This is a    Table of Contents  WordMap (index)

Objective - Statement of Purpose

Help Using the Site - text presentations and navigation

Disclaimer

Dates - Fragments of our History

1993

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

Site Awards

Technical Assistance

RA's thank you, from pre-1993 to 2000

RA's Dedication

RA's Norway study pages (International Commercial Law, University of Troms?)

RA Papers

Information Pages3{ LM Information4{~objective Objective - Statement of PurposeThe original objective is to be found below the brief message that follows.

   www.lexmercatoria.org

   www.lexmercatoria.com

*"To explore, utilize and demonstrate the potential of the new IT mediums insofar as they pertain to our chosen subject area." (1993) _2 In this there has been an element of figuring out what can be done most effectively/ successfully with limited resources. We have stuck to a few basic tools and rules of thumb, and have gained considerable experience in: getting the most out of the basic text markup language of the Web HTML without frills; efficient site management (with the help of Perl); the selection and effective use of basic tools (an editor, markup languages, scripting languages); and the importance of efficiently maintaining cross platform (server and browser) interoperability - through the selection and careful use of interoperable and preferably open standards. An outline of our navigation and text presentations may be viewed  .html here; for an overview of our contents our   home page is your best bet; and we also have general pages on   key technologies which may be of interest.

  1993

  1994

  1995

  1996

  1997

  1998

  1999

  2000

  2001

  2002

  2003

US Library of Congress in July 1997:
"Guide to Law Online Linking Page to:
INTERNATIONAL TRADE LAW SITES
INTERNATIONAL TRADE LAW Treaties, etc. (from Troms?, Norway)
This superb site created by Ralph Amissah and hosted by the University of Troms?, in Norway, is one of the very finest law Web sites in the world. It provides an extensive list of international trade conventions and related instruments, including rules and model Laws, and often provides hypertext access to the full texts..." [bold text added for emphasis]August 1, 1996 ICC Publication List Updated.August 19, 1996 A bit of work put into the list of Conventions etc.August 22, 1996 EyeOnTheWeb Eye Site Award "Eye Sites are the best in their categories".September 12, 1996 ITL presentation evolution continues. Optimised for 3.0 ( Netscape and Microsoft).
Our former look.
ITL alternative name used - International Trade Law Monitor.October-November, 1996 For those curious as to what is going on - there are lots of subtle, improvements ... a number of these are visible, if you have been a frequent user see what you are able to spot.November 21, 1996 Selected as A Business Compass Site, and invited to wear their badge.November 28, 1996 Paper commissioned by the Troms? Law Faculty (IRV) examining Intellectual Property Rights in ITL (in Norwegian)4{~1997 1997January 7, 1997 Selected as A Washington Web Top Site.
"Congratulations! Your Website has been selected as one of the "Top DC Sites" on the original Washington Web."January 16, 1997 Selected for a Webscout Award.
"We've reviewed International Trade Law and decided that it deserves to be included as one of our "Way Cool Sites" (And we're extremely choosy!)"
"Way Cool Links offers Web Surfers one of the finest bookmark collections available.
We selected only the top one per cent of all Web sites!"January 22, 1997 Selected by Netguide and invited to display their NetGuide Gold Award.
"Congratulations! NetGuide has selected your site as a Gold Site - one of the best on the Web. The Gold Award recognizes Web sites that meet our stringent criteria for overall excellence. ...
NetGuide has screened over 100,000 URLs and reviewed more than 50,000 sites and our Gold Award goes to only 15,000 of the Web's best sites."
"Hosted by the University of Troms?, Norway, this impeccable resource organizes trade law materials by subject, lists international organizations related to trade, and chronicles international conventions. ... Overall rating 4 stars."January 24, 1997 EZ Connect Best of the Web Award.
"EZ Connect is a directory of the best and most useful sites on the Internet."February 7, 1997 " On the Net and the liberation of information that "wants" to be free" published on ITL - updated 17 and submitted for paper publication. Work paper contributed to the publication prepared in commemoration of the 10th Anniversary of the Law Faculty of the University of Troms?. Now I must confess that I did not know about the FSS or OSS at the time, and it would have been a good thing/useful to incorporate these ideas.March 14, 1997 Rudimentary Electronic Citation System and Electronic ID or Document Verification System complete. New presentation of Article "On the Net..." provided as a practical example, the substantive text remains the same as that of February 17.
Electronic Citation is mentioned in passing within the article that is provided as an example, at e? 75 and e? 148. These are the numbers found at the end of "paragraphs" marked ecs ? # in a ghost or shadow colour and in superscript, or: "ecs ? ..." [this has been subsequently changed to { 0 }]. Although provided as hyperlinks here, these numbers are particularly useful in written citation of the text, as different browsers format html texts differently, and most browsers print the same document out in different font sizes, resulting in different page numbering. After some consideration, it appears to me that for the present time the preferred citation system is the simplest, numbering sequentially all elements of the substantive document - including title, author, headings and paragraphs. Anything else requires decisions which require discussion as to what may be best and why and how to achieve uniformity of adoption. For example should headings be numbered differently from ordinary text? What about the author's numbering of such headings if any? Should sub-headings be numbered differently from headings, why not? If so how? Until such questions are decided, this is my take, our "ecs" or "ghost 'paragraph' numbering" will be incorporated into future texts presented at this site without other suitable means of referencing.
Digital Signatures are also mentioned in passing within the article that is provided as an example at e? 31 and e? 78. A digital stamp is provided for the text which is to be found at the bottom of the page and via the "Document Verification Details" link that is to be found (also) within the document presentation. The program that generates the digital stamp will produce the same stamp for the same text. As used here the stamp program also looks at html tags. Thus documents a and b are different though they look the same because some cleaning up has been done in the program and resulting html that produced b. Information about the generating program is provided. What has been achieved is that only the substantive portion of the text is looked at, which has a number of benefits - including allowing the tagging/appending of document information at the end of the document, without alteration of the stamp. The stamp for presentation "c" is only different from that of "b" because of the change of citation from ecs? to e?.
Note: For secure communications (and consequent transactions) requirements include the following: certainty of sender; certainty of recipient; text unaltered before or after receipt; text readable only by (sender) and recipient; (notification of receipt).
A short note on the subject is provided.September 1997 Presented "The Autonomous Contract" in Bergen. Paper: The Autonomous Contract: Reflecting the borderless electronic-commercial environment in contracting. Presented at the XIII Nordic Conference on Legal Informatics 17th - 19th September 1997. and published in "Elektronisk handel - rettslige aspekter. Nordisk ?rsbok i rettsinformatikk 1997" (Electronic Commerce - Legal Aspects. The Nordic yearbook of Legal Informatics 1997) edited by Randi Punsvik. ISBN 82 518 3686 7October 1997 "On the Net" article was attached as part of an official submission to the Judges of the Washington Supreme Court and Court Commissioner's Office that was prepared by Mr. Bradley Hillis; Office of the Administrator for the Courts, State of Washington, USOctober 1997 Relocated in London, via Cairo. Site largely on remote pilot. Updating off-line.4{~1998 19981998 All work done off-line. One site update in April. Updating continued after that offline.January 1998 San Francisco - Guest Speaker at the Association of American Law Schools Annual Meeting, San Francisco by invitation and under the sponsorship of the National Center for Automated Information Research. Topic: Thinking and Teaching about Law in A Global Context as an Exercise in Common Enterprise. (presentation of The Trade Law Monitor: Recognizing, understanding and taking advantage of the discontinuity in information dissemination that the Net represents).somewhere in 1998 Finally understood that the OSS and FSS works, and that it has and continues to produce some of the very best software in existence today, - see Fresh Memes in Software Development (Percolation?)4{~1999 1999from late 1998 - 1999 Extensive work with "rationalising" the design and maintenance of the site - close to 90% of the site as a result is automatically generated from various perl scripts that identify what to do with each text. Optimisation for more recent versions of the browsers: Opera; Internet Explorer; and Netscape (in roughly that order). Scripts do large batches. Finally an easy/convenient way to handle tables.February 1999 Decision made Linux identified as the most attractive way forward. Perl works as it should on the platform. I have had a good time with NT but it is resource hungry. (more recently I hear MS has plans to do something to address its shortcomings in the perl department).

