Features – Guide to European Legal Databases, Update 4

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Mirela Roznovschi is the Reference Librarian for International and Foreign Law at New York University School of Law Library. She holds a M.A. from the University of Bucharest (Romania), a M.L.S. from Pratt Institute, and a Certificate in Internet Technologies from New York University. Her activities include monitoring and evaluating foreign and international legal databases on the Internet, training law faculty and students to use the Internet for legal research, advising developing democracies on the building of electronic law libraries, and training librarians from developing democracies. She is in charge of the library’s home page, Guide to International and Foreign Law Databases. She also serves as a member of the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals Advisory Committee.

Editor’s note: This article is an update to the Guide to European Legal Databases, Update 3, (published July 1, 1999). There are numerous additions, changes for some Web site addresses, as well as some deletions. These additions and changes are indicated by (yellow background color) for easy identification.

Table of Contents

Introduction
Search Engines
Search Tips
Indices, Guides, Journals, Dictionaries, Library Catalogs
European Legal Databases on the Internet
Constitutions
Copyright
Environment
Main jurisdictions (selective):
Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Croatia, Denmark, England, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Kyrgy z Republic, Latvia, The Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Uzbekistan
Transnational/International Organizations
A. Council of Europe
B. European Union
I. Institutions
II. Databases
III. Indexes, Directories, Electronic Publications

Introduction

In the last three years, European legal databases in HTML format have emerged with a speed that has sometimes exceeded our updating tools. Many of them brought to the world’s legal community a great amount of reliable primary and secondary sources. In this article, I will focus on databases in HTML format using Internet as a primary and unique carrier. Lexis/Nexis and Westlaw’s European legal databases are not reviewed, even though recently both providers launched Internet interfaces.

In the new electronic environment, librarians looking for European country materials (the majority civil law systems) need to be familiar not only with what information is available online, but also how to use the tools of legal research in the Internet context for locating substantive law efficiently. They also have to think about the reference question within a legal and cultural context in which legal concepts may have different meanings in comparison with the common law system.

European legal databases are mostly in vernacular, so we have to deal not only with foreign languages but also with nuances in different legal systems and cultures. The legal researcher has to know where and how to go online (depending on the reference question), decide what type of law or legal document he/she may want to find, and which is the better searching tool to use. Moreover, to be able to determine the path to follow in the context of a reference question, the searcher needs to understand the jurisdictional research territory, recognize patterns of research on the Internet, and its special syntax and concepts. The goal is to develop a personal research style which will reflect his/her expertise, practice and area of interest, and will be flexible and broad enough to develop in a timely manner a strategy for any research question.

Search Engines

1. Search Engines for International and Foreign Law

Infoseek is still in my opinion the most powerful, accurate and current search engine in finding the precise answer to a legal query. Whenever searching for legal databases or legal concepts, use the default (write the query into quotes) or change the searching box default from “Web” to “Topics”; the best hit will be one of the first three entries. Infoseek allows the researcher to narrow the search using quotes, commas, truncation, boolean operators, plus (+) and minus (-) signs to require or exclude a word, and the pipe (|) to search a certain set of results only. Using quotes whenever you search for a concept or for a title, the needed document will be in the first five entries (which doesn’t happen with AltaVista, HotBot, LawCrawler, etc. using the same search strategy). Even if you are unsure about the document’s name, good results can be obtained using boolean operators and narrowing the reasults as many times as needed. Infoseek also provides the capability to search in vernacular through interfaces for Denmark, Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Sweden, the Nederlands.

AltaVista allows searching in 25 languages; it improved very much in the last six months, so the relevance of good records retreived is better.

FindLaw is actually the LawCrawler Web search engine and LawCrawler “powered by Alta Vista” (Digital Equipment Corporation) under license. FindLaw narrows from the onset of the query according to the country or the world region. To search for Europe or a European country, go to “Main Index: Foreign & International Resources,” and choose the region and then the country (Individual Country Search Pages). FindLaw refines the query with boolean and proximity operators, and other property value queries that include information about the file size and an abstract.

