Free Access to Law Movement
The Free Access to Law Movement is a collective of legal projects from various countries that aim to provide free online access to legal information such as case law and legislation.
The movement began in 1992 with the Cornell Law School Legal Information Institute. There are 40 members of the movement and 2 inactive members.
Short name Full name Coverage Member Since
AsianLII AsianLII
Asian Legal Information Institute
Asia
2007
AustLII
AustLII
Australasian Legal Information Institute
Australasia
2002
BAILII BAILII
British & Irish Legal Information Institute
UK and Ireland
2002
Botswana e-Laws Botswana e-Laws
Botswana E-laws
Botswana
2011
CanLII CanLII
Canadian Legal Information Institute
Canada
2002
Cardiff Index Cardiff Index
Cardiff Index to Legal Abbreviations
Global
2009
CommonLII CommonLII
Commonwealth Legal Information Institute
Global
2006
CyLaw CyLaw
CyLaw
Cyprus
2004
Droit.org Droit.org
Institut Francais d’information Juridique
France
2008
GLIN GLIN
Global Legal Information Network
Global
2007
HKLII HKLII
Hong Kong Legal Information Institute
Hong Kong SAR
2002
IALS IALS Information Projects
Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Information Projects
UK
2011
IDT IDT
Institute of Law & Technology
Spain
2008
UNAM IIJ-UNAM
Instituto de Investigaciones Jurà dicas
Mexico
2008
IIJusticia IIJusticia
IIJusticia
Argentina
2008
IRLII IRLII
Irish Legal Information Initiative
Ireland
2007
ITTIG ITTIG
Institute of Legal Information Theory & Techniques
Italy
2005
JerseyLIB JLIB
Jersey Legal Information Board
Jersey
2008
JIPS JIPS
Juristisches Internetprojekt Saarbrücken
Germany
2007
JuriBurkina JuriBurkina
JuriBurkina
Burkina Faso
2005
JuriNiger JuriNiger
JuriNiger
Niger
2007
Juriste.ma Juriste.ma
Juriste.ma
Morocco
2011
KLR KenyaLaw
Kenya Law Reports
Kenya
2007
KLRI KLRI
Korean Legislation Research Institute
South Korea
2009
KSL KSL
Kathmandu School of Law
Nepal
2009
LawPhil LawPhil
The LawPhil Project
Philippines
2007
LexUM LexUM
LexUM
Global
2002
LiberLII LiberLII
Liberia Legal Information Institute
Liberia
2011
LII (Cornell) LII (Cornell)
Legal Information Institute
USA
2002
LIIofIndia LII of India
Legal Information Institute of India
India
2010
LIS-FSM LIS-FSM
Legal Information System of the Federated States of Micronesia
Federated States of Micronesia
2011
MalawiLII MalawiLII
Malawi Legal Information Institute
Malawi
2009
NamLII NamLII
Namibia Legal Information Institute
Namibia
2011
NZLII NZLII
New Zealand Legal Information Institute
New Zealand
2005
PacLII PacLII
Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute
Pacific Islands
2002
SAFLII SAFLII
Southern African Legal Information Institute
Africa
2002
SwaziLII SwaziLII
Swaziland Legal Information Institute
Swaziland
2011
TaiwanLII TaiwanLII
Taiwan Legal Information Institute
Taiwan
2011
TLRC TLRC
Thai Law Reform Commission
Thailand
2008
ULII ULII
Ugandan Legal Information Institute
Uganda
2007
WorldLII WorldLII
World Legal Information Institute
Global
2002
The World Legal Information Institute is the umbrella project for the other LII projects.
The majority use one of two open source search engines: the Sino search engine developed by AustLII (previously shared, but only open source since 2006), and the Lucene search engine utilised by LexUM in the development of various LIIs.
According to the article “Legal Information Institutes and the Free Access to Law Movement”, by Professor Graham Greenleaf, the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) was started by two Law Schools in Sydney, Australia, in 1995. It borrowed the ‘LII’ suffix from Cornell, as others have done since. By 1999 it had developed databases from all 9 Australian jurisdictions covering key providers of case law, legislation, Treaties and some other content. AustLII’s initial significance was that it was the first attempt world-wide to build a comprehensive national free access legal information system rivaling that of commercial publishers. From 1999 AustLII started to use its search engine (Sino) and other software to assist organisations in other countries, usually with academic roots, to establish LIIs with similar functionality. AustLII initially established between 2000-04 servers and databases for five LIIs (BAILII, PacLII, HKLII, SAFLII and NZLII), then ran them from Sydney for a period on behalf of its local partners. The aim of assisting partners to achieve full local take-over as quickly as possible has been successful, with only NZLII’s server still being operated by AustLII.
According to the Professor, the long-established LexUM team at the University of Montreal built in 2000 the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII). It quickly became a very large national LII comprehensively covering Canada’s federal system, matching AustLII in size and usage. LexUM initially used the Sino search engine but then adopting the open-source Lucene search engine and other development tools. Using these, they have developed Droit Francophone (2003), and with local partners developed Juri Burkina (2003) and JuriNiger (2007). AustLII and LexUM both continue to assist development of LIIs in other countries (working on systems yet to be announced), and although their approaches have been somewhat different, both have been effective.
Their “Declaration on Free Access to Law”include the following:
Publicly funded secondary (interpretative) legal materials should be accessible for free but permission to republish is not always appropriate or possible. In particular free access to legal scholarship may be provided by legal scholarship repositories, legal information institutes or other means.
Legal information institutes:
Publish via the internet public legal information originating from more than one public body;
Provide free and anonymous public access to that information;
Do not impede others from obtaining public legal information from its sources and publishing it; and
Support the objectives set out in this Declaration.
All legal information institutes are encouraged to participate in regional or global free access to law networks.
Therefore, the legal information institutes agree:
To promote and support free access to public legal information throughout the world, principally via the Internet;
To recognise the primary role of local initiatives in free access publishing of their own national legal information;
To cooperate in order to achieve these goals and, in particular, to assist organisations in developing countries to achieve these goals, recognising the reciprocal advantages that all obtain from access to each other’s law;
To help each other and to support, within their means, other organisations that share these goals with respect to:
Promotion, to governments and other organisations, of public policy conducive to the accessibility of public legal information;
Technical assistance, advice and training;
Development of open technical standards;
Academic exchange of research results.
To meet at least annually, and to invite other organisations who are legal information institutes to Subscribe to this declaration and join those meetings, according to procedures to be established by the parties to this Declaration;
To provide to the end users of public legal information clear information concerning any conditions of re-use of that information, where this is feasible.
Conclusion
Notes
See Also
References and Further Reading
About the Author/s and Reviewer/s
Author: international
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