Research in Transnational Law/International Business Law

Trans-Lex.org is a new research website focusing on transnational and international business law resources. It present resources in four primary categories: principles ("more than 120 principles and rules of transnational law, the New Lex Mercatoria"); bibliography; materials ("a collection of domestic statutes, international conventions, model laws, restatements and other soft-law instruments"); and links to other resources.

Access to the resources is provided through search and browse interfaces. The search interface is a little diffferent than the usual keyword search offering suggestions for keywords as you type them in. For example, a search for a term like 'contracts' brings up a list of about 12 terms and phrases beginning with 'uniform rules for contracts', 'formation of internatonal contracts', 'contracts', etc. It's not immediately apparent where exactly the terms are being drawn from and whether there is a significance in the order they are presented, but the suggestions are useful.

Selecting 'contracts' leads to the search results page which provides a breakdown of the resources by the primary categories, a list of the "best" relevant principles (if applicable) and the list of available resources. For this example there are 657 results comprising 512 prinipcles, 63 bibliography entries, 45 materials and 4 links; and there are 3 best principles. Searches can also be filtered by the primary categories, the type of text (e.g. court decision, clause, etc.), and language (many English translations available). Trans-Lex also hosts a discussion forum and contributions to these discussions also appear as a facet in the search results, although none for this particular topic. Browsing in each of the primary categories is also available providing an alphabetical list of resources.

Resources include many full-text resources along with the original page numbering for easy citation. Where full text is not available citations are provided or in some cases the text of relevant parts of longer documents is given. There is a short how-to page with more information and a couple of introductory videos demonstrating the search and browse features which is a good place to get aquainted with what Trans-Lex has to offer. Looks like a great place to start your research in this area.