LawRunner (Internet Legal Resource Guide) is an index allowing search by country (even with the suffixes of particular countries i.e., .fr for France) using the same AltaVista search engine. ILRG uses boolean operators and an “exclude” field. Running a search through FindLaw and LawRunner, you may discover that both retrieve almost the same URLs in the same order. It is not coincidental as long as they use the same search engine.

HotBot has improved dramatically in the last year. For foreign law research I would rank it as the second best search engine, with the first being Infoseek. Running the same query (“Corte di Cassazione”– Italian Supreme Court) through search engines already mentioned, and judging the quality of the retrieved records according to the relevance of the first five entries I received the following results: Infoseek had the best relevance in the first five hits; HotBot had almost the same good relevance; AltaVista was as good as HotBot. FindLaw, LawRunner had non relevant first five entries).

The Northern Light search engine uses patent-pending classification intelligence and provides integrated access to over 5,000 full-text publications. Free index of many legal journals found in Index to Legal Periodicals are available. The full text of articles is delievered for a modest price. This search engine organizes the results into Custom Search Folders so the users don’t have to waste time weeding through useless information. Citation, summaries and Web results are free. The search engines retrieves the best result in the five hits such as Infoseek and HotBot and AltaVista.

2. Database Search Engines

Any serious and reliable database has its own search engine. If a search engine browsing the entire Web locates the needed database, the database search engine will then logically locate relevant documents. Almost any database search engine has its own configuration. Rambler, the Russian search engine, can search using Latin characters in English and Russian. (See more Russian search engines under Russia) EUROPA, a mega database, has many search engines with a specific configuration for every database. There are also search engines specialized in more than one jurisdiction, utilizing the same language such as the French search engines called “Francophone search engines.” Ecila-Moteur de Recherche; Francité; MégaFrancité; Lokace; Nomade; Euroferret searches European databases by country and by language. Derecho is a great index but mainly an excellent search engine for Spanish law only.

Search Tips

The best service for translating online legal concepts into European Union languages is “Eurodicautom, a translator’s best friend on the web,” which has also an excellent definition feature. Do not rely on AltaVista online translations or other online translation services yet. These are word by word translations without any meaning. Lately, a few new online translation services appeared on the market. InterTranTM is improving fast. The rate of failure (speaking about legal concepts) is about 50 percent. Systran is almost in the same category such as Berlitz GlobalNET. Behind these online translation services is Systran, a new translation software.

Indices, Guides, Journals, Dictionaries, Library Catalogs

Notable in this category are Hieros Gamos Guide to International Law and the Meta-Index for Legal Research; Yahoo, one of the best World Wide Web guides; Chicago Kent Lawlinks Index; and Index of Law Related Meta Indexes. I would also recommend using The World List: Non-US Law Related Resources for the Internet Users by Makoto Ibusuki, a guide relating to the law and government of over 60 countries; The World Law Index at AUSTLII; Laws of Europe, indexed by Bradley J. Hillis; The Library of Congress GLIN Home Page with reputable developments on foreign jurisdictions; Foreign Laws by Subject at Washburn University; Guide to International and Foreign Legal Databases at New York University Law Library; ELSweb — a project of the European Law School at Maastricht University in the Netherlands — an index of legal resources (with descriptions) for every European Union country.

There are also guides to legal resources such as the Law on the Internet Booklist (International) by the American Bar Association, which recommends guides to legal resources on the Internet published in different countries (Italy, U.K., the Netherlands, Germany, etc.) and the American Society of International Law Guide to Electronic Resources. Great information in the field is also published by the followinng periodicals: Europe, Database, Searcher, Law Library Journal, the American Society of International Law Newsletter, the AALL FCIL Newsletter and the European Journal of International Law.

Dictionaries — 50 dictionaries can be found at A Web of Online Dictionaries. Eurodicautom (dictionary for EU legislation) is a friendly web query system for words/phrases/abbreviations in any official EU language and obtaining the legal equivalent in another. French Private Law Dictionary (DICTIONNAIRE DU DROIT PRIVÉ), by Serge Braudo, is also an excellent tool for French legal research.

Libraries — “Gabriel” Gateway to Europe’s National Libraries is the National Union Catalogues maintained by Europe’s National Libraries (Austria, Czech Republic and Slovakia, Denmark, France, Germany, The Netherlands, England, etc). Other gates to European catalogs are The British Library and HYTELNET Library Catalogs maintained by Peter Scot.

