Guide to overseas laws and statutes
Introduction
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This guide to overseas laws and statutes held in the National Library of Australia has been placed on the the Library's website so that libraries and researchers are better informed about the richness and breadth of the Library's holdings in this area of its legal collections. For the Library's holdings of Australian laws, see GovPubs: the Australian Government Publications Guide.
This guide has been updated and re-organised from the published volume (1993) to include the holdings of Asian countries' laws. Where the Library has substantial holdings of a particular country's laws, there are now standard subdivisions to allow more efficient browsing.
The guide is designed to increase access to the Library's collections of overseas statutes especially where a considerable part of this material is not identifiable through the National Library's catalogue. Titles in English have been fully capitalised, while in other languages local conventions have been observed. Diacritical marks have been excluded from the transliterated Cyrillic entries in Russian and Bulgarian.
Scope
This guide represents the official output of statute law for over 150 countries, including those which have been under colonial rule or mandates administered on behalf of the League of Nations. All acts and subsidiary legislation for a country are listed, as well as special issues and legal supplements of gazettes for countries where holdings of statutes are slight. Specific laws such as emergency legislation and declarations have also been included to fill gaps in statutes held. Material listed is in hard copy or microform and is published as books or serials.
Material in Arabic, Hebrew and Urdu has not been included in the guide. Asian countries have been added to the original printed work. Contact the the Asian Collections Reading Room for any further information.
Arrangement
The guide is arranged alphabetically by country or other geopolitical terms, such as West Indies Associated States. Historical outlines have been included for countries which have undergone major political changes. Alternative or earlier country names are included with a see reference to the current entry in the guide. Individual works in each list are entered chronologically by title-acts first, followed by rules and regulations (delegated legislation).
Further information on statutes in the Library
Further information can be found by checking the National Library's catalogue. To search for laws/statutes of a particular country/territory, select Subject and then type in the name of the country and the word laws.
For information on the Library's holdings of Australian statutes, see GovPubs: the Australian Government Publications Guide or consult Australian full text laws on AUSTLII or Scaleplus.
Legal reference assistance
Reference assistance is available to verify whether a particular law
etc. is held in the Library's collections.
Please ask a librarian or telephone: 02 6262 1266.
Obtaining copies of laws from the National Library
Most of the printed material can't be lent on interlibrary loan. However, photocopies of laws can be requested from the printed material (other than some rare and fragile material). A photocopy of a law can be requested via your local library or through the National Library's Copies Direct service.
Other libraries' holdings of statutes
To search for holdings of statutes in other libraries, the options are as follows:
1. Searching Libraries Australia
On the Libraries Australia website, type in the name of the country and the word laws.
2. Searching a specific library catalogue
Using the Australian Libraries Gateway, select the Find a Library option, then type in the name of the Library into the Name box and select the state from the Location box and select Search. You can then see if that Library has an online catalogue to search. Search the library's catalogue by subject, then type in the name of the country and the word laws.
3. Searching Serials in Australian Libraries (SIAL)
If your library has the SIAL index on CD ROM, you will be able to search for laws held in Australian libraries. Simply type in the name of the country and the word laws into the search box in the following format "Fiji laws in su".
The records displayed will also include a list of libraries with holdings. See the library's staff for further information.
Statutes/laws on the Internet
Collections of Laws and Statutes are being added to the Internet all the time. Principal sites to consult are:
- Find law
- Legal Information Institute: collection of world legal materials gathers, country by country, continent by continent, the Internet-accessible sources of the constitutions, statutes, judicial opinions, and related legal material
