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Emergency Law Database - Introduction


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Introduction to the Database

The States of Emergency Database is a legal database which contains legislative texts and other relevant information on states of emergency in several countries. At present only some countries click here to view are included but it is intended that the database will eventually cover all countries that have a declared or de facto state of emergency.

The database is being developed to assist international agencies and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to monitor and, if possible, control human rights abuses during states of emergency. There is general agreement that human rights are typically most at risk during states of emergency. During the 1980s the United Nations Commission on Human Rights began to focus attention on the issue and in 1985 a UN Special Rapporteur on States of Emergency was appointed. The QUB project was initiated in 1990 to put into operation the suggestion that a database on states of emergency would be of great assistance to the Special Rapporteur and others involved in human rights monitoring.

During the first two years the QUB database team concentrated on the development of a standard format for individual country entries, using Malaysia, Northern Ireland, South Africa and Turkey as initial examples. The team has since completed entries on India, China, Sri Lanka and El Salvador and is currently working on entries on Georgia, Israel and the Occupied Territories and Indonesia/East Timor. Other countries expected to be covered in the next phase of the project include the Russian Federation, Zimbabwe, Algeria, Egypt and Peru.

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Contents of the Database

The information in the database is arranged by country. Each entry has been designed to give both a general introduction to the nature of the conflict and full details of all emergency legislation and other legal material. The format adopted may be summarised as follows:

Introductory synopsis: A general description of the country, its constitutional status and its ethnic make-up, a brief description of the origins and nature of the conflict, and a summary of recent declarations of emergencies, of derogations from international human rights conventions and of ordinary and emergency legislation and judicial decisions relevant to the conflict

Declarations and derogations:The full text of all recent declarations of emergency and of any derogations from international and/or regional human rights conventions

Legislation:The full text of constitutional provisions and of ordinary and emergency legislation or regulations relevant to the conflict.

Judicial Decisions:Summaries of relevant cases decided by both national courts and international tribunals, e.g. the European Commission/Court of Human Rights

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Nature of access to the database

The database is mounted on simple and user-friendly software which requires no special computing skills on the part of the user. Historically, the information had been available on either 3.5" or 5.25" floppy disk, preferably for loading on to the user's hard disk.

As from July 1994, the information is available over the Internet, and has been tested using the Cello and Mosaic entry routes. The database initially will comprise the text files taken from the original system, and will be progressively updated to take advantage of Hypertext features and linking. The immediate advantage to users will be that all such improvements will be added as they happen, rather than having to be held until the next release of floppy disks.

Hard copy output is also available, either by directly printing from the Cello or Mosaic menu, or by saving the file and printing later. For those users who cannot access the Internet, or do not have floppy disk versions, hard copy will be mailed or faxed as appropriate.

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Future plans

In November 1992 the team published the results of its feasibility study on establishing a permanent database on states of emergency, as the first step towards the creation of a more generalised database on international human rights issues. It recommended inter alia that the project would be greatly facilitated by the creation of a network of regional database centres located in appropriate institutions in Europe, Asia, Africa and America. While the work on the classification of emergency regimes and expansion of country entries continues, the team in Belfast has begun a process of dialogue with interested institutions to explore the possibility of networking and sharing of information.

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