What follows is a guide to the most requested European legal topics and jurisdictions, updated as of November, 1999. In the constantly changing world of legal databases, we can expect URL modifications, migrations from one database to another, database mergers, and so on. To accommodate this reality, effective legal researchers have to develop good search skills and a knowledge of database reliability. But this is another story, which may have as a starting point the evaluation forms for foreign and international databases I and II, which I designed and use in my daily work.

European Databases on the Internet

Constitutions

  • Hamburg International Constitutional Project
  • Constitutional Courts has links to Constitutional Courts of Czech Republic, France, Germany, Estonia, Slovenia, Romania, Switzerland, Turkey. Bulgarian Constitutional Court.
  • Court Net links to Judicial Institutions with the function of Constitutional Review.
  • East European Constitutional Review — A Quarterly Published by New York University Law School and Central European University. The tables of contents for EECR issues are searchable via the free UnCover periodicals index database on the Internet at http://uncweb.carl.org/ Once there, click on “Search UnCover,” then the first “Search UnCover Now”, then choose search type “Journal Title Browse,” then type in “east european constitutional review,” then click on the EECR link, then click on the “Journal Issues” icon/box to get to the tables of contents (this is all free except if you want to order a copy of the articles). The East European Constitutional Review is also indexed by theAmerican Bibliography of Slavic and East European Studies, ABSEES Online, subscription database at http://www.library.uiuc.edu/absees/.
  • European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice).Venice Commission of the Council of Europe is a body of independent experts in constitutional law. The Commission also cooperates with about 40 constitutional courts in Europe and overseas, publishing summaries of their most important decisions in the Bulletin on Constitutional Case-Law. Summaries are also available in CODICES together with the full text of about 1500 decisions in various languages.

Copyright

Environment

Main Jurisdictions

(Selective; For comprehensive information look at my Guide to International and Foreign Legal Databases)

Austria

  • Austrian Parliament. Laws, government drafts, amendments to existing laws.
  • Der Osterreichische Verfassungsgerichtshof – Austrian Constitutional Court. Decisions from 1980- via RIS – ( Republic of Austria – Office of the Federal Chancellor – Legal Information System).
  • Auswahl Juristischer Internetadressen im WWW – Selection of Legal Internet Addresses on the WWW. Links to compilation of laws and decisions (Austrian laws and decisions, German laws and decisions, Swiss Supreme Court decisions); links to Austrian government bodies, etc.
  • JUSLINE – A fee-based electronic service offering counseling, Austrian legal forms, databases of Austrian attorneys and law firms.
  • NetLaw Austria – Links to Federal Constitution Law (Linz University), Penal Code (Salzburg University), Copyright Law (via Jusline), Draft Database Law Act. The texts are not regularly updated.
  • Republik Osterreich Bundeskanzleramt – Rechtsinformationssystem – RIS (Republic of Austria – Office of the Federal Chancellor – Legal Information System) – Full text of laws and decisions. Austrian laws in German, Federal law, law of the individual federal states, Parliamentary materials; Constitutional and Administrative Court decisions and headnote (only in German). RIS offers former versions of laws: you have just to fill in your wanted date in the field “Fassung vom”.

Belarus

  • National Centre of Legal Information of the Republic of Belarus – The Databank of Belarus Legislation “ETALON” is a full – text search system containing more than 20,000 legal acts issued by the President, Parliament, Government, National Bank, ministries, Constitutional Court, Supreme Court, Supreme Economic Court, and international treaties (in Russian and Belarussian).Free on-line access to the Belarus legislation databank and National Register of Legal Acts – daily news of Belarus legislation and law.

Belgium

  • Parliament – full text of hansards of both chambers since 1995 in Dutch and French.
  • Senate – (access to Senate documents in French and Dutch)
  • Belgian related Websites (Parliament, Federal Government)
  • The Official Journal (Moniteur Belge) in French, Dutch, German.
  • LIBIS — LIBIS-Net is a consortium of libraries and information centres, cooperating on technological and organisational issues. Its mission is to support the participating libraries in their library management and in the services they provide for their patrons. LIBIS team is representing the library of the KULeuven.