a better way

Ralph.Amissah@lexmercatoria.org

Ralph@Amissah.com

Ralph@Amissah.com" > href="mailto:Ralph@Amissah.com">Ralph@Amissah.com

Download times for the site would speed up considerably if we dropped the use of tables on long documents, and we are considering this. This is particularly noticeable if you (like myself at present) are not amongst the privileged with broadband Net access.
There are bound to be a few bugs. Not all files have yet been transferred from the old site to the new, though the new site contains a more up to date set of documents. Our old file system was insensitive to case, the new file system is case sensitive, some links may not yet be fully compliant. Patience, these and any other issues will be addressed.August 16, 1999 Description of the site, extract from description prepared for the CISG Moot Alumni Association Newsletter:

"Lex Mercatoria was begun in 1993 at the Law Faculty of the University of Troms? in Northern Norway. It was originally named Ananse and then the International Trade Law Monitor. It was the first legal website devoted to a particular subject area (admittedly a general and broad one) namely, international trade and commercial law. Lex Mercatoria provides the text of some of the more important treaties, conventions, model laws, rules aimed at harmonizing international trade/commerce, and sets of links to sites that are of interest for (the working of) international commerce. Lex Mercatoria has continued in its original spirit to grow its independent and egalitarian set of link collections in response to a continuous exploration of the use and implications of the Net for international commercial law, international commerce and publishing. Recognising the problems for information management resulting from the glut of information available on the web an attempt is made to organise and restrict the links provided to those that are likely to be most useful in the area targeted.

Lex Mercatoria is particularly interested in uses made of the Net (both in international commercial law and in technology related to electronic commerce) for the provision and development of: open (and harmonizing) standards; and for readily available deep and accurate information.

