Sources On Arab Judiciaries:

There are few comprehensive written sources on judicial structures in the Arab world. It is generally possible to obtain basic legal information (such as on legal framework or court structure) on individual countries, though this information is not often well circulated internationally. The most accurate information is often obtained from examining the texts of the laws themselves, but for this one must often resort directly to a country's Official Gazette, a publication that is often difficult to obtain outside of the country except in specialized research libraries. And public information on more administrative or technical aspects of judicial structures (such as judicial training, budgeting, or administrative personnel) is generally extremely scanty. In recent years, there have been several important Arab conferences dealing with legal and judicial matters, though not all of the proceedings have been published.

Information on Arab judicial structures is beginning to appear on the internet, though quite unevenly. Perhaps the most prolific contributors are the human rights organizations. This work is often quite helpful, but it naturally focuses on a specific area of the administration of justice. Most organizations do not attempt to provide comprehensive overviews of judicial structures. Perhaps the most legally-oriented organization is the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights (www.lchr.org). Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) also has some useful information. The human-rights reports issued annually by the United States Department (most recently at http://www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2000 ) are broader, but even they provide incomplete coverage. Most constitutions in the Arab world can be found at http://www.uni-wuerzburg.de/law/home.html, though the site is not completely up to date. And country studies produced by the United States Library of Congress often have coverage of the judicial structure, though the information is sometimes dated (http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cshome.html).

Two universities have very useful websites for Arab legal systems. The School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London's Centre of Islamic and Middle Eastern Law has a very comprehensive site at http://www.soas.ac.uk/Centres/IslamicLaw. Emory University's Islamic Family Law project (http://www.law.emory.edu/IFL) has capsule overviews of the legal systems of each Arab state. A commercial site with some basic legal information on Gulf states is http://gulf-law.com/index.html.

In addition, there are several country-specific sites worth mentioning:

• Algeria: Constitutional Council http://www.conseilconstitutionnel-dz.org/
• Egypt: State Information Service http://www.sis.gov.eg/ ; Constitution (in English) http://www.parliament.gov.eg/en_aconst4.htm#begin
• Jordan: Links to government websites http://www.nis.gov.jo/orgstruc/eorgchrt.htm ; legislation and constitutional documents http://www.lob.gov.jo
• Kuwait: information on the judiciary web site
• Morocco: the Ministry of Justice has perhaps the most detailed official site in the Arab world: http://www.justice.gov.ma
• Palestine/PNA: the Institute of Law at Bir Zeit University provides information on Palestinian law, education, and on-line access to the Official Gazette at http://lawcenter.birzeit.edu/news.html