Croatia

Denmark

  • Magnus Legal Database – Contains codes, regulations, legal proposals, cases from any area of the law.
  • Ministry of Foreign Affairs (See the English version) – Excellent search engine searching in English also. Important Danish Supreme Court decisions can be found in this site.
  • Retsinformation — The official law database of the Danish government includes all legislation adopted in the past 15 years. Retsinformation contains all current legal proposals, Danish codes and regulations (in Danish). The database is free of charge.
  • Folketinget — Parliament database. The newest law proposals.

England

  • United Kingdom Parliament. House of Commons and House of Lords – Judgements delivered since November 1996 appear online within 2 hours of delivery at the House of Lords. The path is House of Lords; Judicial Business; Judgments.
  • HMSO and Parliament – Full text and summaries of Acts of Parliament. Access to material published by HMSO (Her Majesty’s Stationery Office) on the Internet, summaries and extracts of official material. Keyword search.
  • Justis.com – Fee based. Contains The Law Reports, Weekly Law Reports, Times Law Reports, Lloyds Law Reports, etc.
  • The Court Service is an executive agency of the Lord Chancellor’s Department and provides administrative support to a number of courts and tribunals. Go to Related Links and Smith Bernal site to access Casebase, a free Court of Appeal transcript archive.
  • Lord Chancellor’s Department (head of the judiciary).
  • BOPCAS (British Official Publications Awareness Service) – The database includes records of:Acts of Parliament, Command Papers, Departmental Publications, Green Papers, House of Commons Bills,House of Commons Papers, House of Commons Library Research Papers, House of Lords Bills, House of Lords Papers, Standing Committee Reports.
  • Butterworths Direct – Statutes, laws, jurisprudence. Full text. Fee based database.
  • Times Law Reports (Times Web Page) – Contains English cases and also European Court of Justice and European Court of Human rights cases.
  • Government Information Service is a starting point for locating UK National and Local Government information published on the Web. The search system (Muscat FX) combined with a good indexing feature facilitates finding information on European institutions or European case law.
  • Her Majesty’s Stationery Office contains Statutory Instruments (beginning 1997), Acts of Parliament (beginning 1996), Copyright unit, a good search engine.

Estonia

France

Germany

  • JURIS — Das Juristische Informationssystem fur die Bundesrepublik Deutschland (The official database of Germany). Fee based database. See also Deutsche Internet-Ressourcen.
  • German Federal Court — Bundesgerichtshof –at Karlsruhe University
  • German Case Law at Wuerzburg University – Decisions of the Federal Constitutional Court (1951-), Federal Administrative Court (1953-), Information Bulletin related to the court. Headnote of selected cases in English. See also GLAW Project – German Case Law (GLAW) provides decisions of German courts, sometimes with a brief English translation of the holding and important parts of the reasoning. GLAW tries to promote an information network with translated constitutional court decisions from different national jurisdictions. Recent decisions of BVerfG, and The Supreme Court International Bulletin.
  • Das Bundesgesetzblatt — German Federal Official Gazette. Full text available from 1996 as well as the official pagination. Searchable index and full text. Information documents for 1990-1995.
  • Juristische Informationen im Internet is a comprehensive index to German legal resources on the Internet.
  • Juristisches Internetproject Saarbrucken – German primary legal statutes and court reports (Grundgesetz –Federal Constitution, Bundesgesetzblatt –Official Journal, Bundesverfassungsgerichts — Federal Constitutional Court, 1996- ). Abstracts of the Constitutional Court Reports – English summaries of the official press releases from the Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) (SAARBRÜCKEN); GLAW – detailed discussion in German of a wide range of Constitutional Court (BVerfG) cases, each with a brief English abstract (from Uni.Wuerzburg).
  • REFACT – As of September 1998 REFACT Online PLUS costs $60 per year (the old version which has not been updated from 1977 is still free). It informs about all recent amendments if you click at “Stand”. The database contains virtually all important German laws (constitutional, environmental, civil, administrative, commercial, corporate, labor, cases, decrees, etc.), especially tax codes, tax regulations, decisions of the tax court dating back to the ’70s. This compilation of statutes, tax case law, and commentaries (all in German and without official pagination), includes the German Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, the Reorganization Tax Act, the Corporate Income Tax Act and other major laws. Some of the laws have a search option by code and provide cross-references to other laws citing that particular code section. Laws come with a clickable index (Register), which is sometimes very detailed. The Civil Code can be searchable by sections. The published texts in REACT date from June 1997. Caveats: all statutory material can only be seen per article of the statute; the search engine is quite restricted (no boolean search); decisions of the Bundesfinanzhof are cited but their text is not available (fee based service).
  • German Law Archive — This site is dedicated to publishing cases, statutes, literature and bibliographies on German law in English language. Judgments and other decisions by German courts; Statutes: Acts of Parliament and statutory instruments; Literature on German law.
  • TELEANWALT – Laws in full text. BGB. Summary of court decisions.

