The most complete collection of IUCN publications - past and present - is available in the IUCN Library. This includes publications, periodicals and technical reports prepared by IUCN staff around the world as well as experts from its Commissions. Also of interest, are the historic Van Tienhoven Book Collection established in 1928, the video library, the country environmental studies collection and the Forest Conservation Programme collection.

Ask to be added to New Arrivals, the Library's monthly acquisitions bulletin or request more information from:

Alicia Held, Librarian, IUCN HQ,
Tel: +41 22 999 0136, Fax: +41 22 999 0010, E-mail: library@iucn.org

ECOLEX - Environmental Law Database on the Internet

IUCN Environmental Law Centre (ELC) is the Management Unit of ECOLEX, an on-line information service on environmental law, available at www.ecolex.org

ECOLEX is the product of a partnership between IUCN, FAO and UNEP, and is based on the databases which the partners have created and maintained over the past few decades. The on-line information includes data from IUCN Environmental Law Information System (ELIS) regarding treaties and law and policy literature, as well as data from FAOLEX, concerning national legislation throughout the world. UNEP plans to provide documents for the ECOLEX court decisions data base, and mapping information regarding treaties.

The easy to use service presently enables researchers to obtain bibliographic references, information on content of international treaties, international soft law, national legislation and EU instruments, as well as policy and law literature. Whenever possible, the data on treaties and national legislation are linked to the full texts.

The various data bases which constitute ECOLEX are searchable separately, or in combination. Search possibilities include a variety of aspects, including keywords, geographic and time-related elements. This flexibility allows the retrieval of information on any particular country or region, regarding a particular subject, and within a particular time frame, and more specific searches are possible within each data base.

ECOLEX is part of the capacity building efforts pursued by the three partner organizations, and is also a Type 2 WSSD partnership, particularly aimed at providing information to all those working in the field of environmental law in the governmental, non-governmental and private sectors, particularly in developing countries and countries in transition.

For more information please contact: ELCSecretariat@iucn.org

IUCN Environmental Law Library

Since 1963 the IUCN Commission on Environmental Law (formerly known as Commission on Legislation and Commission on Environmental Policy, Law and Administration) and over the past thirty years the Environmental Law Centre, have continuously collected and catalogued legal provisions relating to environmental conservation in individual countries. A growing number of significant international instruments have been developed and added to the pool, as well as literature pertaining to environmental policy, law and administration.
Today the ELC-libraries collection hosts one of the world’s largest and most comprehensive collections of environmental law and literature, which covers the entire spectrum of issues related to environmental conservation: from soil pollution to genetic resources, from water quality to waste management.

For more information visit www.iucn.org/themes/law/info01.html

IUCN Library Catalogue

The catalogue is accessible online at: www.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/commande, and contains titles published by IUCN – The World Conservation Union from 1948 to the present. It also includes those of CITES – Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, Ramsar – the Convention on Wetlands, TRAFFIC – the joint wildlife trade monitoring programme of IUCN and WWF, UNEP-World Conservation Monitoring Centre, and a small selection of titles from IUCN members or other publishers. Many IUCN publications are for sale through the World Conservation Bookstore at www.iucn.org/bookstore.

Many recent publications are available both in print and in PDF or other electronic formats. These files are directly accessible through the catalogue. In addition, key older publications are being converted into PDF and, when possible, are also made accessible through the catalogue, thus forming the nucleus of an IUCN digital library.