Apart from the Law Faculties of the University of Troms? and the University of Oslo which kindly hosts the site, Lex Mercatoria collaborates with: the Institute of International Commercial Law of Pace University School of Law, which provides the premier example of the Web being used by an academic institution to research and assist in the promulgation of a harmonizing standard for the international sale of goods through the building of the most comprehensive information available anywhere on the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG); and, the Australasian Legal Information Institute, which has become a legend for revolutionising legal publishing on a continent. We hope to see further positive developments result from our collaboration. Visit the site at http://lexmercatoria.net"December 01, 1999 Without much attempt at additional promotion or marketing, the site, (modestly sized and for the time being relatively static and hopelessly funded), gets on average about 5000 hits daily, which translates to over 3 million hits annually.December 06, 1999 Another new interface for the site is under test, the result of another generation of improvement in our site building tools (collectively fondly nicknamed Sisu). ¹  Information on the text presentations and navigation is available here. There is much greater consistency in presentation and viewing should have been enhanced and (for most part) made faster, across most graphical browsers and platforms. What we unfortunately do not provide examples of and so you will not see is that it is particularly well suited to the electronic publication of books, and has been tested on several legal academic and practitioners texts of over 500 pages. In parts of the site there are likely to be some "bugs", these however bad they look, should from a technical standpoint be minor to correct.December 27, 1999 Fine tuning of the site's interface. Reduction of categories on the home page, without cutting down on the information presented on the site. Some relatively minor structural reorganisation of contents and updating of pages. Also corrections affecting numbering of WTA 1994 including addition of plurilaterals and a few other documents on the Free Trade page, thanks to Kazuo Chujo. Numbering of the WTA may change again, (especially likely if corrections need to be made to the plurilaterals). Numbering system changed from using electronic paragraphs { #ep } to text objects { #to }, see the updated site presentation and navigation page. Further refinement of the interrelationship between page generation scripts.Status as of year end 1999 The document providing information on the text presentations and navigation contains a summary of the year from that perspective which is copied below:  The site has undergone a facelift for the Millennium, but in most respects our focus with regard to the presentation of documents has remained the same. We hope it results in an improved user experience.  In 1993 we boldly set out amongst other things:  "To explore, utilize and demonstrate the potential of the new IT mediums insofar as they pertain to our chosen subject area."  We have largely achieved this goal in demonstrating how various complicated legal (and other) documents of different content, structures and sizes can be can be presented on the Net using simple HTML.  If we have been limited in the possibilities that we have explored and utilized, our path has been selected by figuring out what could be achieved most effectively/ successfully with limited resources. We have stuck to a few basic tools and rules of thumb, and have gained considerable experience in: getting the most out of the basic text markup language of the Web, HTML, without frills; efficient site management; the selection and effective use of basic tools (an editor, markup languages, scripting languages); and how to efficiently maintain cross platform (server and browser) compatibility in our product, through the selection and careful use of interoperable and preferably open standards, and focus of effort on (few of) what we determine to be key complementary technologies. Our approach has been to identify simple, effective and efficient tools and solutions and to get the most out of them. In effect we have been exploring what can be made of technologies that are available to anyone on the Net. We have also kept an eye on other IT technologies that we do not necessarily use but provide for your perusal and benefit through the maintenance of an information technology compendium.  In the construction of this site our primary focus has remained since the outset (1993) been on presenting texts using HTML in a convenient manner. It has in part represented an experiment in how best this might be done for our purposes. The results remain as good as can be found anywhere for publications using HTML 4.0.  Our aim has been to be able to provide and create and maintain efficiently high quality usable presentations of texts (legal, academic, practitioner's, & including conventions, rules, contracts) whilst avoiding unnecessary complexity, indeed, so far it has been achieved using the most basic of markup languages on the Net, plain HTML with the help of Perl scripts ²  for its transformation ³  from ASCII.  Our 1996 list of design criterion for text presentations has now been met and implemented consistently throughout the site [though a few bugs may still remain]. Whilst most individual requirements set were met as early as 1997, presentations have been continuously improved upon. The rationalisation of how best to achieve consistent presentation across various types of text, and its implementation is a feature of the 1999. ⁴  An idea of these criterion may be gleaned from the contents of this document.  The year's changes improve the site and to provide greater utility from text presentations, including: greater consistency between different types of presentation; improved navigation of the site and individual texts; faster loading and better rendition of texts across different types of browser, the main ones we support being Opera, Internet Explorer, Netscape Navigator, (and we expect Konquerer).  The programs that generate the site have been tested on several books (academic and practitioner's texts) of over 500 pages, and the results are particularly well suited for their electronic presentation. The text navigation and presentation features (generated by the site generation program) come to their own on these longer texts, in which it is easy to appreciate the utility of the resulting document presentations.  So on the technical front we are now, in a sense, free to set new goals, and indeed may look in a number of additional directions. The site has concentrated on making the most of HTML presentations across most modern browsers, and without making concession to having different presentations for different types of browser. In future we may also present texts as in RTF and possibly PDF, but our primary additional focus will be on XML and we will look at XHTML. PHP being open source and designed for cross-platform functionality is of interest. We may if requested go back to having (in addition) HTML presentations without our paragraph numbering. In mentioning these possibilities we perhaps run a bit ahead of ourselves, as far as this text is concerned.  The preparation of the site is a bit like working with an electronic printing press, it should be possible to correct problems in presentation quite quickly, ⁵  please report any such problems and annoyances to www@lexmercatoria.net www@lexmercatoria.net" > href="mailto:www@lexmercatoria.net">www@lexmercatoria.net >  We hope that this document is for the most part unnecessary and that you find the site useful and easy to navigate without it.  Always remembering that we remain a small unit and will continue to do what we can. Turn of the decade, Century, Millennium Here to end the decade (century and millennium), i indulge myself by providing (with much gratitude), a list of personal heroes for the decade past, for the empowering technologies that each of them has offered and what these have taught me (which are of relevance to the history of this site, and thus at least tangentially to the page that you are visiting):  * Tim Berners-Lee (for the www, w3.org),  * Larry Wall (for Perl a post modernistic linguists' gift of a written language of non-mystical incantations to perform conjuring tricks on suitably digitized words, - without needing to be a wiz., & as with most of the best things being pretty open ended at the top), &  * Linus Torvalds (for Linux)

Linux for hearts and minds For providing the most worthy and practical example to demonstrate (contrary to the intuition and suggestions of many) how these memes generate a thriving new paradigm: (a) "Open Source" (of Eric Steven Raymond Cathedral and the Bazaar ⁶  ) to be one of the best and most powerful ways develop and maintain key infrastructural software (in which many have a common interest), all code being available for peer review and improvement, (which not least ensures improved security); (b) Copyleft (of Richard Stallman) as providing an engine for the unification and development of Linux, through the incorporation into the central project of the best ideas; (c) Free Software, (of Richard Stallman) well free to boot, i guess it would not have happened otherwise... (d) Enjoying what you do (in this case Linus Torvalds). Sorry Richard Stallman that i put the Penguin before the Gnu, (& the Camel too) thanks for conceptually and practically making GNU/Linux (a bit of a mouthful) and other serious goodies possible. Many thanks also to the folks behind the Apache web server. We hear good things about PHP as well.

