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FAOLEX database – A researcher’s perspective
This short article celebrates FAOLEX’s 25th anniversary by sharing the experiences of LEGN in using FAOLEX in three projects concerning: (1) the development of studies and guides to implement FAO’s Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-Scale Fisheries in the context of food security and poverty eradication (SSF Guidelines); (2) the ecosystem approach to fisheries (EAF); and, (3) the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). In these three projects, FAOLEX was used to develop studies, guides and reports, either as part of the methodology or of a research exercise to identify relevant policy and legislation for the projects.
The accessibility and comprehensiveness of FAOLEX
Undertaking desk-based legal research using online sources to obtain national policy and legal instruments , especially those of developing countries, can be very difficult. Often the information is not fully available on official government websites or it is not provided in any of the UN official languages. Where information is accessible, the relevant files are not always accessible or may not correspond to the latest version of a policy or legislation. Notwithstanding these challenges, FAOLEX is a fairly comprehensive database of policy and legal instruments of 195 countries around the world.
Using FAOLEX as the main data source for the aforementioned projects demonstratedthree main benefits:
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FAOLEX facilitated searches for policies and legislation of many countries, using a single database, making the search easier and faster.
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Information on policies and legal instruments was presented consistently, thus easing verification of information on the the same database.
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FAOLEX made it much easier to recognize when legislation was valid and in force. FAOLEX makes it possible to ascertain whether an instrument has been repealed or not.
FAOLEX free-text search
Perhaps the most used feature of FAOLEX is its free-text search, which allows users to look for information based on a given word or combination of words. This feature was used to find fisheries legislation relevant to the implementation of CITES. In preparing the “Sourcebook”, which provides guidance on how to implement CITES through national fisheries legislation, FAOLEX was used to identify fisheries-specific and CITES-specific legislation. A free-text search used ‘CITES’ as a reference word first. Then, to refine the results, the researcher used the side bar features on the right-hand sidecolumn of the webpage, to select the domain and/or primary subject ‘fisheries’. There are many other useful features in that right-hand column, tofilter a search by country, region and other qualifiers. The resulting collection provided a source from which to identify specific provisions to illustrate how key CITES elements are reflected in fisheries legislation and how key fisheries elements are reflected in CITES-specific legislation.
FAOLEX country profiles
Another important feature of the FAOLEX database is its second tab dedicated to individual country profiles. This feature allows users to easily search by country and find, in the respective profiles, a non-exhaustive list of policy and legal instruments organized in four main parts. First, at the top of the webpage, users can find the supreme law of the country, which is usually the Constitution. Second, one finds a list of national policies on a range of subjects, from sectoral agrarian plans to broader cross-sectoral strategies on gender and climate change. The third and most substantive, aspect of the profile provides national legislation organized by (currently) thirteen topics, starting from ‘agricultural and rural development’ to ‘wildlife and ecosystems’. The fourth element includesrelevant international agreements to which the concerned country is a party.
The projects on the implementation of an EAF and the SSF Guidelines used FAOLEX country profiles in a similar way. Each of these projects produced diagnostic tools for assessing the alignment of selected national policy and legal instruments with the EAF and the SSF Guidelines. The diagnostic tools recommend the use of FAOLEX country profiles to identify the policy and legal instruments which are relevant for these assessments. For example, as the EAF is broad and comprehensive fisheries management approach, there was a need to delineate what could be perceived as ‘relevant’ to enable a preliminary desk-based assessment to be carried out focusing on the main policy and legal instruments. Six of the thirteen topics under FAOLEX country profiles were considered most relevant for an EAF. These are: ‘environment’, ‘fisheries’, ‘sea’, ‘water’ and ‘wild species’ and ‘ecosystems”.
The SSF Guidelines also recommend that users identify the supreme law (which is usually the constitution) of the assessed country and the relevant fisheries legislation. These features are provided in the FAOLEX country profiles.
