NL - House of Representatives (Tweede Kamer) and Senate (Eerste Kamer)

Location	The KOOP SRU API.
Administrator	KOOP (part of Logius, an agency of the Ministery for the Interior and Kingdom Relations)
Time period	1814 - currently
Completeness	Complete
Terms of use	Free to use (partly CC0 and partly exempted from copyright).

Content of the dataset

Official documents such as Parliamentary Papers (Kamerstukken), Proceedings (Handelingen), Appendices to the Proceedings (Aanhangselen bij de Handelingen), and the official agendas. These can be manually searched through zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl.

Note that the Proceedings from the period 1814-1847 are a reconstruction created at a later date. These reconstructions do contain references to the sources they used.

Technical usability

The entire dataset can be accessed via the KOOP SRU API as part of the "Officiële bekendmakingen" (Official publications). More information and documentation of this API can be found through data.overheid.nl.

Some tools that can help you to access this dataset are:

• Martijn Staal's parlhist tool can be used to download (parts of) this dataset and use Python to perform specific textual analysis on this data.

What to take into account

Inconsistencies and changes over time

It is important to take into account that the official documents are made and prepared by humans over a long time period. The layout and numbering of documents has changed over time. January 1st 1995 also serves as an important cut-off date for this dataset. All documents prior to this date are primarily available as PDF scans (with text layers). Documents after this date are however available in a fully digital format, also in XML, and are not scans.

Open Data Portal of the Tweede Kamer

The Tweede Kamer also has its own Open Data Portal. However, we do not recommend using this portal for data that can also be found through the KOOP SRU API, as the KOOP SRU API is more comprehensive in terms of time coverage and more consistent. With the TK API, it may happen that a draft report is provided under a certain identifier and later replaced by the final published report under that same identifier.

However, some information that is accesible through the TK API is not available through the KOOP SRU API, such as machine-readable data on votes and party memberships. For this data, the TK API can be useful, but it is important to note that only the publications from KOOP are considered official and authentic. Some existing tools that use the TK API are:

• openkamer
• Bert Hubert has developed OpenTK, which is a website which allows for searching through all the date that is available trough the TK Open Data Portal (🇳🇱).

Other aggregators

There are various other aggregators of parliamentary data, which are generally more oriented towards journalists and lobbyists, such as 1848.nl.

NL - Court rulings

Location	Description of Open Data Rechtspraak: https://www.rechtspraak.nl/Uitspraken/Paginas/Open-Data.aspx (🇳🇱) Manually searchable via: https://uitspraken.rechtspraak.nl/ (🇳🇱)
Administrator	Raad voor de rechtspraak (Council for the judiciary)
Time period	1841 - now
Completeness	Limited. Not every ruling gets published. See also: Besluit selectiecriteria uitsprakendatabank op rechtspraak.nl (🇳🇱).
Terms of use	No copyright restrictions. However, it is requested to not overuse the API.
Keywords	Court cases, The Netherlands, rulings, dispute resolution

Content of the dataset

Through the Open Data Rechtspraak, all published rulings and conclusions of judicial bodies within the Kingdom of the Netherlands can be found. The data is accessible via an API, but cannot be downloaded in its entirety directly. In addition to rulings published by de Judiciary, there is also metadata available for rulings that have not been published by the judiciary, but can only be found in legal journals.

Additionally, relevant exhaustive metadata is available, such as those listing all (historic) judicial bodies within the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the periods during which they were active. This dataset also appears to contain metadata of rulings by disciplinary courts, but not the text of those rulings.

Technical usability

The API provides the rulings in XML format with accompanying metadata. This structure is clearly described in the documentation. Various components of judicial rulings are also annotated in a machine-readable way.

The API allows specified searches based on legal body, type, legal area, time period, or ECLI. However, it doesn't provide filtering based on the content of the rulings. There are already several existing tools to make use of this dataset, including:

       •         The 'uitspraken’ tool by Martijn Staal (Python, EUPL-1.2).

What to take into account

• This dataset is incomplete. Especially for lower court rulings, the user should take notice of potential bias because of the selection criteria for publication. The selection criteria for publication of rulings have also changed over time. Divisions of courts may also interpret the criteria differently.
• The rulings are anonymized. Since the anonymization may be changed at a later date, the contents of the dataset may change over time as well.
• Published rulings may be retracted.
• The publication of a ruling may not happen immediately. Some rulings are published weeks, months, years or even decades after the date of the ruling. Specifically the Supreme Court regularly publishes old decisions, so this gap between the ruling and publication is currently up to 182 years.
• A ruling may be corrected, but this does not necessarily mean that the published ruling is also corrected. Such correction may happen for example when the ruling contains an obvious calculation error or other obvious mistakes, see for example for civil cases art. 31 Dutch Code of Civil Procedure (Wetboek van Burgerlijke Rechtsvordering).