How far beyond key infrastructure, (which like the air we all breath, should, if it can, be free) though, is it possible to follow the Pied Piper? And what are the consequences of these ideas, if widely adopted, for society..? i'm sure i'll return to delete this question later. For those wishing to pursue this further: Open Sources : Voices from the Open Source Revolution - The Open Source Story and Gnu The Cathedral and the Bazaar (or to buy)  Thank you also to Bill Gates (Microsoft In the early 80's for my first OS, actually we owe him a big one, for achieving the inter-operability of software across most desktops (perhaps we owe IBM a bit for that as well). (Incidentally this we now can and probably should ensure is achieved in other ways than reliance on any single proprietary OS). And i personally owe thanks for Windows NT 3.5 in 1994, the dos/windows series was already a bit tired then).  Technology publishers  O'Reilly (for "The Perl CD Bookshelf" (5+1 of the finest books on Perl on CD in html), Mastering Regular Expressions, Jeffrey E.F. Friedl and "Running Linux" (though isn't a Linux bookshelf (already) overdue?). And other texts too numerous to mention.
On the subject of Perl books Damian Conway's "Object Oriented Perl", 1999 Manning press is another useful addition.  In the provision of legal information, confining myself to that which web access automatically makes available:  * Albert Kritzer (CISG project)  * Graham Greenleaf and Co. (Australasian Legal Information Institute - for freeing the dissemination of primary legal information on a continent, and for the repercussions it appears likely that this will have throughout the Commonwealth and (possibly) world.)  Two projects that you will also find in the credits for this site.  Meta Ideas/ concepts which may have reached (or impacted upon) me, over a decade late,  Not sure who to ascribe this to... (Complexity/Chaos Theory)  * Lotfi Zaddeh (Fuzzy Logic)  * Richard Dawkin (Memes)  For the century, this ranks high:  * Karl Popper (Falsification)  About all of which, more later, and the most influential book list will have to wait.Prepared using Linux and Perl and scripts. [Page providing information on the resulting text presentations and navigation] [Our experience in working across platforms, and moving platforms continues to grow - we started on HP UNIX (running NCSA Mosaic Server) and Windows NT (development) (1993-94); shifted to Windows NT (Internet Server and for general development) (1994-99); then back to UNIX (Sun Solaris running Apache server) and Windows NT (development) (1999); and now UNIX (Apache server) and Linux (development) (1999).] For anyone who wonders, Linux is a dream development (and server) platform, rock stable, (have been using the SuSE distribution with WindowMaker, Perl, Nedit and kfm, also wterm if that is of interest). Allow me to confess that though i may have been relatively early in taking to the web, i have been slow with Linux. Then again, i did wait until 30 or so of my favourite CD's were available, and made sure i had them, before getting a CD player ('nough said). Though my web development is on Linux, i do continue to use the MS OS for a number of things, as mentioned the Apache web server runs on Sun Solaris, and i quite fancy what i hear of BeOS.We have a suit of in house perl scripts (collectively called Sisu) that are used to generate the site from ascii with the minimum initial markup required to enable the possibility of generation of the texts on this site in html. We will build upon these scripts and the ascii files in further developing the site and approaching other forms of text markup.Most of our texts are not as graphical as this one, the feature for such "adornment" has been turned on in the case of this document, to facilitate describing the use made of icons on parts of this site, that occurs primarily on the "navigation pages" as discussed later within this document.This in part spurred on by the disk failure of March 1999 and the need to further improve the efficiency of site maintenance, fortunately the requirement of this need was complementary to that of achieving greater consistency in the presentation of texts.As an example, to get to the current presentation of our site from our previous one, only the programs generating the site needed modification, virtually no changes were made to the ascii texts from which the site had previously been generated.getting things a bit backwards as the Cathedral and the Bazaar was written to explain the success of the likes of Linux4{~2000 2000January 2000 Our December 1999 Millennium site presentation is in place. We are fully Y2K compliant ;-) and expect the new interface for the site to be in place and fully functional. Information on the text presentations and navigation is available here. For a while the old presentation (Summer 1999) will be available here, but will either be deleted or replaced by this presentation, as representing the way we ended 1999.May 2000 Spurred on by the Schmitthoff Symposium 2000, Law and Trade in the 21st Century, Legal Problems in International Business at the Dawn of the New Millennium, held by The Centre for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary and Westfeild College, University of London, here is a draft version of Revisiting the Autonomous Contract which remains subject to revision.June 1^st to 3^rd 2000 Center for Commercial Legal Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of London, holds the most impressive conference in honour of Professor Clive Schmitthoff, titled "Law and Trade in the 21^st Century: Legal Problems in International Business at the Dawn of the New Millennium"July 8^th 2000 Lex Mercatoria is acquired by Cameron May internationally renowned law publishers and conference organizers. The site is to be built out further, covering a wider subject area, and the intention is that most material on it will remain available free, and there will be information on Cameron May products. I expect that there will be a new history tree.
July 10^th - 14^th 2000 The Legal Information Institute, Cornell University, holds a rather exclusive, intensive, and excellent Summit: "The LII Workshop on Emerging Public Legal Information Standards"August 2000 Site revamped and in place - reorganised together with additional subject areas and new look.August 2000 Incorporate some javascript (for the first time) for navigation purposes, off Brainjar www.brainjar.com. Looks ok on the browsers for which it presents itself, we'll see whether we retain it. (Removed April 17, 2001)September 2000 Possibly the most significant addition are the international treaties in environmental lawSeptember 2000 Incidentally there is much happening around this time to do with encryption and digital signatures. Early this month (September 26th 2000) a key patent belonging to RSA Security expired. RSA Security a couple of weeks prior to that date placed their encryption algorithm in the public domain. (This amongst other things increases opportunities for incorporation and use of strong encryption in uniform open source products).
On October 2^nd the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) announce the new Advanced Encryption Standard winner of the competition they set up for this purpose. Of the five entrants word on the street favour Twofish, Rijndael and Serpent. Incidentally under the terms of the competition the NIST is not limited to selecting one only.
And in the U.S. the Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act is law, granting (from today 1^st October, 2000) electronic signatures the same binding legal status as hand-written signatures and thereby making the signing of enforceable contracts online possible on the click of a mouse, with all that that may imply.4{~2001 2001January 2001 Major part of Ruby port for site construction implemented, i.e. programs successfully rewritten and improved using Ruby (having previously been written in Perl). (Utilisation will come later though).April 3^rd 2001 The site is now generated using the programming language Ruby.

