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	Announcement - World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII)
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Announcement - World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII)

This message is to announce the World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII - http://www.worldlii.org), a free, independent and non-profit global legal research facility developed collaboratively by the following Legal Information Institutes (LIIs) and Law Schools:

Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII)
British and Irish Legal Information Institute (BAILII)
Canadian Legal Information Institute (CanLII)
Hong Kong Legal Information Institute (HKLII)
Legal Information Institute (Cornell) (LII (Cornell))
Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute (PacLII)
Wits University School of Law

Following a meeting of LIIs and Law Schools at the 4th Law via Internet Conference in Montreal in October, the 'Montreal Declaration on public access to law' was adopted (http://www.worldlii.org/worldlii/declaration/), signalling our joint commitment to the principles underlying WorldLII. Although a prototype of WorldLII has been available for almost a year (since the 3rd Law via Internet Conference), we think this is an appropriate time to formally announce WorldLII.

WorldLII comprises three main facilities: Databases, Catalog and Websearch.

WorldLII databases

WorldLII provides a single search facility for databases located on the following Legal Information Institutes: AustLII; BAILII; CanLII; HKLII; LII (Cornell); and PacLII.

WorldLII also includes as part of this searchable collection its own databases not found on other LIIs. These include databases of decisions of international Courts and Tribunals, databases from a number of Asian countries, databases from South Africa (provided by Wits Law School), and some law journals.

Over 270 databases (http://www.worldlii.org/cgi-bin/browse.pl) from 48 jurisdictions in 20 countries are included in the initial release of WorldLII. Databases of case-law, legislation, treaties, law reform reports, law journals, and other materials are included.

All databases may be searched together (with results relevance-ranked), or groups of databases may be searched (such as 'All legislation', 'All highest national courts', 'All law reform', or 'All Law Journals').

WorldLII welcomes enquiries concerning the possible inclusion of other databases on WorldLII or on one of its collaborating LIIs.

WorldLII Catalog and Websearch

WorldLII welcomes enquiries from law librarians and other legal experts who are interested in becoming Contributing Editors to the WorldLII Catalog.

The Databases, Catalog and Websearch are combined in a single interface which allows repeated searching without re-keying. There are many other interesting technical aspects of the system which are best discovered through use or the Quick Guide.

Operation of WorldLII

Technical enhancements to WorldLII are being developed jointly by the cooperating Legal Information Institutes.

The Legal Information Institutes cooperating to provide WorldLII hope that you enjoy using it and find it useful. We hope to improve and expand it continuously until it reaches its full potential.

Finally, we would like to thank the staff members of all the cooperating Legal Information Institutes, and our Contributing Editors, whose work has made and continues to make possible WorldLII and its cooperating LIIs.

Announced by AustLII/WorldLII Co-Directors:

Associate Professor Andrew Mowbray, UTS <andrew@austlii.edu.au>
Professor Graham Greenleaf, UNSW <graham@austlii.edu.au>
Philip Chung, AustLII Executive Director <philip@austlii.edu.au>

25 November 2002