External Sources

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Contents

Internet Gateways

Some of the best gateways for this subject area are:

Provides access to the most comprehensive, free and up to date collection of British and Irish primary legal materials on the internet. Includes the Smith Bernal appeal case database.An important and rapidly developing site.
a free, independent and non-profit global legal research facility
Provides guidance and access to global legal information resources on the Internet.The service aims to identify and evaluate legal resource sites offering primary and secondary materials and other items of legal interest. Descriptive records and links are created for legal service sites and specific documents.
An American site with an obvious US bias, but nevertheless an important legal gateway to a vast range of resources. Free text or Boolean searching (using AND OR NOT NEAR operators) or browse the general index (the legal subject index is particularly useful)
Another major US based legal gateway with links to a vast range of sources. Text in English, German, French, Spanish or Italian.
A key source for Australian legal material (much in full text) with useful worldwide legal links.
Maintained by Delia Venables
Useful link to legal sources by region, e.g. UK, EU, Australia.
An annotated list of web sites compiled by Sarah Carter

Legal Abbreviations

None of these links claims to be comprehensive, but they may still be worth checking:

Case Search Databases

Full text of opinions in the supreme courts and selected decisions of sheriff court cases from mid 1998 onwards.

Legislation

The site aims to contain the full text of all Acts of the Scottish Parliament, the Explanatory Notes to the Acts of the Scottish Parliament and Scottish Statutory Instruments. Hypertext links are also provided to the full text of all United Kingdom Acts of Parliament and United Kingdom Statutory Instruments which apply exclusively or primarily to Scotland. Key word searchable.
Full text public general Acts from 1996, local Acts from 1997. Original text only. Keyword searchable. See also Explanatory notes to public Acts From the first public Act of 1999 (with the exception of Appropriation, Consolidated Fund, Finance and Consolidation Acts)
From 1997 onwards. (With effect from the first Draft Statutory Instrument published after 1 November 1997 all new Draft Statutory Instruments awaiting approval will also be published in full text form on the Internet. They will remain until such time as they are superseded by a Statutory Instrument or until they are withdrawn.)

Electronic Journals

Organisations

Includes the home pages for the Law Courseware Consortium
Contains the full texts of all discussion papers and reports from September 2000 and details of current projects

Official Publications

A record of the proceedings of the Parliament and its committees.
produced by Glasgow University Library

European Union

Includes case law from 17/6/97, Court of First Instance staff cases from 4/3/98 and Proceedings of the Court of Justice from 1996 onwards.
Website for EU information including legislation and case law

International Law

Contains the full text of all cases heard by the court.
Links to various UN publications and databases including Treaties, Conventions and Declarations.

Key Reference Sources

These titles can be found in the Reference Section of Craiglockhart Library

  • Information sources in law (REF 344.0016 WIN)
This publication looks at most of the countries of Europe and the European Union in terms of jurisdictions - the UK for example is broken down into England and Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland, with another section allocated to The Isle of Man and The Channel Islands. For each jurisdiction, legal sources are considered under the following headings: Introduction to the legal system; Introductory works on the legal system and legal research; Legislation; Codes and Commentaries; Treaties; Law Reports; Computer based systems; Encyclopedias; Directories; Bibliographies; Current Information Sources (journals, news, business and financial information and statistics); and Useful addresses. A list of works cited is given at the end of each chapter. This is an authoritative work for anyone seeking information about legal sources in a particular jurisdiction.


  • Lawyers' law books (REF 340.016)
A useful source for identifying key encyclopedias, journals and texts relating to specific areas of law. A list of subject headings from Abbreviations, ranging through Drains and Sewers to Tort to Youth Courts leads to the appropriate sections in the main body of the book where a listing of sources is given under each heading. Check elsewhere for material published after August 1996.


  • Index to legal citations and abbreviations (REF 340.0148 RAI)
Whilst a number of publications have lists of abbreviations, this publication is very much a port of last call, with more than 25,000 entries, from abbreviations with a single meaning to those with more than twenty. Primary coverage is the UK, Ireland, The Commonwealth and the USA, but there are entries from all over the world.


  • The Oxford companion to law (REF 340.03 WAL)
With an alphabetical listing of entries related to legal systems, institutions, personalities, concepts, principles and cases, this work is intended to complement existing legal works of reference such as textbooks, dictionaries, commentaries and the like. Entries are succinct but fuller than a normal dictionary entry for example, often running to several pages. Always worth checking, its most serious limitation is its date of publication (1980).
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