better ways

There should hopefully be only minor differences in the appearance of the site.
Ruby / Linux users may download a larger image of the lovable Tux & Ruby - "better ways" mascot (mascot designed/"composited" 4 ^th May).April 2001 Not our news but what news: - "MIT to Make Nearly all course material available free on the World Wide Web - unprecedented step challenges the privatization of knowledge" MIT News - April 4 2001. And in IBM's Annual Report on Linux & Open Source - "Why I feel Linux will fundamentally change the Information Technology Industry" IBM 2000 Annual Report. And there is a lot more ... (also fresh memes in knowledge / information sharing)April 17^th 2001 Brainjar (javascript navigation bars) removed.April 26^th 2001 Section on Commercial Laws of the People's Republic of China first presentedJune 18^th 2001 PDF versions of several documents on the site are also generated on the fly. Though still a beta feature they appear to work for most of the more important types of text held on the site.July 12^th 2001 Improvements to PDF presentations of documents - general rendering, footnotes, and hyperlinks.September 3^rd 2001 Alteration to page numbering - roman numerals used for tables of contents, substantive page numbering consequentially changed (arabic numerals starting from page 1).October 7^th 2001 Landscape oriented pdfs introduced, providing easier screen viewing, they are also (paper saving, being currently) formatted to have fewer pages than their portrait equivalents. Text object ("paragraph") numbering should remain constant through document sets, though is not absulutely guaranteed between the html and the pdf versions. No discrepancy has as yet been noted. [Text object numbering is (with certainty) consistent through the document sets, i.e. all html & pdf presentations (the hypothetical possibility of a discrepancy existing in a document set is removed by current presentation generation techniques. No discrepancy had been detected by us prior to this coding change.), March 28^th 2002.]October 26^th 2001 Conference & new Database: - Golbalisation of International Business Law CENTRAL, Muenster University, Germany. Guest speakers include Lord Mustill, and opening of CENTRAL's Transnational Law database on rules and principles of Lex Mercatoria based on Prof. Klaus Peter Berger's concept of the Creeping Codification of Lex Mercatoria.November 12^th 2001 Both (ruby) programs generating this site and the (ascii) texts from which it is generated placed on a CVS (Concurrent Versioning System).NB My continued apologies that the site is not completely up to date or more comprehensive. Apologies also for any errors and for any obvious omissions. These to our embarrassment may remain for a while, but we will seek to correct them when we can. Also expect improvements in organisation.
We are a small unit. For the past year and at the present moment it remains unsupported beyond site hosting and considerable goodwill.
With your assistance we will seek to improve our content.
Your suggestions and contributions are welcome.
We will continue to do what we can.
Thank you for visiting.4{~2002 2002May 17 2002 RA: I got tired of waiting for (Debian's) Woody, and went ahead and switched Linux development platform from SuSE to Debian. I have nothing but praise for SuSE and recommend it strongly (it really showed up what I had used previously for all that it was not!) Debian (so far) is a pleasure to use and maintain, though its installation was torture (compared to for example SuSE or Mandrake), however, its packaging system, and philosophy, make it irresistible, and here for now I am comfortable.

