New Law Library of Congress Reports on Climate Change, Biosecurity, and Innovative Technology in Legislatures

The Law Library of Congress in Washington has recently published a number of interesting comparative law reports:

• Climate change and historic preservation: "This report covers legislation concerning climate change and the preservation of historic and cultural heritage in the selected jurisdictions of Brazil, Colombia, Finland, Great Britain, Ireland, Italy, Spain, and the United Arab Emirates. The report focuses on regulations addressing reuse and retrofitting of historic buildings to reduce energy usage, adaptation of historic buildings or historic districts to respond to climate change, and integration of indigenous or traditional knowledge or collaboration with indigenous communities in government actions to protect or adapt cultural or historic properties."
• Biosecurity Laws: "This report explores various approaches to defining “biosafety” and “biosecurity” in legislation and regulations in the following jurisdictions: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. These jurisdictions have been chosen because they are members of the Group of Twenty (G20) (...) Among the G20 nations’ laws discussed in this report, the methods for defining the terms “biosafety” and “biosecurity” generally fall into one of four categories. In the first category, “biosafety” and “biosecurity” are clearly defined in legislation or regulations, with specific distinctions. In the second set of jurisdictions, the term “biosecurity” is applied generally to topics such as laboratory safety, protecting the environment, and guarding against criminal activity involving biological agents that may harm people, plants, animals, and the environment. In other nations, laws may include one identified term, but government strategy statements or publications by government-related scientific organizations supplement the available legal definitions with more detailed descriptions of “biosafety” and “biosecurity.” The remaining nations addressed in this report have enacted laws addressing biosecurity matters, but these laws contain no legal definitions for “biosafety,” “biosecurity,” or similar terminology."
• Innovative technology in legislatures in selected countries: "This report surveys the adoption and use of innovative technological infrastructures by legislative bodies, including artificial intelligence (AI) tools for the purpose of improving their parliamentary processes, services, and functions. The report includes two sections. The first is an expansive look into the adoption of innovative technologies by legislative bodies in 10 jurisdictions, namely, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Germany, India, Israel, Italy, Spain, Ukraine, and the United Kingdom (UK). The second includes brief surveys of this topic covering 79 countries and the European Union."

The Law Library of Congress is the world’s largest law library, with a collection of over 2 and a half million volumes from all ages of history and virtually every jurisdiction in the world.

Over the years, it has published dozens of comparative law reports which are a treasure trove for legal research on a huge variety of issues.