Finding Foreign Constitutions

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We have several resources available to our community for locating English language texts of foreign constitutions.

  • HeinOnline’s World Constitutions Illustrated contains the current constitution for each of over 190 countries, the constitutional histories of several countries including the United Kingdom, France, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, India, Mexico, Italy, South Africa, and El Salvador, along with thousands of digitized books and articles related to constitutional law of other countries.
  • Oxford Constitutions of the World contains the full text of 190 countries’ constitutions in English translation. “Each document provides the user with an authoritative translation of the most current version of each country’s constitution as well as many of the amending documents, decrees, and proclamations.”
  • Wolters Kluwer’s International Encyclopaedia of Laws: Constitutional Law “presents a country-by-country survey of constitutional law throughout the world, and is also in the process of publishing, in one source, all of the constitutions of the world in English translations.”  This resource also contains over 40 national monographs, providing “detailed information of the country’s political system, historical background, sources of constitutional law, form of government … state form and subdivisions of the state, component states and decentralized authorities, citizenship (especially nationality and the legal position of aliens), and specific problems such as foreign relations, taxing and spending power, emergency laws, the power of the military, and the constitutional relation between Church and State.”
Posted in Library Resources

Happy Constitution Day!

Constitution

In honor of it being Constitution Day, here are some facts about the 1787 Philadelphia convention, the ratification of the Constitution, and the supreme law of our land itself (and its amendments), courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration.

Posted in Holidays

Scottish Independence

On Monday, September 15, Prof. David Scheffer and the Center for International Human Rights will be giving a talk on the topic of Scottish Independence. For more information on this topic, check out the Guide to Law Online: Scotland or this comprehensive guide to Scottish Legal History prepared by the Georgetown Law Library.

Update:
Here is the document that Prof. Scheffer mentioned in his talk: Scotland’s Decision: 16 Questions to think about for the referendum on 18 September.

Posted in Uncategorized

Remembering September 11, 2001: The 9/11 Commission Report

 

The 9/11 Commission Report

Today marks the 13th anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.  Approximately 14 months after the attacks, then-President George W. Bush signed into law the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2003, Pub. L. No. 107-306, 116 Stat. 2383.  Among other effects, this Act created the 9/11 Commission, a bipartisan group charged with investigating the attacks.  On July 22, 2004, the “9/11 Commission Report” was released which, according to its Preface, addresses both “how did this happen, and how can we avoid such tragedy again?”

As you take some time today to reflect, we invite you to view the linked documents, which are available via GPO’s Federal Digital System or FDsys, located at http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys.  FDsys provides free access to approximately 50 collections of authenticated United States Government information.

Posted in Uncategorized

IBFD Tax Research Platform Now Available!

We are pleased to announce that we now have a subscription to IBFD Tax Research Platform.

Produced by the International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation, this resource provides authoritative English-language texts of the laws of over 120 countries worldwide, as well as in-depth analyses of the individual and corporate tax law provisions from over 60 individual countries, primarily in Europe and Asia. The database also includes the texts of bilateral and multilateral tax treaties. Documents and their provisions can be compared easily, making this resource valuable for international tax researchers.

Our subscription may be accessed directly at:  http://www.law.northwestern.edu/library/resolver.cfm?handle=12763, or via our A-Z E-Resources page.

Posted in Library Resources

Labor Day: Did You Know?

In honor of Labor Day, did you know …

Also, since we are a law library, did you know the following legislative facts about Labor Day …

  • Oregon was the first state to pass legislation making Labor Day an official holiday, in 1887 (via LLMC Digital)
  • The federal government first passed legislation making Labor Day a holiday in the District of Columbia and in the territories in 1894 (via HeinOnline)
Posted in Holidays, Library Resources

Welcome

Welcome to the PLRC blog!

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