Way Better! RAJuly 15, 2002 RA: Site automatically feeds into Postgresql database (could be any other of the better ones) - together with all additional information related to document structure, and the aternative ways in which it is generated on the site retained. An offline feature with many potential implications. This is well overdue as the site was designed from the ground up to ensure/facilitate this possibility.August 15, 2002 RA: WordMaps - Automatically generated word indexes are provided for all substantive documents on the site, together with links to the paragraphs in which they occur for both "scroll" and segmented documents. Proof of concept, planned to develop into a more functional index of legal terms. This is well overdue as the site was designed from the ground up to ensure/facilitate this possibility.November 12, 2002 RA: Information put up (on an independent site) about software that generates this site, SiSU http://www.jus.uio.no/sisu/ for general information, much of which discusses this diagram/chart http://www.jus.uio/no/sisu/sisu.pdf4{~2003 2003January 10 2003 Changes made (largely invisible to regular browsers) to improve viewing of the site by the excellent console/text browser, w3m http://w3m.sourceforge.net/ which is recommended for console/text vewing of this site (Lynx viewing remains unacceptable, and Links viewing of this site is not nearly as good as w3m...)4{~awards Site AwardsWe are an old site (in web terms) here are a few of the "awards" we have collected along the way. Thank you to those who thought us worthy of them.January 24, 1997: EZ Connect Best of the Web Award.
"EZ Connect is a directory of the best and most useful sites on the Internet."
"Celebrate!!... EZ Connect has awarded your site "Best of the Net." You have one of the best and most useful sites on the Internet and we'd like to award you for that." January 22, 1997: Selected by Netguide and invited to display their NetGuide Gold Award.
"Congratulations! NetGuide has selected your site as a Gold Site - one of the best on the Web. The Gold Award recognizes Web sites that meet our stringent criteria for overall excellence. ...

NetGuide has screened over 100,000 URLs and reviewed more than 50,000 sites and our Gold Award goes to only 15,000 of the Web's best sites."

"Hosted by the University of Troms?, Norway, this impeccable resource organizes trade law materials by subject, lists international organizations related to trade, and chronicles international conventions. ... Overall rating 4 stars." January 16, 1997: Selected as Webscout Award.
"We've reviewed International Trade Law and decided that it deserves to be included as one of our "Way Cool Sites" (And we're extremely choosy!)" "Way Cool Links offers Web Surfers one of the finest bookmark collections available.

We selected only the top one per cent of all Web sites!"

"Text based site contains information on treaties, trade and International law regarding commerce around the world. Find out about NAFTA (North American Free Trade Act), Intellectual Property Law, World Trade Agreement and much more. This award winning site is a goldmine of information for anyone involved in, or considering international trade." January 7, 1997: Selected as A Washington Web Top Site.
"Congratulations! Your Website has been selected as one of the "Top DC Sites" on the original Washington Web." -November 21, 1996: Selected as A Business Compass Site, and invited to wear their badge.

"Researchers, lawyers, and business analysts can use ITL for educational or legal research on any topics related to international trade law. The site can also be used to find many other Web sites related to international trade as well as information on the trade related organizations." August 22, 1996: EyeOnTheWeb Eye Site Award "Eye Sites are the best in their categories".

Your Internet site has been named a Selected "Eye Site" by EyeOnTheWeb's Site Selection Team. Our selections are from among thousands of Websites, and are based on content, usability, graphics and overall design. Selected sites are retained as long as they continue to meet our criteria.
... Eye Sites are the best sites in their categories..."
The Eye Team
Internet Eye On the Web, Inc. June 18, 1996: Virtuocity is proud to offer links to the Internet's best resources.
"We've selected your site, International Trade Law Project, and placed a link to it in the International Business section of our Business Center... Congratulations on having produced such an excellent resource. Keep up the good work!" 12 February, 1996: Internet Business 500 "Premiere Site" .
CONGRATULATIONS: IB500 "PREMIERE SITE": Site Name: International Trade Law Project Site URL: http://ananse.irv.uit.no/trade_law/nav/trade.html
[ Updated appropriate URL: http://itl.irv.uit.no/trade_law/ ]
"The International Trade Law Project is a successful attempt by the University of Troms? (Norway) to provide a Web-based foundation for legal research and education in the field of international law. Despite its foreign origins, the site is completely in English. It's also a long-standing Web site, dating back to October 1993. Here you can search for a facet of trade law you are interested in or browse a list of subjects, including topics such as electronic data interchange (EDI), insurance, leasing, sale of goods, trademarks, copyrights and dispute settlements. Naturally, you'll find links to extensive archives on GATT and NAFTA, the two biggest international trade agreements ratified in recent years. Here you'll also find links to the European Union, the World Bank, the World Intellectual Property Organization, the United Nations and the International Chamber of Commerce, among others."
Site Name: GATT and NAFTA
Site URL: http://ananse.irv.uit.no/trade_law/gatt/nav/toc.html
[Updated appropriate URL: http://itl.irv.uit.no/trade_law/nav/freetrade.html]

Site Name: International Trade Law Project
Site URL: http://ananse.irv.uit.no/trade_law/notice/icc_own.html
[Updated appropriate URL: http://itl.irv.uit.no/trade_law/notice/icc_own.html]
http://ananse.irv.uit.no/trade_law/gatt/nav/toc.html
[Updated appropriate URL: http://itl.irv.uit.no/trade_law/nav/freetrade.html]
http://law.wuacc.edu/scall/nafta.html
"These sites provide extensive coverage on some of the most historic political and economic treaties of our time, including the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The GATT/WTO site is part of the International Trade Law Project. If you click the related button within this page, it will give you access to other trade law resources plus connections to major trade organizations throughout the world." January 20, 1996: Magellan Review. Received notification of ITL 4 star rating.
"Congratulations! Your Internet sites
International Trade Law Project http://ananse.irv.uit.no/trade_law/nav/trade.html
Free Trade Treaties page http://ananse.irv.uit.no/trade_law/nav/freetrade.html
have been selected by The McKinley Group's professional editorial team as a "4-Star" site. This is the highest rating an Internet site can achieve in Magellan, McKinley's comprehensive Internet directory of over 1.5 million sites and 40,000 reviews. As a Magellan 4-Star site, you are being awarded a special logo to recognize the hard work that has gone into establishing and maintaining your site.
We encourage you to display the prestigious 4-Star logo proudly...
Here at The McKinley Group, we pride ourselves on our ability to recognize the best resources on the Net. Your site has excelled in our rigorous review process, in which we consider three primary factors: depth of content, ease of exploration, and Net appeal."
In the April 11, 1995, Volume of PC Magazine our "Trade Law Library Page" selected as one of PC Magazine's top 100 Web Sites.

