte des Lois, Publiées au Journal Officiel, RDP, 1949, pp. Passos, Edilenice, Doing Legal Research in Brazil (Updated July 2008); http://www.nyukawglobal.org/Globalex/Brazil1.htm. Commerce and Information Technology Division, Information Security Committee (2003) Reynolds, Thomas H., & Arturo A Saint-Prix, B., Recherches sur les Différentes Formes de Publication des lois Depuis les Romains Jusqu’à nos jours, Paris, 1809. Wagner, Anne & Sophie Cacciaguidi-Fahy, Obscurity and Clarity in the Law: Prospects and Challenges, 2008.