Outlook
New records are continually being added to FAOLEX with 7,240 new records entered as of November 30 2020, for an overall total of 180,674. Additionally, 499 records were consolidated with updated texts and 12,745 existing records were revised. A new dataset on the COVID‐19 pandemic was published ‐ http://www.fao.org/faolex/covid‐19/en/ containing over 1,000 relevant legal texts from 2020. The portfolio of subset databases continues to grow and now totals 16 initiatives namely: Agroecology, Aqualex, AMRLEX, Codex Alimentarius, FamilyFarmingLex, FishLex, GenderLex, Indigenous Peoples Lex, NALO (Aquaculture), Pastoralist Hub, PortLex, Right to Food Around the Globe, School Feeding Lex, SoilLex, SSFLex, TimberLex and Sustainable Wildlife Management Legal Hub. Usage of FAOLEX data as captured by web traffic analytics grew at a very high rate: 1,665,763 users in the first 11 eleven months of 2020 vs 1,026,064 in 2019 (62.34% increase) and 3,359,551 pageviews in 2020 vs 2,483,326 in 2019 (35.28% increase). An important strategic decision was taken by the Legal Office this year by allowing users full access to the FAOLEX collection under an open data licence: http://www.fao.org/faolex/opendata/en/.
The use of FAOLEX in the three case studies presented above is a tip-of-the-iceberg demonstration of how FAOLEX has evolved from a passive repository of legislation to become more responsive to the modern user’s needs including providing access to policy information and national constitutions, enabling the user to do free text searches and to adopt a thematic approach to research. The increase in volume and use of FAOLEX records, the variety of FAOLEX subset databases and the open access to legislation make FAOLEX a valuable asset for empirical information and research and a sound investment by FAO in contributing to knowledge on food and agriculture and natural resources law.
AGROVOC and FAOLEX
A controlled vocabulary is an organized arrangement of words and phrases used to index content and/or to retrieve content through browsing or searching. It typically includes preferred and variant terms and has a defined scope or describes a specific domain. A semantic standardized controlled vocabulary that defines and shares agreed values (ideally in different languages) helps both humans and machines to interpret the values. A researcher needs to know that “hazardous wastes” and “სახიფათო ნარჩენები” and ”опасные отходы” are the same concept, in different languages . Vocabularies help overcome the issue of unclear concepts, which are an obstacle to interoperability because they don’t allow users to compare or merge data around variables across datasets.
In 2019, the conversion and standardization of the FAOLEX multilingual controlled vocabulary (thesaurus) to a linked data format started with the objective of enhancing access and aggregation of new content and data of FAOLEX’s comprehensive and up-to-date legislative and policy database. The legal field is a conservative domain where it can be hard to find resources online and it is even more difficult to find them as part of the Semantic Web. Therefore, tools like the FAOLEX thesaurus are essential to maximize the visibility and interoperability of legal electronic collections with other information systems and to be meaningful in the context of the Semantic Web.
To strengthen the semantic accessibility of FAOLEX resources, FAOLEX has partnered with AGROVOC, the controlled vocabulary dedicated to the food and agricultural sector and facilitated by FAO. AGROVOC covers all thematic areas of interest to FAO. Today, AGROVOC consists of over 37,000 concepts and over 750,000 terms (synonyms or translations of these concepts) translated to about 38 languages. The AGROVOC thesaurus was first published in the early 1980s and moved to digital format in 2000. It has evolved and grown, with an active international editorial community composed of organizations worldwide who contribute new concepts and new translations every month. AGROVOC enables more than 10 million users a year to overcome language barriers, and makes data and research more discoverable and accessible.
AGROVOC is Linked Data. The term “Linked Data” refers to a set of best practices for publishing structured data on the Web to allow the interconnection and structuring of relevant data online thereby promoting the interoperability of different datasets. AGROVOC is linked to other systems like EuroVoc, the National Agricultural Library Thesaurus (NALT) and the Chinese Agricultural Thesaurus (CAT).
In 2020, 500 FAOLEX concepts were added to AGROVOC as a separate vocabulary. This means that FAOLEX is benefiting from the AGROVOC technical infrastructure and the international network of editors that support the AGROVOC translations. At the same time, FAOLEX is enriching AGROVOC with a well-curated collection of concepts on legislation and policies, and contributing invaluable expertise in this key area. For example, FAOLEX concepts such as “compliance”, “saltwater intrusion”, and “farmers’ rights” have been added to AGROVOC.
Publishing language-controlled vocabularies in Semantic Web formats related to the legal domain like the FAOLEX thesaurus is invaluable. This work will support semantic aggregation of information, which holds immense potential for enhancing access to knowledge and supporting better evidence-based decision making. FAOLEX is thus one of the pioneers in this area. Both the AGROVOC and FAOLEX teams look forward to deepening this collaboration.
Happy 25th anniversary to FAOLEX!
