Git for Global Law

The world's law in one git history. Every word traced to the law that wrote it for any country and any date.

An expansion of the same for the US Code, #1 on Hacker News (28/10/26). Semantic, searchable law on a global scale.

us-code-tools-film-v3.mp4

Free to use: CC0. Fork it, build on it, ship it in a product: no permission or credit needed. The law text sits in each country's repository, under that repository's own terms.

Each jurisdiction's law is its own repository, lexifina/<country>-law, where every commit is one law taking effect, written by that law. This repository holds them all as submodules, arranged by jurisdiction, and moves each one forward to its latest commit. The tools read the In-force date of every commit, so they give the law of any country on any date.

global-law/
├── manifest.json              every corpus: path, repository, coverage and dates
├── jurisdiction.json          the world, and the jurisdictions in it
├── germany/bund/acts/         a country's law (submodule)
├── brazil/bahia/acts/         a state's
├── brazil/bahia/salvador/acts/  a city's
└── …

Start

git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/lexifina/global-law && cd global-law
python3 tools/countries.py add united-states/federal/usc   # one corpus; every country is several GB
python3 tools/law.py show 2022-05-01 united-states/federal/usc/title-11/1182.md

On Windows, type py or python where these say python3.

--depth 1 downloads the index without its whole history, a fraction of the size. The tools never read that history, so they work the same. To have it without its file contents, clone with --filter=blob:none instead. For every country, add --recurse-submodules. Don't clone a country's repository with --depth: its dates are read from its whole history, and countries.py add fetches all of it.

From an AI model (MCP)

tools/mcp_server.py is a Model Context Protocol server with 18 read-only tools: find a provision, read it on a date, who wrote each word, compare dates, a provision's history, search the text and the changes, and check a case or a brief against the law in force. It needs only Python 3.9+ and git, runs on your machine and makes no network calls.

The clone carries the setup for Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code and Codex, so the server starts when you open the folder. For another client:

{ "mcpServers": { "global-law": { "command": "git", "args": ["-C", "/path/to/global-law", "-c", "alias.global-law-mcp=!sh tools/mcp.sh", "global-law-mcp"] } } }

Then ask, for example, "What did 11 U.S.C. §1182(1) say on 1 May 2022, and which law last changed it?" MCP.md has every tool and the details.

Command line

python tools/law.py world 2022-05-01                       every corpus on that day
python tools/law.py show 2022-05-01 <path>                 a provision on a date
python tools/law.py blame 2022-07-01 <path>                the law behind each line
python tools/law.py words 2022-07-01 <path>                the law behind each word
python tools/law.py diff 2022-05-01 2022-07-01 <path>      what changed between two dates
python tools/law.py laws 1990-01-01 1990-12-31 germany     the laws that took effect

Dates are YYYY-MM-DD. The first read of a corpus indexes its history once and keeps the index in .git/global-law-cache.

• A corpus moved to a new folder still answers under its old path (data/moved-paths.tsv). After a pull that moves corpora, run git submodule sync and git submodule update --init.
• manifest.json and the jurisdiction.json files are written by tools/describe.py.

Case law

Court decisions sit beside the law, one file and one commit per published decision, dated the day it was decided:

