Global Legal Information Network


The Global Legal Information Network is a cooperative, not-for-profit federation of government agencies or their designees that contribute national legal information to the GLIN database. It is an automated database of statutes, regulations and related material that originate from countries in the Americas, Europe, Africa and Asia. The data are in a central server at the Library of Congress in Washington, DC. Access is equally shared by all participating national GLIN stations. Anyone with Internet connections can access summaries of and citations to over 168,000 laws from fifty-one nations, although copyright and distribution-rights issues currently preclude public access to full texts. A distributed network is envisioned, and the database will reside on servers in other member nations as well as the Law Library of Congress.
GLIN was initiated by the Law Library of Congress in 1991. The Network celebrated its 15th Anniversary in September 2008.

Membership

At present, 36 countries and International Organizations comprise the membership of GLIN. These are, in alphabetical order: Argentina, Brazil, Cameroon, Canada, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Gabon, Guatemala, Honduras, Republic of Korea, Kuwait, Lithuania, Mali, Mauritania, MERCOSUR, Mexico, Nicaragua, Organization of American States, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Tunisia, Ukraine, United Kingdom, United Nations, United States, and Uruguay. The database also includes legislation of non-member jurisdictions. Searches may be made by jurisdiction, publication date, subject terms, and language.

"Top 21" Award

The Industry Advisory Council selected GLIN as one of the "Top 21" Excellence.Gov Award Finalists for 2009. For 2009, the 21 program finalists all met the stringent criteria for "demonstrating excellence in improving organizational performance using information technology." Each year, the Excellence.Gov Awards recognize the federal government's best IT projects and the SIG selects a different theme for the awards. The theme for 2009, "Transparency: Using IT to improve the interaction between Government and its Stakeholders," focuses on how government organizations use IT transparently to improve the public's information gathering abilities, or an agency's ability to deliver information to the public or a particular constituency. A panel of 25 judges "federal government and industry executives" reviewed 60 nominations and selected 21 for recognition at a ceremony on April 14, 2009.