Free Access to Law Movement
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Declaration on Free Access to Law
In October 2002 the meeting of LIIs in Montreal at the 4th Law via Internet Conference, made the following declaration1 as a joint statement of their philosophy of access to law. There were some further modifications of the Declaration at the Sydney meeting of LIIs in 20032 and at the Paris meeting in 20043.Legal information institutes of the world, meeting in Montreal, declare that:
- Public legal information from all countries and international institutions is part of the common heritage of humanity. Maximising access to this information promotes justice and the rule of law;
- Public legal information is digital common property and should be accessible to all on a non-profit basis and free of charge;
- Independent non-profit organisations have the right to publish public legal information and the government bodies that create or control that information should provide access to it so that it can be published.
A legal information institute:
- Publishes via the internet public legal information originating from more than one public body;
- Provides free, full and anonymous public access to that information;
- Does not impede others from publishing public legal information; and
- Supports the objectives set out in this Declaration.
Therefore, the legal information institutes agree:
- To promote and support free access to public legal information throughout the world, principally via the Internet;
- 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.
* [Australasian Legal Information Institute] * [British and Irish Legal Information Institute] * [LexUM]/[Canadian Legal Information Institute] * [Hong Kong Legal Information Institute] * [Legal Information Institute (Cornell)] * [Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute] * [University of the West Indies Faculty of Law Library] * [Wits University School of Law]As amended by the representatives of the following legal information institutes present at the 5th Law via the Internet Conference in Sydney, November 2003:
* [Australasian Legal Information Institute] * [British and Irish Legal Information Institute] * [LexUM]/[Canadian Legal Information Institute] * [Hong Kong Legal Information Institute] * [Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute] * [South African Legal Information Institute]
References
Note 1: See [Note 2: The amendments were: (i) in the title of the Declaration, `public' was changed to `free'; (ii) the words `where possible' were deleted from the second bullet point `where possible, free of charge'; (iii) addition of the description of a legal information institute and the encouragement to participate in networks; and (iv) addition of the final bullet point about an annual meeting to the list of areas of agreed cooperation.
Note 3: The amendments were: (i) the words "It also includes legal documents created as a result of public funding." were added to the end of para 2 after 'boards of enquiry': (ii) the words "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." were added to the final list of bullet points.
WorldLII
The World Legal Information Institute is the umbrella project for all the other LII projects. From the WorldLII website all other databases can be searched.See: [home page]
AustLII
The Australasia Legal Information Institute is the project providing Australian and New Zealand legal information.See: [home page]
BAILII
The British and Irish Legal Information Institute is the project providing legal information on England and Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, United Kingdom, and the European Union.See: [home page]
CanLII
The Canadian Legal Information Institute is the project providing legal information on Canada.See: [home page]
HKLII
The Hong Kong Legal Information InstituteSee: [home page]
LII (Cornell)
The Legal Information Institute at Cornell Law School provides free legal information for the United States. It was the original LII project, founded in 1992.See: [home page]
NZLII
The New Zealand Legal Information InstituteSee: [home page]
PacLII
The Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute provides legal information on numerous Pacific Islands including American Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Island, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.See: [home page]
SAFLII
The Southern African Legal Information InstituteSee: [home page]
External links
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