Free Legal Research Resources – Foreign & International (CC BY-NC-SA)

This guide, from the Harvard Law School library, contains selected free online legal research resources for jurisdictions outside of the United States. These resources can be a great way to get started with your research when you don’t have access to paid databases or if you want to get an overview of a topic before getting started with potentially expensive searches.

Attacking Defenders: The Criminalization of Human Rights Advocacy. A guide to international law rights of human rights defenders (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

This report shows how criminalization has become over the years a tool for the powerful to muzzle the powerless and how the law has been used to attack rather than to protect. This report shows how criminalization impedes human rights work, how it affects rights holders and how it ultimately undermines the human rights architecture that has been patiently built over the last seventy years to ensure the rights and dignity for all.

The report helps identify the main forms of criminalization and the groups that are the most affected by this practice. It identifies and explains the international human rights laws, standards and jurisprudence developed to protect human rights defenders and human rights advocacy. Finally, it lists a number of good practices that contribute to strengthening the protection of human rights defenders.

FDI Perspectives: Issues in International Investment, 2nd Edition (CanLII user licence)

From Vale Columbia Center on Sustainable International Investment – A joint center of Columbia Law School and the Earth Institute at Columbia University.

Global Corruption: Its Regulation under International Conventions, US, UK, and Canadian Law and Practice, Fourth Edition (CC BY-SA-NC 4.0)

Created as part of the UNODC’s Anti-Corruption Academic Initiative (ACAD), Global corruption: its regulation under international conventions, US, UK and Canadian law and practice is a key resource for lawyers, public officials, and business persons of tomorrow on anti-corruption laws and strategies. Both volume one and volume two can be found at the link above. Published by ePublishing Services, UVic Libraries.

  Global Corruption Law, Theory & Practice (CC-BY-SA 4.0)

This book has been specifically created to make it easier for professors to offer a law school course on global corruption. It is issued under a creative commons license and can be used for free in whole or in part for non-commercial purposes. The first chapter sets out the general context of global corruption: its nature and extent, and some views on its historical, social, economic and political dimensions. Each subsequent chapter sets out international standards and requirements in respect to combating corruption – mainly in the UN Convention Against Corruption (UNCAC) and the OECD Bribery of Foreign Officials Convention (OECD Convention). The laws of the United States and United Kingdom are then set out as examples of how those Convention standards and requirements are met in two influential jurisdictions. Finally, the law of Canada is set out. Thus, a professor from Africa, Australia, New Zealand or English speaking countries in Asia and Europe has a nearly complete coursebook – for example, that professor can delete the Canadian sections of this book and insert the law and practices of his or her home country in their place. While primarily directed to a law school course on global corruption, this book will be of interest and use to professors teaching courses on corruption from other academic disciplines and to lawyers and other anti-corruption practitioners. Published by the University of Victoria.

The Right to Dissent: A Guide to International Law Obligation (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

This Guide to the Right to Dissent has been developed for the purpose of promoting the rule of law through enhancing knowledge and awareness of international human rights law concerning the rights to participate in public affairs by engaging in public debate, criticism, opposition and dissent. It is anticipated that access to this knowledge by a broad range of users—including lawyers, activists, human rights workers, police, judges, government officials and interested members of the public—will enable and promote better compliance with international standards.

 The Right to Freedom from Arbitrary or Unlawful Deprivation of Liberty (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

This is a Guide to international human rights law (IHRL) guarantees of the right to freedom from arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of liberty through arrest or detention. This Guide identifies IHRL provisions and jurisprudence that guarantee individual rights and responsibilities and State duties to ensure the right to freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention. The Guide is intended to provide access to knowledge about the scope, interpretation and application of IHRL guarantees of this fundamental right in order to assist enhanced implementation and enforcement of domestic and IHRL guarantees and remedies for violations. The Guide is intended for use by all—victims, perpetrators, lawyers, human rights defenders, activists, journalists, judges, police, law makers and concerned others.