The appearance of this issue of the International Journal of Legal Information coincides almost exactly with the 40th anniversary of the founding of the International Association of Law Libraries. In June, 1959, a group of law librarians with long established personal interests in international law librarianship met in New York, with the goal of establishing an organization that would facilitate their work and bring law librarians around the world in closer contact. Professor William R. Roalfe of Northwestern University Law School in Chicago was elected the first President of the new Association, and Mr. K. Howard Drake of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, London, the Vice President. A report summarizing the organizational meeting was prepared by Adolf Sprudzs of the University of Chicago Law Library, who subsequently devoted much of his career to international law librarianship and particularly to the work of the Association, including serving two terms as its President (see appendix). For a recent history of the Association, please see the article by Mr. Sprudzs in The Law Librarian, volume 26 at page 321, 1995.

In the United States today, digital versions of current decisions, bills, statutes, and regulations issued by federal and state governments are widely available on publicly accessible Web sites. Worldwide, official (defined as “authoritative,” or “the official” word of the law) legal information issued by international organizations and foreign governments is also becoming available on the Web. However, there are currently no standards for the production and authentication of digital documents. Moreover, the information is sometimes available only for a short time and then disappears from the site. No guidelines exist either to promote a uniform way to cite to digital legal materials.

This article examines the contents of legal data and information on the Internet, with a special focus on the United States. It then evaluates the quality of the data, its impact on legal research and access to legal information, and addresses some issues raised by the digital medium, such as its reliability and permanent access concerns.

On April 1, 1999 our colleague, Lic.jur. Lotte Kunz, unexpectedly passed away at the age of 75. She died of a stroke at her home in Bern, Switzerland.

The modern history of Vietnam indicates that the country has always had more than one legal system, whether the country was unified or divided. These systems have changed and been influenced by indigenous customs, by Chinese, French, American, and socialist laws, and by other political or violent events. For example, starting from the period when Vietnam was under French domination, the country had three separate sets of laws for its three geographical regions: 1) Tonkin in the North; 2) Annam in the Center; and 3) Cochin China in the South.

Librarians meeting other librarians: very boring people talking about extremely boring topics in an outrageously boring manner (and in boring places at boring times). Outsiders may look at us that way (it is hard to overcome a reputation), but, of course, WE know that this is not a true reflection of our professional reality.

During a panel organized by the American Society of International Law entitled Global Networks, New Technologies and International Law, Roberta Balstad Miller, of the Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN), spoke of the “anarchic” internet.

It is a great honour once again to welcome the members of the IALL to the UNIDROIT. Perhaps not all of you know that in 1972, in this same month and in this room, the 4th IALL Course was held.

Although the principal manner in which UNIDROIT accomplishes its statutory goal of unifying and harmonising the law consists in legislative drafting, a number of the Institute's other activities, for a long time considered “ancillary” to the unification of law, are increasingly seen as an indispensable complement to the preparation of international instruments. At a very early stage, at a time when information technology as we know it today would have been regarded as belonging to the realm of science fiction, the Institute embarked on a policy designed to disseminate information on the unification process through an editorial venture which has gained in importance over time. I shall here focus on one such “ancillary” activity, relating to UNIDROIT publications.

The following bibliography continues, in an expanded and updated version, the one with the same title published earlier in these pages. The purpose remains the same: to give the non-Scandinavian language speaker an opportunity to follow the legal developments within the last decade in Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, and Sweden. The work primarily includes books, essays, reports and articles published between 1989 and 1998, but it also wants to point the reader to general works such as comparative treatises, encyclopedias and looseleaf works, where legal information about the Nordic countries also can be found. The bibliography reflects what has been received at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law during this period, and makes no claim to be comprehensive.