Comparative Constitutional Law

The Center for Comparative Constitutionalism studies the definition and implementation of constitutional rights, focusing both on legal and judicial interpretation and on the wide range of ways in which societies attempt to secure constitutional rights to their citizens.

The Center for Constitutional Governance (CCG) at Columbia Law School is a nonpartisan legal and policy organization devoted to the study of constitutional structure and authority. CCG explores these topics across a range of issues and policy areas, such as equality, elections, civil rights, health care, and administrative law.

Located in Edmonton, Alberta, the Centre for Constitutional Studies is a hub for constitutional research and public education in Canada. It connects leading Canadian and international scholars, contributes to constitutional debate, and creates resources that educate the public about the Constitution.

New constitutions are written every year. The people who write these important documents need to read and analyze texts from other places. And citizens need to know, and to be able to understand, what’s in their countries’ foundational documents. Constitute offers access to the world’s constitutions so that users can systematically compare them across a broad set of topics—using an inviting, clean interface.

A list of resources compiled by the United States Institute of Peace. It provides links by topical categories to resources primarily in English providing information on constitution-making processes and the role of public participation.

This project provides English translations of and other textual material related to constitutional documents. It cross-references those documents for quick comparison of constitutional provisions.

JuriGlobe is a research group formed by professors from the Faculty of Law of the University of Ottawa, which focuses on the development of a multilingual information data bank, accessible to all on the internet, containing general information relating to the different legal systems in the world, to the different official languages and to some of the most important international commercial conventions, as well as other multilateral commercial tools. They have conducted studies on both Constitutional Systems and Legal Systems Classification. Both branches of this website present information and visual graphics on the legal and constitutional systems of different countries across the globe.

The Project was created as a cooperative effort between the University of Oklahoma College of Law Library and the National Indian Law Library (NILL), to provide access to the tribal constitutions, codes, and other legal documents.

This section contains the constitutions of the 35 countries of the Americas, each one in its original language. This study compares the constitutions of countries in the Americas with presidential regimes. Developed exclusively for the Political Database of the Americas users, it provides a set of constitutional articles in a comparative framework organized by over 200 substantive themes such as human rights, decentralization, separation of powers and electoral systems. Reflecting the most recent constitutional reforms, this study also offers insight into new trends such as the development of constitutional law addressing issues of non-discrimination, environmental protection, security and corruption. Note: All articles are presented in their original language.

A searchable database of historical documents relating to the drafting and adoption of the Constitution of Canada.

A list of resources for researching constitutional law, compiled by the University of Chicago.

This library enables legal scholars to research the constitutional and political development of every country in the world. It includes the current constitution for every country in its original language format and an English translation, as well as substantial constitutional histories for all countries. It also includes constitutional periodicals, thousands of classic books, other related works such as the World Factbook, links to scholarly articles and online resources, and bibliographic references. Accessible through HeinOnline using DalID or on campus.

The British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII) provides access to the most comprehensive set of British and Irish primary legal materials that are available for free and in one place on the internet. As at October 2004, BAILII includes 46 databases covering 7 jurisdictions. The system contains around 7.5 gigabytes of legal materials and around 400,000 searchable documents with about 15 million internal hypertext links.

The LII publishes electronic versions of core materials in numerous areas of the law, primarily on the Web. They range from the Constitution to the U.S. Code, from Supreme Court decisions to the Code of Federal Regulations as well as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, Bankruptcy Procedure, and Criminal Procedure. We maintain this Internet site and its many resources, which include legal commentary and explanations contained in our WEX legal dictionary and encyclopedia, and the LII Supreme Court Bulletin, which provides analysis of cases that are about to be argued before the Supreme Court. Last year, those services were used by more than 32 million unique individuals in 246 countries and territories.

The Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) provides free internet access to Australasian legal materials. AustLII's broad public policy agenda is to improve access to justice through better access to information. To that end, we have become one of the largest sources of legal materials on the net, with over 20 gigabytes of raw text materials and over 4 million searchable documents. AustLII publishes public legal information -- that is, primary legal materials (legislation, treaties and decisions of courts and tribunals); and secondary legal materials created by public bodies for purposes of public access (law reform and royal commission reports for example) and a growing collection of law journals. You will find these materials listed under AustLII Databases.

The CanLII.org website provides access to court judgments from all Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court of Canada, federal courts, and the courts in all Canada’s provinces and territories. CanLII.org also contains decisions from many tribunals nationally.

NZLII provides free access to New Zealand legal information.

The Commonwealth Legal Information Institute (CommonLII) aims to provide one central Internet location from which it is possible to search - for free - core legal information from all Commonwealth countries. CommonLII will provide a common technical platform through which all Commonwealth countries can cooperatively provide access to their laws. CommonLII will assist the development of a genuinely international common law. It will support the rule of law throughout the Commonwealth, by making each country's legal system more transparent. This transparency will also support international trade and investment.

The Asian Legal Information Institute (AsianLII - www.asianlii.org) is a non-profit and free access website for legal information from all 27 countries and territories in Asia located from Japan in the east to Pakistan in the west, and from Mongolia in the north to Timor Leste in the south. Access to AsianLII is free. AsianLII was launched for free public access on 8 December 2006 in Sydney. Launches in a number of Asian countries will take place, beginning with the Philippines in January 2007.

The Southern African Legal Information Institute (SAFLII) is an online repository of legal information from South Africa that aims to promote the rule of law and judicial accountability by publishing legal material for open access in line with the objectives of the global Free Access to Law Movement. SAFLII also hosts legal materials from other countries in the region, which are obtained through partnerships and collaborative efforts with governments, courts, law societies and more recently through linking to other Legal Information Institutes being established in these regions.