Dynamic collaboration between the Pastoralist Knowledge Hub and FAOLEX
Pastoralism is both a production system and a way of life that is part of our shared global heritage; cherished by many, feared by others and misunderstood by the majority. The poor participation of pastoralists in policy-making processes result in a low understanding of this specific livelihood. As a result, most policies fail in providing pastoralists with effective support and pertinent responses to their challenges and needs. Such policies are mainly driven, at the national and regional level, by the increasing pressure on natural resources by different land users. In many cases, those policies favour permanent and private users – such as sedentary farmers and investors – by overlooking the customary land management systems underlying other forms of land use, such as temporary or common resource access.
The Pastoralist Knowledge Hub (PKH) aims to fill these gaps, especially the lack of global policy discussions on pastoralism and the need to bring attention to the challenges faced by pastoral communities. By systematising available information, literature and knowledge, as well as pastoralism-related laws, the PKH also aims, amongst others, to monitor the evolution of legislation on pastoralism. This is done through a wide approach including resource access, land tenure issues, forestry management and environmental issues, in order to inform comprehensive and evidence-based decision-making at all levels.
To facilitate the systematization of pastoralism-related legislation, the PKH has closely collaborated with FAOLEX to set up an open-access database classifying pertinent policies by country and region. This is an ongoing process, due to the continuous evolution of legislation.
The collaboration between the PKH and FAOLEX was strengthened during the development of the FAO publication “Crossing boundaries: legal and policy arrangements for cross-border pastoralism”, which was authored by a team from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, under the supervision of the PKH and technical backstopping from FAO LEGN. This publication provides an overview of various legal instruments in order to support future policymaking regarding transboundary pastoral mobility. Indeed, although pastoralist set-ups are dynamic and highly variable, those legal instruments can serve as useful examples from which other countries may draw lessons when designing their policies affecting transboundary pastoral mobility.
The PKH and FAOLEX continue to collaborate to increasing knowledge and awareness about the importance of resource access and livestock mobility for pastoralists. For this purpose, a mixed PKH-FAOLEX team has recently been established, together with other FAO technical divisions, to develop a practical handbook on how to establish legal frameworks and policies enabling livestock mobility at the national level. Such joint activities allow for a comprehensive vision on issues relating to pastoralism, thanks to the complementary skills and expertise within FAO.
4. FAOLEX promotes valuable information on family farming and its contribution to the SDGs
Launched in June 2015 by FAO, the Family Farming Knowledge Platform (FFKP) represents one of the legacies of the 2014 International Year of Family Farming. The FFKP is intended for a wide range of users, from government officials to farmers’ organizations, from academia to civil society associations and non-governmental organizations. The Platform addresses the needs of institutions, associations and individuals with an interest in family farming and related topics and efficiently contributes to the United Nations Decade on Family Farming 2019-2028 (UNDFF).
A far-reaching gathering and dissemination platform
FFKP gathers digitized information on family farming from all over the world, including national laws and regulations, public policies, best practices, relevant data and statistics, researches, articles and other publications. It provides a single access point for international, regional and national information related to family farming issues, integrating and systematizing existing information to better inform and provide knowledge-based assistance to policy-makers, family farmers’ organizations, development experts, as well as to stakeholders in the field and at the grassroots level. In addition, as a strategic instrument of FAO’s Regional Initiatives, the FFKP gives visibility to the policies implemented as well as the knowledge developed and promoted through South-South cooperation and triangular collaboration among countries.
Multisectoral and multidimensional
Given the importance of legislation and policies to support family farming and enhance its unique contribution to the SDGs, foremost of which are those under FAO’s mandate, the role of the FFKP in disseminating this information is paramount. This proves to be even more pertinent when considering the broad variety of family farmers according to contextual and culture-specific features. While laws and policies are key to promote and facilitate family farming, they have to take into account the need for coordination and integration between the many sectors and actors involved whose actions can, in turn, have a conducive or detrimental impact on family farmers’ wellbeing as well as the whole surrounding community. In a nutshell, complex and multifaceted issues ranging from the tenure of land and management of natural resources to social protection and access to social services, from reliable access to markets to financial and extension services and from access to and utilization of technology to intergenerational sustainability of the sector, are only some of the key matters directly impacting the livelihoods of family farmers and affecting their potential as development actors that ought to be central to decision-making processes.
