**FINDINGKAZAKHSTAN’S LAWS ON THE INTERNET**

 

By Judith Robinson

 

U.S. companies and law firms should be awarethat it is possible to find information on Kazakhstan’s laws, and sometimeseven the full text, on the Internet. However, they should keep in mind thatdocuments come and go, depending on a specific website’s archive policy, andnot everything on the Internet is free. That said, quite a number of websitescontain English translations of Kazakhstani laws, often along with othermaterials. **BISNIS Online** has a fewlaws at www.bisnis.doc.gov/bisnis/isa/isa-legal.htm,but defers to privately maintained websites.

 

The most developed source of onlineKazakhstani laws in English is the USAID-developed database of commercial lawsat www.kazecon.kz. Included on thissite are Kazakhstan’s Constitution, the Foreign Investment Law, corporate law,and all of the laws relevant to the creation of Kazakhstan’s securities market.The website is currently operated from Almaty by Golden Eagle Services. It alsopublishes excellent daily business and economics newsletters in English, calledthe Kazakhstan NewsWires (access available by paid subscription only). Kazeconcontains a wealth of additional free commercial information and data, includinga weekly news update, but appears to have fallen somewhat behind in publishingthe laws themselves. 

 

The U.S. House of Representatives InternetLaw Library, a U.S. taxpayer-paid effort, resulted in a very well-developeddatabase of laws that included laws of Kazakhstan. This database is no longermaintained on the Internet by the House of Representatives, but it has beendistributed to various other law libraries, some of which carry it on theirwebsites. For a list of these sites, visit http://law.house.gov/89.htm.

 

One excellent website incorporating the Houseof Representatives Internet Law Library is maintained by the University of NewSouth Wales/University of Technology in Sydney, Australia (www.austlii.edu.au/links/hrill/). Inaddition, this site offers the prototype of the Asian Development Bank’sProject DIAL (Development of the Internet for Asian Law), which offers freeaccess to an incredible number of legal sources and a powerful searchcapability in the area of Asian/Central Asian law at www.austlii.edu.au/au/special/dial/. Note: Read the searchinstructions carefully. 

 

The Australian National University maintainsthe Kazakhstan mirror site ICARP (Interactive Central Asia Resource Project),which is a good search mechanism for Kazakhstan legal materials, among otherinformation: http://personal.rockbridge.net/bichel/welcome.htp.

 

The Kazakhstan Legal Information Instituteonline (www.relcom.kz/kzcourt/),maintained by Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, contains a wealth ofKazakhstani laws and legal information for use by judges and lawyers inKazakhstan and worldwide. 

 

Good sources for economy-related lawsinclude:

¨  The International Tax and InvestmentCenter website   (http://iticnet.org/contents) hasKazakhstan’s Tax Code.

¨  Eurasian patent information and decreescan be found at       www.ipmenu.com/kazakhstan.htm(the website is owned by an Australian law firm).

¨  A website administered by the Law Facultyof Southampton University in the United Kingdom offers banking laws andfinancial papers (www.solent.ac.uk/law/netlawlib/).

 

For lists of laws just passed (but inRussian), the www.conlex.kz siteof the Urios enterprise is free with a two-month archive, with links to othersites that contain Russian-language laws both free and for a fee. 

 

Other sources:  

¨  Kazakhstani newpapers occasionallypublish information    on laws: *Panorama*and the *Almaty Herald* in Almaty (search on their names) and *The Times of Central Asia* in            Bishkek (www.times.elcat.kg). For Russian language readers, thenewspaper *Kazakhstanskaya Pravda* usuallypublishes newly passed Kazakhstani laws (www.kazpravda.kz).

¨  U.S. and Western European law schoolsoften maintain legal databases, including Kazakhstan laws, for example, Cornellor University of Chicago.  

¨  American law firms with practices in Kazakhstan(some of which can be found by visiting **BISNISOnline**at www.bisnis.doc.gov/bisnis/country/9806uskz.htm)sometimes have copies of their excellent newsletters online, although theyusually contain analyses rather than law texts.  

 

U.S. treaties with other governments,including Kazakhstan, are in a Senate, House, and Treaty Documents databaselocated at www.access.gpo.gov/congress/cong006.html.The Department of State’s legal publications can be obtained at www.state.gov/www/publications/dispatch/index.html.The Department of Commerce also maintains copies of various commercial treatiesat www.mac.doc.gov/tcc. U.S.treaties are available free from Oceana Publications (www.oceanalaw.com), but you must register with them. 

 

Bilateral and regional treaties betweenKazakhstan and  countries otherthan the United States can be found at www.austlii.edu.au/links/World/International/Treaties_and_International_Agreements/,or in the  United Nations TreatyCollection at www.un.org/law/. 

 

*Judith Robinson covers law and Kazakhstan for **BISNIS**in Washington, DC.*