UN Chronicle | The UN and the Global Legal Information Network

The UN and the Global Legal Information Network
By Darlene Prescott

Article

From left: The United Nations GLIN team—Rosemary Noona, Darlene Prescott and Hanna Dreifeldt Laine—with Rubens Medina, Chair of the GLIN Executive Council and Janice Hyde, Network Program Officer. GLIN photos

The rule of law is essential to civilized society. The Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) is engaged in making the law more accessible to everyone, which is an important step in the process of enhancing the rule of law.

The GLIN database (www.glin.gov) contains legal materials of individual jurisdictions, specifically statutes, judicial decisions, legal literature and legislative records. Its goal is to create a digital repository of all jurisdictional laws and related materials, including those of regional and major international organizations. While numerous national and regional legal databases that serve primarily local uses have been developed by other organizations, GLIN, on the other hand, is designed to enable international access and comparative legal research based on a common search method. Such a database has the potential of becoming a powerful research instrument and one that could influence legal systems worldwide.

GLIN was originally developed as a tool to support the research and reference needs of the United States Congress. However, it was decided that the database would be equally useful for legislators and legal researchers around the world and therefore was opened up for global membership. In 2001, the GLIN Foundation was established to support the needs and further the goals of the Network, whose data can now be accessed free of charge by anyone via the Internet. However, a GLIN member still has the option to allow access to other members only; but, in keeping with the principle that Governments should provide free and open access to their laws, full access to everyone is encouraged.

A major system upgrade implemented in February 2005 enables various search capabilities, for example through a “Google-type” interface or by using specific GLIN fields, such as jurisdiction, subject, date, type of legal instrument, or a combination of these elements. One of the Network’s most unique features is the thesaurus—a dedicated list of subject terms used to index all records in GLIN. Legal analysts from member nations are trained to apply these terms so that researchers can locate an equivalent legal concept applicable to their jurisdictions. The search interface is available in English, French, Portuguese and Spanish.

GLIN Central also hosts ongoing training sessions in Washington, D.C., and is working on the development of a distance-learning programme to facilitate training for members who may not be able to travel. Regional training efforts have also been undertaken. In June 2005, a workshop sponsored by the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB) was held in Curitiba, Brazil, which brought together members from MERCOSUR countries and representatives from GLIN Central and Costa Rica.

GLIN is a cooperative effort, with members having an equal stake in running it. The United States Law Library of Congress, which initiated the Network, continues to provide advice and support. Rubens Medina, Law Librarian of Congress, is Chair of the GLIN Executive Council, and Janice Hyde is Network Program Officer. Along with other Law Library staff members, they work with GLIN and are actively involved in the ongoing recruitment of potential contributors to the database. In January 2005, Dr. Medina and Dr. Hyde visited the United Nations and had discussions with UN representatives on future UN contributions to the GLIN database. Data are currently being entered into the GLIN database from the United Nations, as well as from MERCOSUR, the Organization of American States and the Studies in Latin American Constitutional Histories. Country data are being entered for 38 countries, while organizations, such as the World Bank and IADB, provide financial and technical support to enable nations to participate.

The United Nations began its relationship with GLIN in 1996 at the initiative of Roy Lee, former Director of the Codification Division of the UN Office of Legal Affairs, and has since been contributing its legal opinions, which are published in the United Nations Juridical Yearbook and included in the "legal literature" category of the GLIN database. These opinions cover a wide range of subjects, such as peacekeeping issues, privileges and immunities, legal aspects of political questions, as well as commercial and financial matters.

Once the Codification Division began submitting UN legal opinions, the Head Librarian of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library was appointed as the United Nations focal point for GLIN. UN library staff members prepare the required summaries of the legal opinions, select the subject terms, and input the summaries and full texts into the GLIN database. The Codification Division reviews the summaries to ensure legal integrity. Abstracts and full texts have been entered for the period 1991-1997, and efforts are underway in working retrospectively with the preparation of the 1990 legal opinions. GLIN currently offers the only online index available for the UN published legal opinions.

In September 2005, GLIN held its annual directors meeting in Washington, D.C., and discussed the launching of a new upgrade of the GLIN system, allowing for the inclusion of more varied legal material, more language versions for the summaries and the capability for enhanced searches. GLIN summaries were previously prepared only in English, while the full texts were in the jurisdiction’s official language. Official texts are a GLIN standard to ensure authenticity and reliability. Currently, only English versions are transmitted, but the United Nations will make efforts to supply legal materials in its six official languages, i.e. Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish.

To become a member of GLIN, send inquiries to glincen@loc.gov or call (202) 707-5065.

Biography

Darlene Prescott, a former Legal Officer with the United Nations, has participated in the initial UN involvement with GLIN.

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