World Constitutions Illustrated is available as part of the IALS subscription to HeinOnline. It includes the constitution of every country in the world and collects together related commentary and bibliographies.
Access
Available onsite to all IALS Library academic members. Offsite access is available to IALS staff, fellows and students, SAS staff, fellows and students (other than IALS), University of London law staff and postgraduate students, IALS Library academic members.
Content
World Constitutions Illustrated includes the current constitution or constitutional legislation for every country in the world. Constitutions are provided in the vernacular and most include an English translation. It also includes scholarly commentary, historical constitutions, bibliographic references and links to external resources.
Browsing
Browse countries either by selecting a country from the drop down list or selecting a country from the A-Z list on the homepage of the collection.
It is also possible to browse by type of resource, for example books, periodicals, hearings or scholarly articles.
Searching
Start typing search terms, then select the type of search when prompted:- key word search (‘Just search for’), author/ title/citation search, or Catalog search (the Catalog is the contents list of the whole HeinOnline service, not just the World Constitutions Illustrated).
Search connectors must be in capital letters, for example, Kenya AND Equality. Click on ‘Search help’ below the search box to see a full list of search syntax that can be used in HeinOnline.
The Advanced Search page allows you to search using additional fields. There is an option to choose Document type (constitutional documents, constitutional books, constitutional periodicals, constitutional hearings). It is possible to search across all countries, or just one country.
Reading
Content is displayed in PDF format as a default. The PDFs are images of text and are not all fully accessible. There is an option to view content as plain text by clicking the ‘Text of this Page’ icon on the menu at the top of the document.
Printing, downloading and emailing
To download an accessible PDF version of a document, click on the ‘Download PDF’ icon on the menu at the top of the document.
There is also a ‘Print/Download options' icon on this menu for further options. This allows downloads as PDF or plain text.
A link to a document can also be sent by email by selecting the ‘Email PDF link’ icon.
TIP: ‘Current Section’ in the Print/Download dialog box means the document that you have displayed, for example, a whole treaty.
Help
HeinOnline has a Help menu with a user guide and other information.
Accessibility
View HeinOnline's accessibility information
HeinOnline is partially compliant with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines.
Content on HeinOnline is provided as images of the material as it originally appeared in print as a default. The images of text are not fully accessible and there are some reported issues with zooming to 200% or beyond. Content is also provided in an accessible format as plain OCR text, which has been converted to text from the image.