FAOLEX and ECOLEX

On Monday, I visited the UN Food & Agriculture Organization (FAO) here in Rome for a series of presentations on their legal offices and their current work (for an interesting take on a presentation we heard about the “right to food” check out my colleague David Hoffman’s views over at Concurring Opinions).

Among the presentations, one struck me as of interest to those Opinio Juris readers who do work in international environmental law – a preview of FAOLEX. FAOLEX is an FAO-compiled database of “national laws and regulations on food, agriculture and renewable natural resources.” It’s free, has full text search capabilities, and is available in multiple languages (English, Spanish, French and Arabic). I expect those who work on comparative environmental or natural resources law issues would find this a very useful resource.

For those looking for a general international environmental law equivalent to FAOLEX, check out ECOLEX, a database combining the on-line collections of FAO, UNEP, and IUCN (the World Conservation Union). It includes treaties, national legislation, literature, and court opinions relating to environmental issues.