Use Google Custom Search to create your own Personalized Search Engine

Anyone with a Google account can create a Google Custom Search Engine. This service  enables you to limit your searches to specific websites or even specific web pages. This makes it much easier to get more precise result while searching in specific subject areas as you can include the sites you want to search and specifically exclude sites as you require. You can also personalize the look and feel of your search engine.  A good set of instructions for setting up a Google Custom Search can be found at O’Reilly’s OnLamp. One really good example of how to use the custom search engine is  Ted Tjaden’s “Search Canadian Law Firm Websites, Blogs & Journals” which will  search 79  selectively chosen Canadian law firm websites, 205 Canadian law blogs and 20 Canadian law journal websites.

Free International Law Library on WorldLII

“The International Law Library on WorldLII is the most comprehensive free access international law research infrastructure on the Internet. It has 76 databases, containing nearly 100,000 searchable documents concerning international law, and is expanding rapidly. All databases may be searched simultaneously, or databases may be searched individually or in groupings” (Brochure)

The collection includes:

Case Law

International Courts & Tribunals Collection (WorldLII) – 38 databases

Declarations and Decisions

United Nations General Assembly Resolutions (UNGARsn) 1946- (WorldLII)

United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCRsn) 1946- (WorldLII)

Law Journals

Australian Year Book of International Law (AUYrBkIntLaw) 1968- (AustLII)

Cornell International Law Journal (CornellIntLawJl) 2009- (WorldLII)

International and Humanitarian Law Resources (WorldLII)

ISIL Year Book of International Humanitarian and Refugee Law 2001- (WorldLII)

Melbourne Journal of International Law 2000- (AustLII)

Singapore Journal of International and Comparative Law 1997-2003 (CommonLII)

Singapore Year Book of International Law 2004- (CommonLII)

Virginia Journal of International Law 2009- (WorldLII)

Other Law Journal Articles Concerning International Law (WorldLII)

Law Reform Publications

Law Reform Publications Concerning International Law (WorldLII)

Treaties and International Agreements

International Treaties Collection (WorldLII) – 27 databases

Email alerts now available in Google Scholar – including citation alerts

Google Scholar now supports email alerts for new results on search queries, including alerts to new citations of a given paper.  Click the envelope icon in the upper left corner of the Google Scholar page after running a search to set up an email alert on that query. To set up an alert to new citations of a work, first run a search, then click on the “Cited by X” link beneath the work you’re interested in, then on the resulting page click the envelope icon.

The UK Statute Law Database

Looking for UK Statutes.  Check out the UK Statute Law Database. The UK Statute Law Database  is the official revised edition of the primary  and secondary legislation of the United Kingdom.  The database covers revised statutes that were formerly included in Statutes in Force from 1991 as well as those formerly included in The Northern Ireland Statutes Revised from January 2006.

‘Primary legislation’ includes:

• Acts of the UK Parliament
• Acts of the pre-UK Parliaments
• Acts of the Scottish Parliament
• Measures of the National Assembly for Wales
• Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly (and other primary legislation for Northern Ireland)
• Church of England Measures (legislation for the established church in England passed by the General Synod of the Church of England)

‘Secondary legislation’  includes

• Statutory Instruments
• Scottish Statutory Instruments
• Welsh Statutory Instruments
• Statutory Rules of Northern Ireland
• Church Instruments
• Bye-laws

The database enables the researcher to:

• View amended legislation as it has changed over time
• See how legislation will be affected by amendments not yet in force
• See how legislation has been amended for different jurisdictions
• Navigate links between affecting and affected legislation
• Search the text of legislation for words and phrases

Supreme Court Judgments from 1948 available on the Supreme Court Judgments Website.

In honour of the 60th anniversary of Canada’s judicial independence from the U.K., the Supreme Court of Canada and Lexum have published an electronic version of  all the judgments included in the Supreme Court Reports up until 1948 on the Supreme Court of Canada Website .

In addition, appeals from British Columbia and Ontario from 1876 have been added to the site.

The “Advanced Search” feature enables the researcher to search the text of the Supreme Court judgments by full-text keyword or by specific fields including title or case name, citation or docket number, parties,  judges, subjects or date.

FLARE Index to Treaties

Foreign and international law researchers will be interested to learn that the FLARE Index to Treaties is now available on the web.  FLARE is a consortium of British law libraries which provides a series of  “Foreign Research Guides” through the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and which has supported the creation of the FLARE Index to Treaties online.  This index is a useful successor to Bowman and Harris’s Multilateral Treaties: Index and Status as it provides a free searchable database of over 1500 significant multilateral treaties, i.e. treaties with 3 or more parties, and their amendments and protocols.  The database covers treaties from 1856 to present and is searchable by title keyword, subject keyword, date, or place.  The search results include, citation to print copies of the treaties, ratification information and best of all links to the text of treaties that are available online.

The English Reports are Now Available Free Online

The English Reports is another extensive legal resource that is now available on the Web.

From 1220 to 1865, law reports in England were published by individual reporters whose reports bore their names (the nominate reports).  These older reports have been collected and reprinted in the English Reports. As of December 1, 2008 the Commonwealth Legal Information Institute has made this collection of over 100,000 older English cases freely accessible to all via the Internet.