Promoting the unique contribution of family farming
Through the FFKP, FAOLEX ensures the visibility and dissemination of vital information on a sector that produces the majority of the food consumed across the globe. Family farmers are crucial in achieving the SDGs and they are pivotal in promoting inclusive rural economies and in preserving biodiversity through their relationship with ecosystems and natural resources on which they, in addition to their local communities, depend for livelihoods. Further, they preserve, nurture and share traditional knowledge and customs while greatly contributing to the socio-economic development of the society. The role of the FFKP in making readily available laws and policies from across the globe marks a decisive contribution to the UNDFF in fostering the unique value of family farming to address important gaps in a food system where, despite producing enough food to ensure the fundamental right of every person to feed him or herself in dignity is realised, 690 million people suffer from hunger while 750 million people are exposed to severe levels of food insecurity.
An inclusive participation
The FFKP is a participatory tool bringing together different entities – such as governments, academia, cooperatives, farmers’ organizations, civil society and international organizations - for sharing knowledge, solutions, and action-oriented initiatives around the world. It also represents an opportunity to showcase contributors’ updated content, events and initiatives to raise awareness on the issues related to family farming. FFKP contributors cooperate and work together to foster knowledge sharing and information dissemination for concrete actions and decision making in support of family farming. Therefore, a strong coalition of active contributors sharing their knowledge represents the very foundation of this initiative. Through these joint efforts (already 200 contributors joined the initiative), the FFKP is currently visited by an average of 50 000 to 70 000 users per month and includes more than 26 000 documents. In the same vein, in June 2020, the Family Farming & Agroecology Community of Practice was launched to provide an additional platform for those actors involved in family farming and agroecology to exchange information and ideas on best practices, projects, lessons learned, initiatives, programmes, public policies and much more.
FAOLEX Promotes the Realization of the Right to Adequate Food
“The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child, alone or in community with others, has the physical and economic access at all times to adequate food or means for its procurement.”
– General Comment 12 (Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, CESCR, 1999).
A collective effort to guarantee a basic right
To guarantee the right to feed oneself in dignity, different actors must play their important respective roles. While some have legal obligations to fulfil, others have responsibilities to meet. Nonetheless, what is certain is that the realization of the right to adequate food involves a variety of actors who impacts each technical area of the work of FAO.
Though adopting, implementing and monitoring policies, strategies, plans and programmes in an efficient manner are paramount in contributing to the progressive realization of the right to adequate food for all, legislative frameworks offer the necessary architectural backbone to adequately support and facilitate such efforts over time. Legal frameworks have different facets and it often proves difficult, if not impossible, to properly measure the quantity of national legislative measures adopted and implemented across the globe to advance the realization of the right to adequate food.
Therefore, the online platform, Right to Food around the Globe was conceived in 2015 and is now being implemented and monitored by FAOLEX. The Right to Food around the Globe is unique and allows users to access valuable information on national legislative measures taken to guarantee the right to adequate food.
Showcasing good legislative practice through FAOLEX
The Right to Food around the Globe provides a one-stop platform where constitutional commitment to the right to adequate food at the national level can be found. For each FAO Member Nation, relevant constitutional provisions on the right to adequate food are displayed on the platform as well as the ratification status of some key international instruments such as the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC), and the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD). The platform intends to make such constitutional provisions and status of relevant ratifications visible and accessible to a broader public while enhancing the sharing of experiences among FAO Member Nations. Moreover, when available, the constitutional provisions are accessible in more than one language while the original copies of the constitutions are handily available on FAOLEX. The country profiles section of this platform provides information on national policies and legislation that recognize the right to adequate food and is automatically updated as relevant instruments are entered into FAOLEX.
Constitutional protections to anchor policy efforts
The protection of human rights through constitutions is the strongest form of legal protection a State can confer as they are considered the supreme law of a country. Providing such protection signals a strong commitment by a State to progress towards the realization of the right to adequate food for its citizens. When looking at a constitution with the intent to identify articles or provisions that may be relevant for the realization of the right to adequate food, a few specific elements stand out. Although each national situation is unique, for uniformity and feasibility of a platform such as the Right to Food around the Globe, a handful of specific ways with which a State can crystallize its commitment to the realization of the right to adequate food are captured by this platform through FAOLEX and are highlighted hereafter:
Explicit protection of the right to adequate food or freedom from hunger
Over the last few years, there has been an important increase in the number of States that have adopted provisions containing explicit recognition of the right to food or freedom from hunger. In practice, there are two main types of explicit guarantees: either for the entire population or solely for specific groups (such as children).
Implicit protection of the right to adequate food through a few broader human rights instruments
Although it is more ambiguous than explicit protection, there are a few selected human rights that are generally considered to implicitly incorporate the right to adequate food, such as the rights to an adequate standard of living; well-being and development. Also, different national interpretations of constitutions can render implicit protection of the right to adequate food through other broader human rights (such as the right to life, in some countries); unfortunately, such case by case basis cannot be taken into account within a global platform such as the Right to Food around the Globe.
