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WorldLII’s International Courts & Tribunals Project Responding to the fragmentation of international law. Presentation by Philip Chung & Andrew Mowbray Co-Directors, AustLII & WorldLII 6th Conference on Law via the Internet Paris, 3-5 November, 2004. Fragmentation.
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WorldLII’s International Courts & Tribunals Project Responding to the fragmentation of international law Presentation by Philip Chung & Andrew Mowbray Co-Directors, AustLII & WorldLII 6th Conference on Law via the Internet Paris, 3-5 November, 2004
Fragmentation • Pre-WWII - Decisions were from a small number of international tribunals • Post-WWII - Fragmentation of international law decisions: • Regional tribunals • Human rights tribunals • International trade tribunals • Criminal courts • Now over 30 significant ICTs
Effect of the Internet • Most ICTs have put decisions on line • But fragmentation has remained • 30+ websites, no consolidation • Often no search engine on site (30%) • Often not searchable via Google (30%) • Often not HTML, few navigation aids (25%)
WorldLII’s International Courts & Tribunals (ICT) Project A response to fragmentation • All final decisions of ICTs searchable together • Interim decisions not included • Consistent formatting of decisions • Eg ‘Context’ links to search terms • Consistent citation system • Eg McELHINNEY v. IRELAND [2001] ECHR 754
Collaborative project by LIIs • ‘Decentralisation wherever practical’ • Regional decisions on regional LIIs • Eg ECJ is on BAILII • French language decisions on Droit Francophone • Most decisions currently located on WorldLII • Exploring methods of distributing data between LIIs
Content of the ICT project • Near-complete decisions of 20 ICTs • But French, Spanish etc still being added • Over 20,000 full text decisions • Other content being added • Scanning text of PCIJ image decisions • Other international criminal courts • Database of Court statutes, rules etc Now for a demonstration …
A few things demonstrated • Scope of searches • Default is to search all decisions • Popular combinations of databases provided • Individual Courts or combinations can be chosen • Easy to go directly to a case (use ‘v’) • Easy to ‘note up’ a case (use ‘near’) • Searches can be repeated over larger collections
Sustainability… • Thanks to all the ICTs for cooperation • Australian Research Council funding to capture the backsets of decisions • Ongoing funding • Requires at least one person to maintain • Possible collaboration with PiCT (Project on International Courts & Tribunals) That was the official launch …