Free Access to Law Movement

Last updated October 23, 2023

The Free Access to Law Movement (FALM) is the international organization devoted to providing free online access to legal information such as case law, legislation, treaties, law reform proposals and legal scholarship. The movement began in 1992 with the creation of the Legal Information Institute (LII) by Thomas R. Bruce and Peter W. Martin at Cornell Law School.^[1] Some later FALM projects incorporate Legal Information Institute or LII in their names, usually prefixed by a national or regional identifier.

Membership

The FALM website lists 63 active members as of July 2017, together with the coverage (geographical area or political grouping) for which each member provides databases, and the year in which it became a member of FALM, as well as links to member websites.^[2]

Declaration

In October 2002 the meeting of LIIs in Montreal at the 4th Law via Internet Conference, made the following declaration^[3] as a joint statement of their philosophy of access to law. There were some further modifications of the Declaration at the Sydney meeting of LIIs in 2003^[4] and at the Paris meeting in 2004.^[5]

Legal information institutes of the world, meeting in Montreal, declare that,
Public legal information from all countries and international institutions is part of the common heritage of humanity. Maximising access to this information promotes justice and the rule of law;
Public legal information is digital common property and should be accessible to all on a non-profit basis and free of charge;
Independent non-profit organisations have the right to publish public legal information and the government bodies that create or control that information should provide access to it so that it can be published.
Public legal information means legal information produced by public bodies that have a duty to produce law and make it public. It includes primary sources of law, such as legislation, case law and treaties, as well as various secondary (interpretative) public sources, such as reports on preparatory work and law reform, and resulting from boards of inquiry. It also includes legal documents created as a result of public funding.
A legal information institute,
Publishes via the internet public legal information originating from more than one public body;
Provides free, full and anonymous public access to that information;
Does not impede others from publishing public legal information; and
Supports the objectives set out in this Declaration.
All legal information institutes are encouraged to participate in regional or global free access to law networks.
Therefore, the legal information institutes agree,
To promote and support free access to public legal information throughout the world, principally via the Internet;
To cooperate in order to achieve these goals and, in particular, to assist organisations in developing countries to achieve these goals, recognising the reciprocal advantages that all obtain from access to each other's law;
To help each other and to support, within their means, other organisations that share these goals with respect to,
Promotion, to governments and other organisations, of public policy conducive to the accessibility of public legal information;
Technical assistance, advice and training;
Development of open technical standards;
Academic exchange of research results.
To meet at least annually, and to invite other organisations who are legal information institutes to subscribe to this declaration and join those meetings, according to procedures to be established by the parties to this Declaration.
To provide to the end users of public legal information clear information concerning any conditions of re-use of that information, where this is feasible.

Notes

↑ Myers, Linda (27 April 2000). "CU Law Institute Web Site has Latest Legal Information". Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved 7 July 2015.
↑ "Members of the Free Access to Law Movement (FALM)".
↑ See WorldlII
↑ The amendments were: (i) in the title of the Declaration, 'public' was changed to 'free'; (ii) the words 'where possible' were deleted from the second bullet point 'where possible, free of charge'; (iii) addition of the description of a legal information institute and the encouragement to participate in networks; and (iv) addition of the final bullet point about an annual meeting to the list of areas of agreed cooperation.
↑ The amendments were: (i) the words "It also includes legal documents created as a result of public funding." were added to the end of para 2 after 'boards of enquiry': (ii) the words "To provide to the end users of public legal information clear information concerning any conditions of re-use of that information, where this is feasible." were added to the final list of bullet points.

Related Research Articles

The following outline is provided as an overview of and introduction to law:

The Institute of International Law is an organization devoted to the study and development of international law, whose membership comprises the world's leading public international lawyers. The organization is generally considered the most authoritative world academy of international law. It was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1904.

Freedom of information is freedom of a person or people to publish and consume information. Access to information is the ability for an individual to seek, receive and impart information effectively. This sometimes includes "scientific, indigenous, and traditional knowledge; freedom of information, building of open knowledge resources, including open Internet and open standards, and open access and availability of data; preservation of digital heritage; respect for cultural and linguistic diversity, such as fostering access to local content in accessible languages; quality education for all, including lifelong and e-learning; diffusion of new media and information literacy and skills, and social inclusion online, including addressing inequalities based on skills, education, gender, age, race, ethnicity, and accessibility by those with disabilities; and the development of connectivity and affordable ICTs, including mobile, the Internet, and broadband infrastructures".

Legal research is "the process of identifying and retrieving information necessary to support legal decision-making. In its broadest sense, legal research includes each step of a course of action that begins with an analysis of the facts of a problem and concludes with the application and communication of the results of the investigation."

The Access to Knowledge (A2K) movement is a loose collection of civil society groups, governments, and individuals converging on the idea that access to knowledge should be linked to fundamental principles of justice, freedom, and economic development.

The Canadian Legal Information Institute is a non-profit organization created and funded by the Federation of Law Societies of Canada in 2001 on behalf of its 14 member societies. CanLII is a member of the Free Access to Law Movement, which includes the primary stakeholders involved in free, open publication of law throughout the world.

The Legal Information Institute (LII) is a non-profit public service of Cornell Law School that provides no-cost access to current American and international legal research sources online. Founded in 1992 by Peter Martin and Tom Bruce, LII was the first law site developed on the internet. LII electronically publishes on the Web the U.S. Code, U.S. Supreme Court opinions, Uniform Commercial Code, the US Code of Federal Regulations, several Federal Rules, and a variety of other American primary law materials. LII also provides access to other national and international sources, such as treaties and United Nations materials. According to its website, the LII serves over 40 million unique visitors per year.

