France started to develop databanks in 1970, in a difficult national situation where initiators from both private and public sectors scattered their efforts in all directions, with different conceptions and techniques.

In 1984, a national policy for the development of computerized legal information was settled with a study and a report named “Rapport Leclerq”.

On October 22, 1991, after exhaustive negotiations between the European Community (EC) and the Member States of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) an agreement on the formation of the European Economic Area (EEA) was reached. Hence, the foundation was laid for an economic and social unit embracing 19 countries and about 380 million people, forming the world's largest economic bloc and a regional single market responsible for ca.40 percent of the world trade.

The Agreement consists of a preamble and nine parts covering the objectives and principles, the four freedoms of movements of goods, persons, service and capital, provisions on competition and other common rules, horizontal policies relevant to the four freedoms, cooperation outside the four freedoms, institutional provisions, funding, and final provisions.

The purpose of this bibliography is 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 bibliography does not claim to be comprehensive, but it reflects what has been received at the Swiss Institute of Comparative Law during the last ten years or thereabouts.

The compilation includes books, essays, reports and articles published between 1982 and 1992. Excluded are chapters in basic comparative legal treatises, encyclopedias and looseleaf works.

A most welcome new United Nations reference tool is a cumulative Index to Resolutions of the Security Council, 1946-1991. This 277-page volume, prepared by the Dag Hammarskjold Library, carries document symbol ST/ LIB/SER.H/5 and UN sales number E.93.I.6. Although the UN publishes an annual compilation of Security Council resolutions, which includes an index, this is the first official index since the cumulation issued for the years 1946-1970.

Norway became one kingdom at the end of the 9th century. Earlier the country cons isted of several regional kingdoms, each with its own legal society. A proper administration of justice based on law took place at the Althing, which was a public meeting, representative of the rural community or the larger community units.

Iceland is a small country with a long legal history. Iceland, an island between Norway and G ree nland, has today appr. 250,000 inhab itants. The country was settled (mostly) by Norwegians in the 9th and 10th century. The parliament—the “Althing”—is more tha n 1,000 years old. The first Althing met in A.D. 930.