Google launches new “Constitute” online tool for searching the world’s constitutions

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0BsJuN0OAs

Google today announced that its Ideas think tank is teaming up with the Comparative Constitutions Project to build a new online tool called “Constitute” that aims to digitize all the world’s constitutions and make them searchable to everyone online.

Constitute enables people to browse and search constitutions via curated and tagged topics, as well as by country and year. The Comparative Constitutions Project cataloged and tagged nearly 350 themes, so people can easily find and compare specific constitutional material. This ranges from the fairly general, such as “Citizenship” and “Foreign Policy,” to the very specific, such as “Suffrage and turnouts” and “Judicial Autonomy and Power.”

Google Ideas Product Manager Sara Sinclair Brody says the company hopes the new tool will help citizens learn more about their own constitutions, but also “arm drafters with a better tool for constitution design and writing.” You can visit the Constitute project website here.