Legal Information Institutes: What do they offer the SAARC region and regional trade?

1. Legal Information Institutes: What do they offer the SAARC region and regional trade? Graham Greenleaf, Professor of Law, University of New South Wales, and Co-Director, AustLII International Development Law Organisation (IDLO)South Asia Trade Seminar, Sydney, May 2008

2. Outline of presentation • Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) and global free access to law • Free access to law in the SAARC region • Demonstration: Searching LIIs for SAARC regional law • Possible future developments

3. What is a Legal Information Institute (LII)? • Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) • Provides free and non-profit online access • Publishes multi-sourced legal resources • Collections, not just its own cases or legislation • Usually independent of governments - sometimes collaboration • May be national, regional, language-based, or global • The Free Access to Law Movement • A global association of LIIs from all continents • Shares a Declaration of principles • A commitment to global collaboration

4. The LIIs of the Asia-Pacific

5. The global structure of LIIs

6. Who operates LIIs? • Universities, as public service • LII (Cornell) PacLII, HKLII, AustLII, NZLII, LawPhil • AsianLII, Droit Francophone, CommonLII, WorldLII, jointly for LIIs • A non-profit Trust / Foundation (NGOs) • BAILII (BAILII Trust members are from Courts, Universities, Legal Profession) • SAFLII (South African Constitutional Court Trust members are from Courts, Universities etc; mandate to publish decisions from Chief Justices of Southern and Eastern African countries) • Kenya Law Reports (non-profit government-owned publisher) • The Legal Profession, as professional & public services • CanLII (Law Societies of Canada with a University) • Juri Burkina; CyLaw

7. Australasian Legal Information Institute • AustLII’s Australian operations • In operation 12 years since 1995 • Free-access, non-profit service by 2 Australian Law Faculties (UTS & UNSW) • 252 databases of Australian law • 650,000 accesses per day; more than all commercial services • AustLII developed its own search engine and mark-up software • AustLII’s international role • Leading member of the Free Access to Law Movement • Since 2000, AustLII has used its software and expertise to assist the development of free access to law in other countries: BAILII (UK), PacLII (Pacific Islands), HKLII (HK), NZLII (New Zealand) etc • CommonLII and AsianLII are the most recent example of AustLII’s mission to develop free access to law internationally

8. Commonwealth Legal Information Institute • CommonLII gives new meaning to ‘common law’ • No longer a ‘one way street’ from the UK • 571 databases from 59 Commonwealth countries/territories • Most are on existing LIIs, CommonLII is a network • Supported by Commonwealth Law Ministers • And by most other Commonwealth-wide legal bodies • English as the language of the common law • Databases are shared with AsianLII & WorldLII

9. Asian Legal Information Institute • AsianLII - the first Asia-wide law portal • Launched in December 2006 • 189 databases from all 28 Asian countries • Key legislation in English from almost all countries • Over 200,000 cases in full text • Also law reform and law journals • Over 50,000 page accesses per day • Increasing databases in non-English languages • Increasingly a network of LIIs as new LIIs form • HKLII, PacLII (PNG), soon LawPhil, Thai Law • Support from many key regional institutions

11. Free access to SAARC region law - Largest providers • India - Courts Informatics Div., National Informatics Centre • India Code & Indian Courts (SC, 18 HCs, 12 DCs and 9 Tribunals) • Strength is broad coverage and up-to-date • But need to search 20+ different databases separately • Inflexible search engine • LawNet SriLanka • With World Bank aid, one of the best integrated systems in the developing world • Smaller systems in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Nepal, Butan • Problems: • No region-wide capacity to search for law from SAARC countries • Lost opportunities for trade, investment and law reform research

12. Demonstration: SAARC law on AsianLII • SAARC pages on AsianLII • South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation • Allows free comparative law research • Example: search for laws concerning arbitration • Search databases of all 8 countries + SAARC • Searches legislation + all cases etc together • Relevance ranking (most important items first) • Displays by database, or most recent cases • Search other websites (Websearch) • Search for what Google can find • View catalog of SAARC country websites • Can display results jointly or from 1 country • This is a prototype for a SAARC LII

13. Future LII developmentsin the SAARC region • A SAARC legal information institute? • Based in the region, using LII software etc • Partner institutions in all SAARC countries • To assist capacity building in free access resources across the SAARC region • Integrated with AsianLII, CommonLII & WorldLII • Separate legal information institutes for individual countries? • Sri Lanka has one, one is planned for India • A complementary way of publishing the LawNet etc data • Integrated with SAARC portal, and other LIIs

14. Acknowledgments • Funding sources for AsianLII & CommonLII • AusAID (Australian Dept. Foreign Affairs & Trade) • Australian Attorney-General’s Department • Australian Research Council • Development of AustLII’s SAARC resources • Prof. Andrew Mowbray, SINO search engine • Philip Chung, Executive Director • Kieran Hackshall, development of databases