• Switzerland: switzerland/bund/caselaw (the federal courts and bodies) and switzerland/<canton>/caselaw (each canton's courts).
• The Netherlands: netherlands/<court>/caselaw (the Hoge Raad, the Raad van State, the Centrale Raad van Beroep, the College van Beroep voor het bedrijfsleven, the courts of appeal and the district courts), each decision filed by its ECLI.
• France: france/<court>/caselaw (the Cour de cassation, the cours d'appel, the Conseil d'État and the administrative courts, the Conseil constitutionnel), each decision filed by its DILA id, with its pourvoi or decision number and ECLI in the corpus's decision-index.tsv. These come from DILA's open data under the Licence Ouverte 2.0, which requires naming the source and the date of its last update: each corpus states that credit in its corpus.json, and read_law and list_jurisdictions give it as a Credit: line.
• Germany: germany/<court>/caselaw (the Bundesverfassungsgericht, Bundesverwaltungsgericht, Bundesfinanzhof, Bundesarbeitsgericht, Bundespatentgericht and Bundesgerichtshof), each decision filed by its ECLI (or Aktenzeichen), with its Aktenzeichen in the corpus's decision-index.tsv. The Bundesgerichtshof's runs from 2000 (CE-BGH), with its criminal senates' decisions of 1950-1999 (BGH-Strafsachen-20Jhd, read from scans). The Bundessozialgericht has no open bulk source yet, so its case law is not here.
• Poland: poland/<court group>/caselaw (the Sąd Najwyższy, the Trybunał Konstytucyjny, the Krajowa Izba Odwoławcza and the common courts by appellate region; SAOS carries no administrative-court judgments), from SAOS, each judgment filed by its case number (sygnatura) and SAOS id, with the sygnatura in the corpus's decision-index.tsv. The KIO's decisions after SAOS's last (6 September 2018) come from the UZP portal orzeczenia.uzp.gov.pl, filed by sygnatura and portal id (UZP 30001). SAOS's record of the Sąd Najwyższy ends on 22 June 2016 and of the Trybunał Konstytucyjny on 9 December 2015: their own sites (sn.pl, ipo.trybunal.gov.pl) cannot be read by a program, and the administrative courts' database (orzeczenia.nsa.gov.pl) forbids crawling its search in robots.txt, so those are not here. Judgments are official documents outside copyright (Art. 4 of the Polish Copyright Act).
• The United States: united-states/<court>/caselaw (the Supreme Court; the courts of appeals ca1 to ca11, cadc and cafc), from the Caselaw Access Project (CC0), each decision filed by its official reporter citation (410-U-S-113.md), with every parallel citation (93 S. Ct. 705) and its docket number in the corpus's decision-index.tsv.
• Finland: finland/<court>/caselaw (the Korkein oikeus, the Korkein hallinto-oikeus and the other courts Finlex publishes), each decision filed by its identifier (KKO-2023-8.md), with its ECLI and diary number in the corpus's decision-index.tsv, Finnish text and the Swedish text where published. From finlex.fi under CC BY 4.0, credited to Finlex, Ministry of Justice of Finland (the Credit: line).
• Austria: austria/<court>/caselaw (the Verfassungsgerichtshof first; the OGH, the VwGH and the administrative courts as they are fetched), each decision text filed by its RIS document number, with its Geschäftszahl and ECLI in the corpus's decision-index.tsv; the Rechtssätze (headnote summaries) are not taken. From RIS under CC BY 4.0 ("Datenquelle: RIS", the Credit: line). Citations of the B-VG and the DSG link to austria-law, which holds those two.
• Brazil: brazil/stj-<section>/caselaw (the Superior Tribunal de Justiça's acórdãos, by section: the Primeira Seção (public law), the Segunda Seção (private law), the Terceira Seção (criminal law) and the Corte Especial) and brazil/stj-monocraticas-<section>-<2021-2023|2024-2026>/caselaw (its monocratic decisions), from the STJ's open-data portal under CC BY, credited to the STJ (the Credit: line), and its Termo de Uso for open data; court decisions are also outside copyright (Lei 9.610/1998, art. 8, IV). Each decision is filed by class, number and document number (REsp-1772086-402787831.md), with its process (REsp 1.772.086), the appeal decided (EDcl no REsp 1.772.086) and its registration number in the corpus's decision-index.tsv; dated the day decided as its text gives it, else the day published (Date-basis: published). From January 2021: the portal's 2008-2020 dataset is not fetched (about 12 hours at its 10 s crawl delay), and it has no texts for February to April 2022. The STF (no bulk open data) and the TCU are not here.

