Legal Sites and Resources in Asia, including China and Japan |
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AsianLII provides for searching and browsing databases of legislation, case-law, law reform reports, law journals and other legal information, where available, from each country in the region. At launch it will provide access to nearly 100 databases drawn from almost all 27 Asian countries. Over 140,000 cases from at least 15 countries, and over 15,000 pieces of legislation from at least 18 countries will be searchable. All databases can be searched simultaneously, or searches can be limited to one country’s databases or other combinations. Search results can be ordered by relevance, by date, or by database. For every country, AsianLII contains an extensive Catalog of law-related websites for that country (parts of the largest law catalog on the Internet), and a ‘Law on Google’ facility assisting users to search Google only for legal materials from that country.
The European equivalent eurid.eu, the European registry for .eu, is available to 490 million Europeans in 27 countries. This was the first top-level Internet domain for a broad, multi-country region and there are now 2.6 million domain names registered although not so many are actually in use - to some extent, it has been a defensive resigration process, with companies wanting to make sure that nobody stole their existing domain names in the new european web space.
The Auckland Law Society has an excellent (and carefully selected) set of links to China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malasia, Singapore and Taiwan (take the Asia option first).
BiziLaw is a new site for the Asian-Pacific legal community. It provides legal news and articles and a links library and is setting up various directories relating to lawyers and legal services in the region. You have to "join" for some of these services but it is free. Some other services are available on a chargeable basis.
Asian Legal Business is an independent magazine covering the latest legal news, events and developments in Hong Kong, Singapore, China, Asia and the international business community. The magazine examines changes in legislation, important areas of practice and overseas jurisdictions and profiles major industry leaders. The online (free) version covers much of this material.
Legislationline is a free online service provided by the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). It compiles international texts and domestic legislation in the OSCE region (55 countries located in the Caucasus, Central Asia, Europe and North America) dealing with the rule of law and the protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms. This is a particularly useful site for finding out about the legal and political structure of Eastern European and Central Asian countries less well known to UK lawyers. A free email newsletter is available, providing information on the latest legal developments throughout the OSCE region along with new additions to the site.
Lawinfochina.com is a English-language web site,
sponsored by Peking University Center for Legal Information,
that publishes Chinese statutes, regulations, cases, government policies, legal news, treatises,
law review articles, and law links. It is a subscription site although there is a free trial. It includes
* Nearly two thousand full text English versions of Chinese statutes in Laws & Regulations;
* Typical and influential cases in Cases;
* Basic statutes in sixty-three legal areas in Selected Laws;
* Voluminous legal commentaries, lectures, treatises, law review articles in Legal Forum;
* All the gazettes and white papers from 1997 up to the present in Government Watch;
* Up-to-date legal news in News;
* Editorial-enhanced summaries and title lists of most recent legislations in Legislation Brief;
* Law links to Law schools and law firms in Mainland China.
Lehman, Lee & Xu is a Chinese law firm with branches in Hong Kong SAR, Macau SAR, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Shenyang and Chengdu. Their site includes a large amount of information on the Chinese legal system which they have set out as a series of FAQ's on many legal topics. There is also an extensive set of links to other legal resources in China and the Far East.
Morrison & Foerster (a major USA law firm which has had an office in China for 20 years) have launched Morrison & Foerster's site in the Chinese language ("simplified Chinese") covering legal developments in China and featuring news about international legal developments across a broad range of industries. The site is intended to provide convenient access to valuable information for Chinese companies that are active internationally, as well as non-Chinese companies whose Chinese-speaking employees need ready access to information in their own language.
A site called Japan Law, set up by Nakamura & Associates, aims to provide information on Japanese Commercial Law topics, such as How to Incorporate a Business in Japan.