Greece

Hungary

Italy

Kyrgyz Republic

  • Toktom is the legal database of the Kyrgy z Republic, including all laws, decrees, acts, instructions etc. All information is collected and renewed from the official sources of the Kyrgyz Republic such as the Parliament, the administration of the President, the Government office, the Ministry of Justice, the National Bank etc. (Vernacular)

Latvia

Lithuania

  • Lithuanian Constitutional Court – Contains full text decisions of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Lithuania since its creation in 1993. Judgments are available in both Lithuanian and English. Also includes relevant info about the court.
  • Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania – Includes legislation adopted by Lithuanian Parliament. Some laws are available in English.

The Netherlands

Norway

  • LOVDATA is the main provider of online Norwegian statutes in the vernacular (Supreme Court decisions, statutes in force, central regulations, local regulations, Legal Gazette Part I and II). Lovdata is a non-profit organization established in 1981 by the Ministry of Justice and the Faculty of Law of the University of Oslo.
  • Norwegian acts translated to English – Unofficial translations. Some acts may not be updated.
  • ODIN, Official Documentation and Information from Norway ODIN is the central web-server for the Norwegian Government, the Office of the Prime Minister and the ministries. [Odin pånorsk]

Poland

  • Biblioteka Kodeksów – Penal code, Civil code, Commercial Code, Family Code, Code of Civil Procedure. Vernacular.
  • ABC – Contains all legislation passed in Poland since 1996. Free. You only have to fill out an application.Vernacular.
  • LexPolonica; Polskie Prawo ; Polski Serwer Prawa LEX – All these databases contain Polish legislation since 1922 up to date. Vernacular. Fee-based services (about $5 a month + you pay for the amount of bytes received).
  • Polish Parliament – Laws in the vernacular.
  • RZECZPOSPOLITA – Polish main newspaper publishing new laws and news in English. New laws in full text in Polish having the Official Gazette citation.

Romania

Russia

  • Center for Legal Information at the Ministry of Justice
  • Garant is available in two versions: Russian and English.
  • Inforis Laws – Fee based database.
  • KODEKS – The largest Database of Legal Information in Russia. Vernacular. Fee based. This is a database with codification, in Russian and partly in English. Kodeks focuses on the area of St. Petersburg. Daily updated. Contains general sections on legislation of Russia; specialized sections on legislation of Russia; sections on regional legislation; section on international law; sections on foreign legislation; information and consultation systems; sections of articles and commentaries; sections of consultations; sections of reference books and glossaries; sections of electronic editions of newspapers and magazines.
  • Kodeks – Legal Regulations of Business in Russia – Fee based.
  • Konsultant Plius – Laws and legal news. In the vernacular.
  • Official Russia – The Russian Federation administrative bodies. Official information and documents from the Web-pages of the Russian President, Security Council as well as references to the Web-pages of other official Web-sites.
  • Russia on the Net – Legislation (or http://counter.rambler.ru/top100/) has a good search engine and links to legal available resources on the Internet.
  • Russian Federation at Bayreuth University has links to the constitution, civil code, laws and regulations (selected), governmental decrees, local laws (many not updated or unofficial). The Constitution, the Civil Code, some regulations are in English and German.
  • REESWEB at the University of Pittsburgh is a comprehensive index of electronic resources on the Balkans, the Baltic states, the Caucasus, Central Asia, Central Europe, the CIS, Eastern Europe, the NIS, the Russian Federation, and the former Soviet Union. The REESWeb is sponsored by the Center for Russian and East European Studies of the University of Pittsburgh.
  • Rambler has a good Index and an excellent search engine searching in Russian language and English.
  • Referent – Laws and the Russian legal system.
  • BISNIS Online, the home page for the Department of Commerce’s Business Information Service for the Newly Independent States (BISNIS).
  • The Supreme Court of the Russian Federation
  • The State Duma of the Russian Federation – Russian Parliament. See also The Parliament Library Abstracts of the official documents in Russian.
  • Zhurnal – Index of Russian search engines. See;Yandex-Web (English and Russian); Aport -( Russian); Comptek.

