Why UNEP, IUCN and FAO?
The FAO Legal Office has developed FAOLEX, a database of references to national legislation linked to electronic versions of their texts. Selected texts of major significance pertaining to FAO’s mandate, including legislation on agriculture, energy, environment, fisheries, food, forestry, land, livestock, mineral resources, plants, water, wild fauna and flora, are summarized and indexed in the database. Access to the summary, index and full text of each piece of legislation is provided. IUCN Environmental Law Centre (ELC) created a comprehensive information system on environmental law (ELIS) in the 1960’s. ELIS, which was one of the first computerized legal information system, evolved into a large set of references to treaties, national legislation, soft law and legal literature, linked to documents held in the libraries of the ELC for the IUCN Environmental Law Programme. It continues to be one of the main assets of the capacity building activities of the IUCN Environmental Law Progra