Provisions that explicitly recognize the right to adequate food or standards of nutrition in the form of Directive Principles of State policy
These types of provisions demonstrate the commitment of a State towards the realization of the right to adequate food. In this case, the provisions are understood to be non-directly enforceable by a court and are more in the line of pledges, but they do represent an overarching objective of the State. For the sake of the Right to Food around the Globe, a narrow interpretation was used and only provisions that explicitly recognize the right to adequate food or standards of nutrition were included.
Status of international obligations in the national legislative order
Whether it is through the direct applicability of international instruments at the national level, the recognition of international commitments as having the same status as constitutional provisions or the primacy of international obligations over national laws, these are important means to further protect the right to adequate food at the national level. In the Right to Food around the Globe, all provisions related to international instruments are found under this category.
Other pertinent provisions for the realization of the right to adequate food
The protection of related human rights principles that generally fall outside the scope of implicit protection, such as the right to work and the right to social security, are taken into account under this category. The same applies to Directive Principles of State Policy that do not strictly comply with the aforementioned description but that are still consequential for the realization of the right to adequate food. It is worth noting that this category is not an exhaustive list of relevant provisions that fall outside the scope of the other categories, as the interpretation of such provisions is specific to each national context.
Moving forward to achieve SDG2
As both FAOLEX and the commitment of States towards the progressive realization of the right to adequate food continue to grow and expand in time, especially in light of efforts geared towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goal 2, the Right to Food around the Globe platform represents a pioneering platform that offers ample scope for expansion to include the bulk of actions undertaken by States to progressively realize the right to adequate food for all.
TimberLex: the new Subset of FAOLEX that catalogues forest-related legislation for timber trading countries
There is no universally agreed definition of legal or illegal timber as each country’s legal system is different. In general, timber is considered illegal when the timber producer breaches the laws and regulations of the country where the timber was harvested, or an international convention to which that country is party.
A first challenge in defining timber legality is the identification of the relevant laws and regulations at national and international level. Because of the complexity of the timber value chain, illegality can arise from a violation of sectoral laws and regulations beyond forest related legislation, such as requirements concerning tenure, use rights, labour, environment, taxes, trade and export. This is challenging for timber producers, exporters, importers and compliance officers in timber exporting and importing countries who may lack information on national legal requirements around timber legality.
In a major initiative to foster greater timber legality around the world, the Japanese Government provided financial support to FAO to implement the Project “Enhancing knowledge and Capacity around Forest-Related Legislation and Timber Legality”. The Project aims to establish an online database, Timber Legislation (TimberLex) that catalogues forest-related legislation for timber trading countries to increase access to, and understanding of, national legal frameworks governing forests management, and timber production and trade.
The database is targetted at those who play a role along the timber value chain such as government officers (legislators, policymakers, forestry officers and law enforcement officers), private sector producers and traders in timber producing and consuming countries who are required to comply with due diligence requirements, and civil society and non-governmental organizations who are expected to benefit from enhanced knowledge and capacity around timber-related legislation.
TimberLex will be hosted on the Legal Office website as a subset of FAOLEX. It will collect legislation (laws, regulations and other relevant legal information) to populate up to 50 profiles of timber producing, processing and importing countries, organized around a common format consisting of a set of Guiding Legal Elements (GLEs) for timber legality.
The database common format has been developed by FAO through consultations with a technical working group — which pools expertise from international organizations, research institutions, academia, civil society and the private sector — and further refined via a public online discussion to collect input from a broad range of stakeholders. The 31 GLEs identified have been grouped in 4 clusters to cover the different stages of the timber value chain - 1. Land Tenure and Forest Management; 2. Harvesting Activities; 3. Processing, Transport and Trade; 4. Taxes and Fees.
Country profiles consist of a description of a country’s existing legal and regulatory instruments within the scope of the GLEs, which will also serve as an index of the legislation collected in the database. Unlike most other legal catalogues accessible over the internet, TimberLex country pages will not only provide a list of relevant legal documents but will include thematic sections with verbatim citations of the specific normative texts corresponding to each GLE. This will ensure quick access to neutral information, searchable by words, country names or the GLEs, greatly enhancing the ability of users to understand the information presented and increasing the value of TimberLex as a reference tool for the forest sector.
Six test country profiles were completed during the pilot phase of the Project. The remaining planned profiles are currently being developed .
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