ABSTRACT
Researchers in international and foreign law currently rely both on large digital archives and on what Elizabeth Anderson, the Executive Director of the American Society of International Law, has described as a ‘think net’ (Anderson 2008, 2, 16).1 In a think net, officials in governments and intergovernmental organisations, advocates and experts connect virtually, integrating text, images and sound by posting the primary documents of international or local law as well as interpretive, analytical and critical commentary. Taken together, these are the sources of international law as listed in Art. 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice:
• treaties and conventions • judicial decisions and writing of publicists • custom of nations • general principles of law2
The specific texts described by the first two sources: treaties and judicial decisions (along with the most widely respected and accepted scholarly commentary) are now immediately available electronically in multiple formats, including scanned images or PDFs, mostly from the official bodies that have issued the sources in print or manuscript formats throughout the history of international law.
