Google Constitute Unveiled As Site To Explore The World's Constitutions

Google, with support coming from the Comparative Constitutions Project have announced Constitute. This newly launched site provides access to digitized copies of the world's constitutions. And as a side effect, also makes these same constitutions browsable and searchable. In fact, it was shown that you will be able to narrow searches down to specific topics and even specific time periods.

Coming by way of the Google announcement for Constitute, this site offers a one-stop place to read, search and compare the world's constitutions. Zachary Elkins, a co-director at Constitute has said that "one of the basic things to constitutional drafting is looking across other documents." Well, Constitute appears like it will provide just that.

Directly from the main page there is quick and easy access to browse by country and also by topic. The site has cataloged and tagged nearly 350 themes. While every item was not listed specifically, some of the provided examples include topics of "Citizenship" and "Foreign Policy," to others such as "Suffrage and turnouts" and "Judicial Autonomy and Power."

Further comments from Elkins mentioned how those writing a constitution are often under very tight deadlines and under very demanding circumstances. He touched on how those doing the writing will need an "efficient way to search and analyze a representative set of constitutional texts." Anyway, it was said that the aim of Constitute is to "arm drafters with a better tool for constitution design and writing."

But while this site may be good for those doing the writing, there is another side. It would also appear as if Constitute will be good for those who are simply curious. Another noted use case for Constitute is said to be for citzens who are looking to "learn more about their own constitutions, and those of countries around the world."

SOURCE: Google