Facet 6 — Taxonomy

Places

Places in the world, based around the ISO-3166 / UN taxonomy with further information of practical legal relevance such as super-regions, legal system types and major treaty and international organisation memberships.

Based on ISO 3166 Top-level areas Regions and super-regions Sub-divisions Legal systems Treaties and Orgs

Examples of legal links to places

Legal work may have more than one geographic dimension. A single matter might be governed by English law, resolved in a Singapore-seated arbitration, concern assets in India and involve parties domiciled in Germany and China. But the same Places taxonomy facet can be used to cover all these needs.

§
Governing law
The law that governs a contract or other issue.
⚖︎
Forum / seat
The court with jurisdiction or the place of arbitration.
◉
Asset / activity location
Where the property, operations or activity are physically located.
⌂
Domicile / nationality
The legal base or other connection of a person.

Legal system types

noslegal classifies countries and some of their subdivisions by legal system type. Four examples are summarised here.

Common law
A strong tradition of establishing law by judicial precedent, though typically with much statutory law in modern times. Typically adversarial court processes.
Civil law
Highly codified legal systems, commonly with more inquisitorial court processes.
Islamic law
Law derived from Islamic principles, often distinctive in family law, succession and finance.
Hybrid legal system
Two or more distinct legal traditions operating in a significant way in a single jurisdiction.

Treaty and international organisation memberships

Membership of an international organisation or treaty often matters significantly — it tells you which trade, legal enforcement and mutual recognition rules apply. noslegal covers membership of 55 of these. Some examples:

Hague Conventions
Treaties of the Hague Conference on Private International Law, covering cross-border civil procedure, family matters and private law cooperation.
Apostille 1961 Service 1965 Evidence 1970 Child Abduction 1980 Choice of Court 2005 Judgments 2019
Enforcement
Treaties enabling cross-border enforcement of arbitral awards and court judgments.
New York Convention 1958 ICSID Convention 1965 Lugano Convention Rome Statute (ICC)
Regional organisations
Regional bodies and trade blocs whose membership affects applicable law, trade rules and available legal machinery.
EU ECHR ASEAN AU (African Union) GCC MERCOSUR OHADA

View the Places spreadsheet

Full places taxonomy including legal system types, treaty memberships and ISO mappings. Apache 2.0 licence.

Note: this spreadsheet link is to v3.1 (July 2025) of Places. The v4.0 (May 2026) link will be added in the near future.

View spreadsheet