Spain

  • Colex Data – The best Spanish legal database, Colex Data offers Codes, Jurisprudence, Laws, regulations, legal commentaries. Highly recommended by Spanish lawyers. Access by subscription only.
  • Boletín Oficial del Estado published by Ministerio de la Presidencia – Extensive Spanish government information.
  • BOENET– gives free access to BOE for the last 15 days.
  • Derecho – Excellent index of Spanish laws and search engine for Spanish law only.
  • IUSPORT – Boletines Oficialse, Legislation, and Jurisprudence.
  • JurisWeb – Laws, Jurisprudence, legal journals, institutions, index to layers, etc.
  • LinkLex – Legislación española concordada – Legal texts, articles, regulations.
  • Projecte Norma Civil (Norma Civil Project) – The Project offers the full text of the Spanish Civil Code (free, like all the other materials) and also contains the main Spanish legal statutes concerning civil subjects as well as the whole Catalan civil legislation (including regulations of family law).

Sweden

  • Information Rosenbad is the name of the Swedish Government’s new joint service point for communication and information. It is also the name of the Swedish Government’s web site on the Internet. It has an English version. Laws, acts, rules, law summaries in vernacular and sometimes in English.
  • Lagboken— Index of current Swedish law. In vernacular. If you download and install a plug-in, you can also perform a free text search.
  • Rixlex is the public database of the Swedish Parliament. In vernacular. Includes directives, reports, proposals, motions, parliamentary minutes, parliamentary calendar and news information, the catalog of the Parliamentary Library, Swedish laws and regulations (SFS), and more. Access to Rixlex is free.
  • Swedish Parliament – Debates, decisions, activites. The headlines provide fast information about current events and news relating to Parliament. They are updated daily.

Switzerland

  • Swiss Federal Supreme Court – Decisions from 1975 to the present in German, French and Italian. Official citation and pagination as well as full-text search.
  • Systematische Sammlung des Bundesrechts — Recueil Systematique du Droit Federal (Swiss federal law). Official site of the Swiss Government. Contains all federal laws with a search engine searching by law number. Free of charge at the moment. Texts can be viewed in html format or in pdf format (readable with acrobat reader) having its original structure and pagination. The database contains the Constitution, laws, ordinances in French, German, Italian.
  • Swisslex-Westlaw – Full text commercial database. (Approximately $400/month or approximately $10 per downloaded document)
  • To see a comprehensive list of Swiss databases go to http://www.law.nyu.edu/library/foreign_intl/switzerland.html.

Ukraine

Uzbekistan

  • Government – Office of the President; Oliy Majlis (Parliament); Cabinet of Ministers; State Property Committee; State Committee for Taxation ; State Customs Committee; Ministry of Justice; Institute of Strategic Studies; Foreign Investment Agency; Central Bank; National Bank for Foreign Economic Activity; ASAKA Bank; Department for coordination of external economic activity.
  • Laws in Russian
  • Business related laws in English

Transnational/International Organizations (Council of Europe and The European Union)

