•       Constitutions and basic laws: www.cmseducation.org/wconsts/ gives an English translation of the constitution of nearly 200 countries. If a country has no written constitution (e.g. the United Kingdom) it gives a description of the protection of fundamental rights and freedoms. See also www.oefie.unibe.ch/law/icl/index.html for constitutional documents.

•       The data protection laws of EU Member States are available in English translation on the europe.euint ( Justice and Home Affairs-Data Protection). See also for EU and other countries www.privireal.org (the website of Privacy in Research ethics and law).

•       www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex is a database of national labor, social security and related human rights legislation that is maintained by the International Labour Organization. It provides access to over 50.000 records covering more than 170 countries. Records provide abstracts of legislation and relevant citation information. Each record appears in the three ILO official languages: English, French and Spanish.

•       Globalex www.nyulawulobal.org/globalex

•       Globalex is committed to the dissemination of high-level international, foreign and comparative law research tools.

•       World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) www.worldlii.org/worldlii

•       WorldLH is a free, independent and non-profit global legal research facility developed by regional legal information institutes ( Australasian LII; British and Irish LA; Canadian LII; Hong Kong LII; Pacific Islands LII) and other organizations.

•       WorldLII comprises three main facilities : databases, catalog and websearch.

•       http://foreignlawguide.com provides essential information on primary and secondary sources of foreign law. It contains information on nearly 200 jurisdictions. Access is not free (1,840 US dollar per year)

•       www.globalcourts.com gives (direct or indirect) access to Supreme Courts in 105 countries. It also leads to national websites containing English translations of interesting legislation. E.g. on the Norwegian website the Act relating to the

application of biotechnology in medicine (1994) and the Norwegian Gene Technology Act (1993) is available.

•    www.glin.gov (the Global Legal Information Network) is a database of laws,
regulations, judicial decisions and other complementary legal sources contributed
by governmental agencies and international organizations. These GLIN members
contribute the official full texts of published documents to the database in their
original language. Each document is accompanied by a summary in English.

•        www.who.int/idhl is the on-line version of the International Digest of Health ( Legislation (IDHL) and of the Recueil international de Legislation sanitaire (R.I.L.S.). It contains a selection of national and international health legislation. Texts of legislation are summarized in English (and in French) or mentioned by their title. Where possible links are provided to other websites that contain full texts of the legislation in question in the original language.

•        ELSI ReD (supra). ELSI ReD is a tool that has been created in order to provide                                    ready access to existing legislation and policy documents relating to various                                            aspects of genetic research and applications: genetic testing and screening, pharmacogenetics, genetic patenting, genetic databanks and gene therapy. ELSI | Red is useful to identify relevant documents. On the other hand, the comparability ! is limited. Most legal documents are published in the national language.                                        

•        www.humgen.umontreal.ca/int/      HumGen is a human genetic database which       contains documents limited to laws, professional guidelines, ethical codes, commendations and legislation. In addition to international and regional organizations,   over 25 countries are represented in this database. Only documentation published in English or officially translated by the respective agencies or associations is selected.                                                                                            

 

•        Patients' Rights Laws in Europe    http://home.online.no/=wkeim/patients.htm

contains patients' rights laws in European and other countries, Charters of the                                        

•    www.epic.org (Electronic Privacy Information Center) is a database with regard                                     to genetic privacy. It contains for instance an English translation of the landmark                                      decision of the Icelandic Supreme Court of 27 November 2003 on the Icelandic

•    http://bioethicsweb.ac.uk offers free access to a searchable catalogue of internet 
sites and resources covering biomedical ethics.                                                                             

 National databases related to bioethics and health law

•   wwwlegaltext.ee/en/ gives an English translation of the Estonian Human research Act of 13 December 2000

      •    http://enu.heilbrigdisradunevti.is/laws-and-regulations contains Islandic         regulations No 134/2001 on the keeping and utilization of biological samples

•        www.finlex.fi/ is a website where Finnish legislation can be found in English, French, German and Spanish.

•        Ingolex/lt        (http://www.infolex.lt/po rtal/ml/start.asp?ac1?=legupdllang=eng)

•        Estonian Legal Language Center (http://www.legaltext.ee/en/andmebaas/ava.asp?m=022)

•        The website of the Institute of Global Law under the direction of prof. B. Markesinis contains translated decisions of French and German courts relevant for medical law www.ucl.ac.uk/laws/global_law/french-cases. The copyright belongs to prof. Markesinis. Copyright is a matter that will have to be dealt with in general.