Ever since Joseph Schacht, whose book An Introduction to Islamic Law is on the short list of books on Middle East law, said that Islamic law is the epitome of Islamic thought, in other words, you can't understand Islam without understanding Islamic law, Middle Eastern studies and their journals invariably include classical Islamic law in their coverage of the subject with little attention given to modern legislation. This is particularly obvious in the bibliography of periodical literature which disregards the increasing number of studies on the modern law of the Middle East appearing in law journals. Even entries described as positive law, a category recently added to John and Marianne Makdisi's eminently useful compilation on Islamic law, comes no closer to giving a realistic picture of the applicable law. To illustrate what I mean, titles under positive law dealing with insurance, banking, and interest, concentrate on Islamic law's position on these subject-matters at a time when modern legislation in most Arab states has completely discarded that position.

“Indigenous peoples have been deprived of vast land holdings, and access to life sustaining resources, and they have suffered … activ[e] suppress[ion of] their political and cultural institutions. As a result indigenous people have been crippled economically and socially, their cohesiveness as communities has been damaged or threatened, and the integrity of their cultures has been undermined.”

Since my retirement from the High Court of Australia in April 1995, I have pursued various activities. As Chairman of the National Library 1995-1998, National Fellow at the Australian National University and Chancellor of the University of New South Wales, I have been concerned with some current issues concerning libraries, including funding and copyright reform. My main purpose on this occasion is to speak about my experiences as a judicial rover in Fiji, the Solomon Islands and Hong Kong, jurisdictions in which I have been sitting as a Judge and as a lecturer at the Chinese National Judges College in Beijing.

The Israeli legal system belongs to the Western legal culture which is based on the rule of law and takes secular, liberal and rational approach that puts the individual at the center. The Israeli legal system has been classified as a “mixed jurisdiction” in that it has traits of both common law as well as civil law systems.

Since the late 1970's the Asian region has witnessed the paradox of socialist nations moving to market or “capitalist” economies. The experiment began with economic reforms in the People's Republic of China (PRC), spreading to the Soviet Union in 1985 with the adoption of perestroika, to Viet Nam under doi moi in 1986 and since then to the former republics of the Soviet Union after the ‘cold war’ in 1991. There are now nine countries in transition in the Asian region; the PRC, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Lao PDR, Mongolia, Myanmar, Kazakstan, Krygyz Republic and Uzbekistan.

The basis of the current and future Russian legal system has been determined in the Constitution of 1993, which proclaims Russia to be a democratic federal law-based state with a republican form of government. Like the basic laws of the majority of the other post-communist states, the constitution balances description with prescription. It is a transformational document, which accepts reality while aspiring to something greater. Therefore, discussing the laws of Russia and of the other former Soviet republics (all of which during the last five years adopted new Constitutions), we have to take into account the realities of political life, which may explain many existing difficulties with the implementation of all these laws.

Relationships with international universities for the purposes of benchmarking, international best practice and strategic partnerships for competitive advantage are all leading to practices which are shaping the destiny of the University of Melbourne. One of the “Guiding values” of the University is to “work with other international Universities to enrich intellectual discourse, educational quality and research activity in the international community. “

It is now thirty years since I commenced research work and teaching in the field of Asian Law, focussing mainly on Japanese Law. Over those three decades, there has been a substantial change in the resources available, the uses made of those resources, and the feasibility of establishing any sort of substantive collection. I thought it would be most useful if I attempt in the discussion today to outline some of the key policy issues and choices which seem to me to face Law librarians when they are subjected to the demands of a growing body of Asian Law specialists to focus on building an Asian legal materials collection. I have called in aid the experiences of three of my colleagues, one in the field of Japanese Law, one in the field of Indonesian Law, and the third in the area of Chinese Law, to highlight some of the challenges involved.

This paper attempts using Internet as a means to access and explore information and resources all around the world for Chinese law materials. Topics discussed cover the Internet development in China, Chinese character coding system, Chinese softwares, search engines and some useful Chinese Studies WWW sites for research purposes. It is intended for people who use the Internet for research, and would like to gain more knowledge on the Chinese law resources provided by the Internet.

Australia has a unique heritage in its wildlife - so much so that it has become a part of our folklore and national identity. The rest of the world has come to know and recognise us through our wildlife symbols.