NL - Consolidated national laws

Location	The KOOP SRU API (see data.overheid.nl) and manual search via wetten.overheid.nl
Administrator	KOOP (part of Logius, an agency of the Ministery for the Interior and Kingdom Relations)
Completeness	Complete
Terms of use	Free to use (partly CC0 and partly exempted from copyright).
Keywords	Legislation, the Netherlands

Content of the dataset

The basiswettenbestand (BWB) ("basic law file") is an official collection of all Dutch national laws. It also contains treaties and policy documents ("beleidsregels" and "circulaires").

See also:

• BWB on data.overheid.nl
• BWB SRU API documentation

Technical usability

• All items in the BWB are available as XML files with extensive metadata, including information about when a specific text version was in force.
• A separate API is available when you want to keep an up to date local copy of the BWB.
• Records in the BWB SRU API seem to be numbered starting with 1, not 0.

What to take into account

• Only the official publications in the Staatsblad and Staatscourant (on paper until July 1st 2009, afterwards digitally in PDF) officially have binding force.
• Besides the regular wetten.overheid.nl search engine, there is also "Powersearch wetten.nl".

NL - Official publications of local governments

Location	Available through the KOOP SRU API. Manual search is possible through zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl and selecting the appropriate publishing organization or document type.
Administrator	KOOP (part of Logius, an agency of the Ministery for the Interior and Kingdom Relations)
Time period	Varies, but at least 2009-07-01 until now.
Completeness	For publications starting from July 1st 2009 this dataset should be complete, as publication through this service is mandated by law (Bekendmakingswet). Publications prior to this data may be incomplete.
Terms of use	Exempted from copyright (art. 11 Auteurswet)

Content of the dataset

The official publications of Dutch local governments (provinces, municipalities, water boards, and joint arrangements) can be found in the respective official gazettes (Provincieblad, Gemeenteblad, Waterschapsblad, and Blad gemeenschappelijke regeling). The official publication of these gazettes are through the website managed by KOOP since July 1st 2009.

This data is also available through the KOOP SRU API. Documentation on this API can be found through data.overheid.nl.

Note that this dataset only contains publications in the respective official gazettes for local governments. Other official documents which publication in the official gazette is not mandated, are not in this dataset. Notably, documents of local democratic bodies (gemeenteraden, Provinciale Staten, etc.) are not included.

Technical usability

The KOOP SRU API is a decently documented API which allows filtering on the available metadata. Search queries on the content of the publications is not possible via the KOOP SRU API.

What to take into account

• While standards exists for which metadata can be available, different local governments seem to have (widely) different approaches in how they provide this information. Do not expect consistency between different local governments.
• The way the publications are formatted and structured differ between local governments. Do not expect consistency, and be cautious when making assumptions.
• Publications may be published later than they are sent to specific interested parties.

NL - Local government assembly documents

Location	Through the website of the relevant body; or via openbesluitvorming.nl
Administrator	Varying
Time period	Varying
Completeness	Varying
Terms of use	Varying

Content of the dataset

The assembly documents of municipal councils, provincial councils (Provinciale Staten) and general governances of water boards (algemeen bestuur vaneen waterschap) are not centrally available. There is also no standardization of these types of documents or their numbering and naming. The primary place to find this kind of data is on the website of the respective democratic body.

Meeting documents from certain local democratic bodies are available via openbesluitvorming.nl; however, their completeness varies significantly.

NL - Judgements by disciplinary courts established by law

Location	Accessible through the KOOP SRU API. Manually searchable via https://tuchtrecht.overheid.nl/
Administrator	KOOP
Time period	Unkown - now
Completeness	Unknown
Terms of use	Unknown, presumably exempted from copyright or available under a CC0 declaration.
Keywords	The Netherlands, disciplinary law, dispute resolution, rulings

Content of the dataset

Anonymized judgements by disciplinary courts established by law are available through this online portal and the KOOP SRU API.

What to take into account

• Although the dataset seems complete, it is unclear for which period this dataset is actually complete.

NL - Rent Tribunal (Huurcommissie)

Location	Manually searchable via https://hip.huurcommissie.nl/p/uitspraken
Administrator	Rent Tribunal (Huurcommissie)
Time period	Past 5 years.
Completeness	All (anonymized) rulings of the past 5 years seem to be available through this portal, but the exact completeness remains unclear. Older rulings are probably still available for the Rent Tribunal, but these are not available through the online portal.
Terms of use	No copyright limitations. Besides that, unclear.
Keywords	The Netherlands, dispute resolution, rulings

Content of the dataset

The Rent Committee (Huurcommissie) is a body established by the Dutch government tasked with resolving certain disputes between tenants and landlords of residential properties.