A few places in which we are particularly proud to have been listed

Official WEB Site Locator for the UNITED NATIONS System of Organizations
Other WEB Sites containing UN-related information compiled by non-UN sources US Library of Congress mention of ITL

"Guide to Law Online Linking Page to:
INTERNATIONAL TRADE LAW SITES
INTERNATIONAL TRADE LAW Treaties, etc. (from Troms?, Norway)
This superb site created by Ralph Amissah and hosted by the University of Troms?, in Norway, is one of the very finest law Web sites in the world. It provides an extensive list of international trade conventions and related instruments, including rules and model Laws, and often provides hypertext access to the full texts. This basic list is arranged by decades, but the component lists, arranged by topic, may often be more useful, and may be accessed directly ..." 06/1997 (till 02/2001) 2000 Update to Guide to International Trade Law Sources on the Internet Marci Hoffman.
"Lex Mercatoria (International Trade/Commercial Law Monitor). If I only had one place to go for access to the full text of major trade related agreements, this would be it. This web site also has many international agreements and documents in areas related to trade (contracts, sales, arbitration, etc.). The site is well organized and offers a subject index, a search mechanism, and links to other sites."
Marci Hoffman is the International & Foreign Law Librarian at the E.B. Williams Law Library, Georgetown University Law Center. 1998 updated 2000  Norwegian Government The Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Yale University Library, United Nations Scholar's Workstation
Research topic International Trade Law -Institute of International Commercial Law, School of Law, Pace University

"The Troms? database is the first WWW site dedicated to a given area of law on the Internet: international trade law and its many ramifications. Edited by Ralph Amissah, it is an important site for international trade law materials and links to related materials on the "net". Like the UNCITRAL database, it is an especially good site to "bookmark": exploration of the by-ways opened up by its links opens up much relevant information related to contracts governed by the CISG." 02/1997 CISG Rabel Website, University of Frieburg Public International Law Professor Francis Auburn, Western Australia

"International Trade Law(University of Troms?)
Important and Well-Constructed Trade Law Resource. Topics include" ... -Excite Review, International Trade Law

Review: This wonderfully full site explores issues of international trade law, complete with full-text treaties, conventions and laws (including GATT). Compiled by Ralph Amissah and hosted by the University of Troms?, Norway.

Review: Creating this site certainly must've been a project. Seems like there's nothing this group operating out of the Law Faculty of the University of Troms?, in Norway, missed in this huge and well-organized collection of international trade law information. Read or search treaties, conventions, laws, rules, country profiles, writings, and more."

Review: Search by company, by industry or by concept on this very impressive site that also gives links to other related sites, both legal and otherwise.

Always remembering that
we are a small unit and will continue to do what we can.
Thank you for visiting.4{~assistance Technical AssistanceRalph Amissah started, directed and maintained the site in 1993, this page is the original thank you page that has been on the site since its inception.Geoffrey Armstrong
(from June 1993 - September 1994) Law Student/ Graduate assisted with the site from its commencementThomas Nordg?rd
(from June 1995 - August 1995) Information Technology AssistanceTommy Johansen
(July - August 1994 and occasionally thereafter as available and required) Extensive technical and artistic support
Software Engineer who started working on banking systems after his graduation.Roy Johansen
(July - August 1994 and as required) Law Student
Editor of the law student magazine J'UST
Preparation of HTML documentsSince 1995 work on the site has been unassisted.Between September 1997 and 1999 work has been unsupported other than having a host for the site. Mention should be made of Mr. Odd-Erik Pedersen and Mr. Rosvoll of the Univesity of Oslo; and at Mr. Dave Williams of the Pace University Law School Library.Also see my thanks to people and institutions4{~ra.thanks RA's thank you, from pre-1993 to 2000

Special Thanks are due to the following people & institutions:

My FamilyIRV - The Law Faculty of the University of Troms?The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)PACE University Institute of International Commercial Law

Special Thanks are due to the following people:

