- This week I updated the publicly-accessible web guide: EU Legal Research: Starting Points. This guide highlights, and links to, electronic and print sources. It discusses EUROPA, Lawtel EU and Westlaw databases.
- Guide tab Databases links to the Lisbon Treaty and to consolidated versions of the Treaty on European Union and the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. If a researcher follows this link to treaties posted at the Council of the European Union’s website, the researcher can obtain a consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (= EEC Treaty as amended many times) as published in a 2010 issue of the Official Journal of the European Union. This consolidated version is nearly two years’ more current than the version cited on p. 207 of The Bluebook (19th ed.). I highly recommend that researchers cite to the 2010 consolidated version of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union.
- Guide tab Legal News includes feeds about both EU legal developments and IP developments. Analysis of many EU developments appears in the journals and paper series highlighted under guide tab Periodicals.
- Since the EU’s Treaty of Lisbon entered into force in December 2009, it is important to use current sources when conducting EU research. One recently published overview available in our Reserve collection is: A Guide to European Union Law as Amended by the Treaty of Lisbon (2010) by Mathijsen. Other guides to EU law appear under guide tab: Indexes, Textbook, Overview and Guides.
- Feel free to discuss your EU research projects with me in person. Jean Davis, Librarian & Adjunct Professor of Law
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Legal researchers interested in UK legislation now have a new online tool as the UK government has launched a website with public access to UK legislation dating back to 1267 providing 743 years of legislation (with a few exceptions) in one database. The new website of the National Archives, the UK government’s official archive, brings together every single piece of UK legislation, from the Magna Carta (1215) to the present day, in one place for the first time free of charge. With 6.5 million PDF documents and original versions of UK legislation covering England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland along with details of any amendments, the site provides an interactive browse facility and timeline.
Oliver Morley of the National Archives described the launch of the site as “a bold statement of transparency”. He said: “By using the latest technology and opening up the raw data underpinning legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives has given global access to the nation’s ‘operating system’. I’m proud to say this website is the only example of its kind in the world. It provides access to an invaluable and historical resource for anyone wanting to know what the law actually says.”
A post at the Resource Shelf has answers to FAQs about the site. Going back to the 13th century, the site makes if easy to view historical Acts of Parliament, such as the Act of Union in 1707, the Libraries Offences Act 1898 and the Public Records (Scotland) Act 1809. New legislation such as the Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Rules 2010 is included along with the archived material.
Brooklyn Law School students doing research in UK or EU law can access Justis and JustCite on the BLS Library A-Z list. Justis is a full-text online legal library of UK, Irish and EU case law dating back to 1163 and legislation from 1235. BLS access to Justis for cases is to the Law Reports (1865-) and Weekly Law Reports (1953-) and to statutes (1235-), statutory instruments (1949-) and earlier regulations (1671-) in original form. For more detail on coverage, see Jean Davis’ English Legal Sources Available through BLS Library.
Features on the latest version of Justis include:
The companion site, JustCite, is a legal search engine and citator that links to content from a range of publishers with links to full-text material on leading online services. It cross references cases, legislation and articles covering all major law series in the UK and links to all major legal databases including Westlaw, Lexis Library, Justis, for which the Brooklyn Law School Library has a subscription. One search will find the cases, legislation and articles for the researcher; see whether it is still good law; and then link through to that item by choosing one of the databases to which the BLS Library subscribes and it has:
The new interface allows the user to see the relationship between documents easily and gives snapshots of the status of a case as shown in this image of the JustCite Precedent Map. The first view of the map displays the case in the center of the screen with cases around with which it has a relationship.
Cases cited by the case the researcher entered appear on the left-hand side of the screen, and cases which cite that case appear on the right. They are ordered chronologically, in a clockwise direction. The oldest case cited appears in the lower left, and the most recent citing case appears in the lower right. A green connector indicates a ‘positive’ relationship. Yellow indicates a ‘neutral’ relationship. Red indicates a ‘negative’ relationship. The size of the orbiting cases is proportional to the number of relationships shared with the case in the center. A JustCite Web Demo is available at this link.
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