A. Council of Europe

  • Council of Europe Home Page
  • Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly Home Page provides basic information about its work, structure, offers the latest news and the opportunity to search “The Europeans” — the electronic newsletter of the Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly.
  • European Court of Human Rights – General Information, Pending Cases, Judgements, Basic Texts. This site was opened on 05/01/97.
  • For full text of cases, search HUDOC. The site contains a complete Index to all ECHR judgements.
  • European Treaties 1949- – Contains conventions, protocols of the 40 members of the Council of Europe. By subject category.
  • European Commission for Democracy through Law (Venice).Venice Commission of the Council of Europe is a body of independent experts in constitutional law. Advise new democratic States when they adopt or amend constitutions and closely related laws. The Commission also cooperates with about 40 constitutional courts in Europe and overseas, publishing summaries of their most important decisions in the Bulletin on Constitutional Case-Law. Summaries are also available in CODICES (CD-ROM or Internet) together with the full text of about 1500 decisions in various languages.

B. The European Union

I. Institutions

  • EUROPA is the umbrella platform for the home pages of all the institutions, their individual components and specialized agencies. Basic access to information is through the “Policy” section. The Directorates-General and Services address is http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs_en.htm.
  • EUR-Lex – The complete L and C series of the OJ, full text of legislation in force, treaties, judgments of the ECJ, COM documents in eleven languages for a period of 20 days after the date of publication.
  • Governments on-line
  • On the Record— Official Documents from the Union (Green Papers, White Papers, Treaties, Treaty on European Union, Press Releases)
  • RAPID. The Spokesman’s Service of the European Commission – Daily reviews of the EU as presented by the Institutions in their press releases, memos, speeches. Easy access to the latest from the Commission as well as the backfile to 1985 (for those materials that do exist that for back). You can use the username guest with the password guest. RAPID has a good search engine.
  • European Parliament EUROPARL (European Parliament Multilingual Web Service) offers information and documents on the activities of the Parliament, COM and OJ documents. The Parliament has opened the equivalent of EPOQUE to the general public. EPOQUE offers information on the status of legislative procedures having a variety of search options.
  • Court of Justice of the European Communities offers case law and proceedings starting with 1996.
  • I*M Information Market Europe is a medium for European Commission programs to stimulate the European electronic information services market.
  • Information Society Project Office (ISPO) was established to promote private and public activities in developing information society.
  • The U.S. Web Site of the European Commission offers information about the EU and the services of the Commission’s Washington and New York delegations, policies and legislation.
  • European Environment Agency
  • European Investment Bank
  • Office of Harmonization in the Internal Market (Trademarks)

II. Databases

  • Celex – The database includes the full text of legislation published in the Official Journal of the European Communities in the L Series and citations to information in the C Series.
  • European Commission Host Organization (ECHO) offers access free of charge to more than 20 online databases in all Community languages. The search system was built using Harvest system and needs a WWW browser that supports the forms interface.
  • EURODICAUTOM is the multilingual terminological database of the Commission’s Translation Service. Eurodicautom contains terms, acronyms, abbreviations. Includes terms of the European Council and the European Parliament. Coverage from 1976. Updated monthly.
  • CORDIS is the Community Research and Development Information Service providing access to 14 databases: News updated daily; Programmes for finding opportunities in any research areas; Projects for who is doing what; Com documents, etc.
  • EUDOR – Offers the Official Journal, COM documents, Consolidated Community legislation.
  • Resource centre for Access to Data on Europe (R·CADE) is a statistics resource .R·CADE is an official Eurostat datashop.

III. Indexes, Directories, Electronic Publications

  • European Integration Online Papers – Includes a series of papers by prominent scholars. The Editor-in-chief is Dr. Michael Nentwich from the Austrian Academy of Science. Among the topics are the EU citizenship, governance, democracy, and social policy.
  • Eurointernet – A collection of WWW pointers relating to European integration. Information Resources Related to European Integration in the Internet provides you with a collection of Internet resources for all issues concerning the integration of Europe.
  • European Union Internet Resources at Berkeley University – Links to EU Servers and Institutions.
  • European Union Bibliography – A Research Guide to Primary and Secondary legislation, Treaties, policy documents, guide to EU citations.
  • Europa and Internet – European Documentation Center at Valencia University offers near 800 different links to EU.
  • Information Sources: Western Europe & the European Union at Columbia University.
  • IDEA – The Electronic Directory of the European Institutions allows search by persons, organizational entities, etc., in English, French, German.
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