The British and Irish Legal Information Institute provides legal information, and especially reports of cases decided by courts, in the United Kingdom generally. Decisions from England and Wales, Ireland, Northern Ireland, Scotland, the European Union, and from the European Court of Human Rights are put online. It is a partial online database of British and Irish legislation, case law, law reform reports, treaties and some legal scholarship.

Computer-assisted legal research (CALR) or computer-based legal research is a mode of legal research that uses databases of court opinions, statutes, court documents, and secondary material. Electronic databases make large bodies of case law easily available. Databases also have additional benefits, such as Boolean searches, evaluating case authority, organizing cases by topic, and providing links to cited material. Databases are available through paid subscription or for free.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Australasian Legal Information Institute</span>

The Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII) is an institution operated jointly by the Faculties of Law of the University of Technology Sydney and the University of New South Wales. Its public policy purpose is to improve access to justice through access to legal information.

The Federation of Law Societies of Canada is the national association of the 14 Canadian regulators of the legal profession. The 14 law societies are mandated by the provinces and territories to regulate the legal profession in the public interest.

The Hong Kong Legal Information Institute is a non-governmental organisation in Hong Kong. Its mission is to provide free access to primary legal materials from Hong Kong.

The New Zealand Legal Information Institute (NZLII) is operated by the University of Otago faculty of law with assistance from the University of Canterbury and Victoria University of Wellington. It contains more than 100 databases of New Zealand law including many decision from courts and tribunals that are not available anywhere else, including from commercial operators. It operates using voluntary labour and grants from the New Zealand Law Foundation. NZLII is a member of the Free Access to Law Movement.

The Pacific Islands Legal Information Institute (PacLII) collects and publishes legal materials from 20 Pacific Islands Countries on its website www.paclii.org. These countries are American Samoa, Cook Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Fiji Islands, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Nauru, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Pitcairn Island, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, and Vanuatu.A mirror of the PacLII website is hosted by the Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII), and is the version accessed by most users outside the Pacific Islands.

The Southern African Legal Information Institute (SAFLII) is the largest online free-access collection of legislation and case law from South Africa and other jurisdictions in the South African region.

AfricanLII or the African Legal Information Institute is a project to support the establishment and operation of independent national Legal Information Institute projects in Africa. AfricanLII is a project of the Democratic Governance and Rights Unit, Department of Public Law, University of Cape Town. AfricanLII was incubated at the Southern Africa Litigation Center (SALC) from October 2010 to March 2013.

Legal awareness, sometimes called public legal education or legal literacy, is the empowerment of individuals regarding issues involving the law. Legal awareness helps to promote consciousness of legal culture, participation in the formation of laws and the rule of law.

Access to justice is a basic principle in rule of law which describes how citizens should have equal access to the legal systems in their context. Without access to justice, people are not able to fully exercise their rights, challenge discrimination, or hold decision-makers accountable for their actions.

Civic space is created by a set of universally-accepted rules, which allow people to organise, participate and communicate with each other freely and without hindrance, and in doing so, influence the political and social structures around them. It is a concept central to any open and democratic society and means that states have a duty to protect people while respecting and facilitating the fundamental rights to associate, assemble peacefully and express views and opinions.

The African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms (AfDec) has been created in order to promote an Internet environment that conforms to established human rights standards and meets Africa's social and economic development needs. The Declaration was agreed on at the 2013 African Internet Governance Forum (AfIGF) in Nairobi, Kenya and launched in 2014 at the global Internet Governance Forum in Istanbul, Turkey. It provides a normative framework on which basis recommendations for policy and legislative processes on internet rights, freedoms and governance in Africa are made. They can be applied at national, sub-regional and regional levels.

References

Galindo, F 'Free Access to the Law in Latin America: Brasil, Argentina, Mexico and Uruguay as Examples' in Peruginelli and Ragona (Eds), 2009
Greenleaf, G 'Legal Information Institutes and the Free Access to Law Movement', GlobaLex website, February 2008 - This article includes brief histories of all FALM Members to 2008.
Greenleaf G 'Free access to legal information, LIIs, and the Free Access to Law Movement', Chapter in Danner, R and Winterton, J (eds.) IALL International Handbook of Legal Information Management. Aldershot, Burlington VT: Ashgate, 2011 - This chapter updates information about some FALM members to 2011, but is not comprehensive.
Peruginelli, G and Ragona, M Law via the Internet: Free Access, Quality of Information, Effectiveness of Rights (Proc. IX International Conference 'Law via the Internet'), European Press Academic Publishing, Florence, 2009
Poulin, D (2004) 'Open access to law in developing countries' First Monday vol. 9, no 12, 6 December 2004

External links

Official website
FALM on Twitter

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[Myers-1] Myers, Linda (27 April 2000). "CU Law Institute Web Site has Latest Legal Information". Cornell Chronicle. Retrieved 7 July 2015.

[2] "Members of the Free Access to Law Movement (FALM)".

[3] See WorldlII

[4] The amendments were: (i) in the title of the Declaration, 'public' was changed to 'free'; (ii) the words 'where possible' were deleted from the second bullet point 'where possible, free of charge'; (iii) addition of the description of a legal information institute and the encouragement to participate in networks; and (iv) addition of the final bullet point about an annual meeting to the list of areas of agreed cooperation.

[5] The amendments were: (i) the words "It also includes legal documents created as a result of public funding." were added to the end of para 2 after 'boards of enquiry': (ii) the words "To provide to the end users of public legal information clear information concerning any conditions of re-use of that information, where this is feasible." were added to the final list of bullet points.

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