The legal authority and procedural rules of the Rent Committee can be found in Title 7.4 of the Civil Code (Burgerlijk Wetboek), the Uitvoeringswet huurprijzen woonruimte (Uhw), and lower regulations based on these acts.

Technical usability

The rulings are currently only available for manual search. Scraping the data is an option.

What to take into account

• The Rent Committee has an extensive history and has been drastically reformed multiple times during this period. For instance, it's good to know there used to be only local rent committees, which only relatively recently have been merged into the central Rent Committee that we know now.

NL - Algorithm Register (Algoritmeregister)

Location	https://algoritmes.overheid.nl/nl
Administrator	Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations
Time period	Varying
Completeness	Unknown

Content of the dataset

The Algorithm Register is an example of the many public registers maintained by the national government. It contains information about algorithms used by government bodies and public organizations.

Technical usability

The Algorithm Register is free and open-source software under the terms of the EUPL-1.2 license. The source code can be found on GitHub. Additionally, there is an option to export the data in the register in CSV format.

EU - European Court of Justice - Curia

Location	Manually searchable through https://www.curia.europa.eu
Administrator	European Court of Justice
Time period	1955 - currently
Completeness	Fairly comprehensive. The Curia database contains all publicly accessible information regarding cases brought before the European Court of Justice and the General Court.
Terms of use	The HTML versions of the published files are intended for consultation only.
Keywords	Court cases, Europe, rulings, dispute resolution

Content of the dataset

Curia publishes all publicly accessible information regarding cases brought before the European Court of Justice and the General Court, searchable through a search form.

Since January 1st, 2012 (general case law) and January 1st, 2010 (civil service case law), case law is published exclusively in digital form on the EUR-Lex website (an officially sanctioned, free-access publication). The Curia site also provides access to the case law published on EUR-Lex through hyperlinks in the list of search results.

The digital case law consists of a collection of judicial decisions, accompanied (when applicable) by the Advocate General's opinion, in PDF format. To facilitate access to these documents, additional information has been added, as well as HTML versions with hyperlinks. This information is not part of the official digital case law and has no official status.

EU - Hof van Justitie van de Europese Unie - Eur-Lex

Location	Handmatig doorzoekbaar door: https://eur-lex.europa.eu
Administrator	Het Publicatiebureau
Time period	1952 - heden
Completeness	Vrij compleet.
Terms of use	De HTML-versies van de gepubliceerde dossiers zijn alleen voor raadpleging bedoeld.
Keywords	rechtspraak, Europa, uitspraken, geschillenbeslechting

Content of the dataset

Eur-Lex omvat de jurisprudentie van de rechterlijke instanties van het Hof van Justitie van de Europese Unie (het Hof van Justitie, het Gerecht en het voormalige Gerecht voor ambtenarenzaken). De jurisprudentie bestaat uit een verzameling rechterlijke beslissingen, zo nodig aangevuld met de conclusies van de advocaat-generaal, doorzoekbaar door middel van een zoekformulier.

Sinds 1 januari 2010 wordt de jurisprudentie voor ambtenarenzaken alleen nog maar digitaal gepubliceerd. Sinds 1 januari 2012 is dit ook het geval voor de jurisprudentie van het Hof. De officiële versies van de gepubliceerde dossiers zijn beschikbaar in pdf-formaat. Er zijn ook HTML-versies, maar die zijn alleen voor raadpleging bedoeld.

European Court of Human Rights - HUDOC

Location	https://hudoc.echr.coe.int
Administrator	European Court of Human Rights
Time period	1960 - heden
Completeness	Limited completeness for cases prior to 1998.
Keywords	rechtspraak, Europa, uitspraken, geschillenbeslechting

Content of the dataset

De HUDOC database publiceert de uitspraken van het Europees Hof voor de Rechten van de Mens, de besluiten en rapporten van de Europese Commissie voor de Rechten van de Mens en de resoluties van het Comité van Ministers. De lijst is doorzoekbaar door middel van filters en sleutelwoorden.

Alle uitspraken staan als HTML op de site en worden ook gepubliceerd als downloadbaar pdf- en Word-bestand.

A manual for the web interface is available: https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/HUDOC_Manual_ENG.

European Court of Human Rights - ECHR Open Data

Location	https://echr-opendata.eu/
Administrator	Faculty of Computing and Telecommunications of Poznan University of Technology
Time period	July 22nd 2010 - december 14th 2023
Completeness	Incomplete, limited time range
Terms of use	Open Database License
Keywords	case law, Europe, human rights

Content of the dataset

ECHR-OD provides judgements by the ECtHR from 2010 through 2023 in an standardized and open data format. There is also an API available. All source code used to create these is available under an open source license (MIT).

EU - European Parliament (EP)