Prof. Ole D. Mj?s, University of Troms?, former Rector of the University of Troms?Ms. Sylvi Liljegren University of Troms?, former Information Director of the University of Troms? -Prof. Jens Edvin Andreassen Skogh?y, IRV, University of Troms? (previous Dean of the Law Faculty )Dr. Hege Br?khus IRV, University of Troms? (previous Dean of the Law Faculty )Dr. Trude Haugli, University of Troms? (Dean of the Law Faculty )Ms. Olaug Husab?, IRV, University of Troms? (Administrative Director of the Law Faculty)Prof.r Dr. Juris Olav Torvund Insitutt for rettsinformatikk, (Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law) University of Oslo Prof. Dr. Juris Jon Bing Insitutt for rettsinformatikk, (Norwegian Research Center for Computers and Law) University of OsloProf. Clive M. Schmitthoff (in 1990)Prof. Nicholas Triffin, Director of the Institute of International Commercial Law, Pace University School of Law, NY, USProf. Eric Bergsten, Deputy Director of the Institute of International Commercial Law, Pace University School of Law, NY, US and former Secretary of UNCITRALProf. Albert Kritzer, Executive Secretary of the Institute of International Commercial Law, Pace University School of Law, NY, US (extra special thanks) Prof. Mari Newman, Pace University, NY, USMr. David Williams, Pace University, NY, USProf. Peter Martin, Legal Information Institute, Cornell University Law School, NY, USProf. Claire Germain, Cornell University Law School, NY, USProf. Juha P?yh?nen, University of Rovaniemi, FinlandProf. Viggo Hagsøm, University of Oslo, NorwayProf. Erik Rosaeg, University of Oslo, NorwayProf. Ole Lando, University of Copenhagen, DenmarkDr. Matthias StormeProf. Marci Hoffman, Foreign, University of Minnesota, USProf. Roy Goode, Oxford University, EnglandProf. Ann Kennedy, Oxford University, EnglandProf. Ross Cranston, London School of Economics, EnglandProf. Ejan McKaay, University of Montreal, CanadaProf. Graham Greenleaf, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, AustraliaDr. Dan Austin, Faculty of Law, University of New South Wales, Sydney, AustraliaDr. Werner Bachmann, University of Freiburg, GermanyDr. Loukas Mistelis, Center for Commercial Law Studies, Queen Mary and Westfield College, University of LondonDr. Petri Keskitalo, University of Troms?, Norway Ms. Randi PunsvikDr. Gerold Herrmann, Secretary of UNCITRAL, Chief of the International Trade Law BranchMr. Jernej Sekolec, Senior Legal Officer UNCITRAL, International Trade Law BranchDr. Spyridon Bazinas, Legal Officer UNCITRAL, International Trade Law BranchMs. Veronika Prull -Elnrieder UNCITRAL, International Trade Law BranchMadame Pascal Rien, ICC, Paris. Madame Genevieve Pathiaux, ICC Library, Paris, FranceDr. Joseph Francois, WTO, Geneva, SwitzerlandMr. Malcolm Evans, Unidroit, Rome, ItalyMs. Lena Peters, Unidroit, Rome, ItalyMr Ludvic Bernardeau, Unidroit, Rome, ItalyDr. Hans Carl, UNCTADMs. Renate WeidingerMr. Brad Hillis; Office of the Administrator for the Courts, State of Washington, USProf. Lyonette Louis-Jacques, University of Chicago, USProf. Marci Hoffman, Foreign, Comparative & International Law Librarian, University of Minnesota Law LibraryProf. Francis Auburn, University of Western AustraliaProf. Peter Winship, SMU, USAMr. Geoffrey Armstrong (extra special thanks) Mr. Tommy Johansen (extra special thanks) Mr. Tor Inge Rosvoll, University of Oslo, NorwayMr. Odd-Erik Pedersen, University of Oslo, Norway Mr. Thomas Nordg?rd, NorwayMr. ?yvind Johnsen, NorwayMr. Leif Erik Nohr, NorwayAll who have helped work on this project

Thanks are also due to the following:

Dr. Ande Somby, IRV, University of Troms?, NorwayMr. Gunnar Erricson, IRV, University of Troms?, NorwayMr. Inge Unneberg, IRV, University of Troms?, NorwayMr. Helge Forfang, Sparebanken Nord, NorwayProfessor Kieth Nunes, the Institute of International Commercial Law, Pace University School of Law, NY, USMr. Arild Brekken, NorwayPC Magazine (for placing us in their Top 100 WWW Sites, April 17 1995)LAIR The Legal Automation and Internet Review, Tarlton Law Library, University of Texas (for noticing - and a warm review, 25 July 1995)Infoseek Open Text Ass.Prof. Gary F. Bell, McGill University, Montreal Canada.MagellanExcite!4{~dedication RA's Dedication Our work is dedicated to all who by their work inspire others, by their nature encourage others, and who warmly embrace the future.We would like to make special mention of the late Professor Clive M. Schmitthoff.October 1993 4{~study RA's Norway study pages (International Commercial Law, University of Troms?) .html Past Exam Papers 1991 - 1997 .html 1997 SyllabusThe Course continues as International Sales Law under Dr. Petri Keskitalo   International Sales Law Syllabus4{~papers RA PapersMissing Specifications in International Sales, Article 65 of the CISGOn The Net and the Liberation of Information that Wants to be FreeThe Autonomous ContractRevisiting the Autonomous Contract still in draft June 2000

Lex Mercatoria LM Outline; LM toc LM 20**

 

( International Trade/Commercial Law & e-Commerce Monitor ) W3 since October 3 1993 1993 - 2009 started @The University of Tromsø, Norway hosted by The University of Oslo, Norway in fellowship with The Institute of International Commercial Law, Pace University, White Plains, New York, U.S.A. Disclaimer! Ralph Amissah & © Ralph Amissah presentations' look and feel generated by SiSU Scribe © Ralph Amissah 1997, current 2009, of SiSU www.jus.uio.no/sisu the program, the markup syntax, and exemplified resulting document presentations look and feel, including text object numbering system. All Rights Reserved. © Ralph Amissah 1993 - 2004 All Rights Reserved w3 since October 3 1993 ralph@amissah.com using Ruby on the Debian/Gnu/Linux software infrastructure think the usual GPL (or OSS) suspects Get With the Future <<Way Better!>> Local Search using Google lm www Advanced Google Search of this site If you have problems viewing pages on this site please update your browser:  Epiphany® |  Galeon® | I-Explorer® | Konqueror® | Mozilla (Firefox)® | Netscape® | Opera® for console/text viewing: elinks | w3m for lightweight gui (X) viewing try: Dillo |  Epiphany® | Firefox®  & for pdf viewings of this site we recommend stand alone viewers (rather than web browser plugins): Acrobat Reader®  |  GhostView® , GV® & GSview®  |  Xpdf®