Each commit is a court ruling, not a law (Kind: court), so the tools credit it as one and leave it out of everything about law (laws, searches, change lists) unless you name case law. Each case-law corpus also files, under the law's own paths, the decisions that cite each article, with the version of the law in force on the day decided, and, where the court names it (Dutch decisions often do), the version it applied:

python tools/countries.py add switzerland/caselaw                   a country's case law (not added with switzerland)
python tools/countries.py add netherlands/caselaw
python tools/countries.py add france/caselaw
python tools/countries.py add germany/caselaw
python tools/countries.py add poland/caselaw
python tools/countries.py add united-states/caselaw
python tools/countries.py add brazil/caselaw
python tools/law.py show 2024-01-01 switzerland/bund/caselaw/<decision>.md
python tools/law.py laws 2024-01-01 2024-01-31 netherlands/caselaw   decisions given in a window
python tools/law.py caselaw-index                                   after a pull: index the case law checked out

The tools read case law through one index of every case-law corpus checked out (latest decisions by day, judgment overlays, decision counts, and a Bloom filter of docket keys), kept in .git/global-law-cache once per set of pins, so a call costs the same with 10 or 200 case-law corpora. law.py caselaw-index builds it after an update, reading only the decisions added since the last pins; a running MCP server builds it in the background when it starts and when the pins move. Until it is built, each corpus is read on its own, as before.

From an assistant, check_precedent lists the decisions that applied a provision and says whether the text each one applied is still the text in force; what_else_changes counts them; find_provision and law_details take an ECLI (ECLI:NL:HR:2019:1234), a Dutch zaaknummer or LJN (19/00135, 200.123.456/01, LJN BK1234), a Swiss docket (4A_123/2024), a BGE reference (BGE 142 II 307), a French pourvoi (n° 18-12.345), Conseil constitutionnel decision (n° 2019-791 QPC), DILA id (JURITEXT000041234567), German Aktenzeichen (1 BvR 123/20, VI ZR 123/20, KZR 46/19, AnwZ (Brfg) 12/20, 2 C 12.19, the Bundessozialgericht's B 2 U 1/20 R) or Polish sygnatura (III KK 198/16, K 1/12, KIO 1039/16) or SAOS id (SAOS 245361) or UZP portal id (UZP 30001) or a Brazilian process (REsp 1.772.086/SP, AgInt no AREsp 2.123.456/SP); resolve_citations reads Dutch citations by abbreviation (artikel 6:162 BW, art. 8:69 Awb), French ones by code (article 1240 du code civil, art. L. 1235-3 C. trav., article 66 de la Constitution) and German ones by official abbreviation (§ 823 Abs. 1 BGB, §§ 280, 281 BGB, § 13 SGB V) and Brazilian ones (art. 1.022 do CPC, art. 5º, LV, da CF, art. 33 da Lei n. 11.343/2006, (CPC, art. 1.022)) as it reads Swiss ones (Art. 336 OR).

How it is made

The repository's history only grows: each commit adds corpora, moves their pins forward, or changes the tools and documentation. tools/verify.py checks it. Up to 29 October 2026 it was built from scratch as one commit per law in the order the changes took force; that history is kept, frozen, and REPRODUCE.md records how it was made.

More

• FEATURES.md: every feature, and what every corpus here must support (git blame, law.py, the MCP tools)
• FAQ.md: questions and answers · CONTRIBUTING.md: proposing changes · MCP.md: the MCP server · REPRODUCE.md: how it was built · CHANGELOG.md
• FRESHNESS.md: how current each corpus is · MONITORING.md: whether updates are running · WATCHING.md: how each official source is watched for changes
• performance/: how fast the tools are, measured
• visualisations/: charts and bridges across the world's law
• Tests: python -m unittest discover -s tests

Videos

See all videos

global-law-film-3-showcase-v3-readme.mp4

global-law-film-2-country-readers-v2-readme.mp4

License

This repository is CC0. The law text is in each country's repository, under that repository's own terms.