lex is a type of Uniform Resource Name

Uniform Resource Name

A uniform resource name is a uniform resource identifier that uses the urn scheme and does not imply availability of the identified resource. Both URNs and URLs are URIs, and a particular URI may be a name and a locator at the same time.The functional requirements for uniform resource names are...

 (URN), that allows accurate identification of law

Law

Law is a system of rules and guidelines which are enforced through social institutions to govern behavior, wherever possible. It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways and serves as a social mediator of relations between people. Contract law regulates everything from buying a bus...

s and other legal norms.

Brazil

Brazil

Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...

 and Italy

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

  (Civil law

Civil law (legal system)

Civil law is a legal system inspired by Roman law and whose primary feature is that laws are codified into collections, as compared to common law systems that gives great precedential weight to common law on the principle that it is unfair to treat similar facts differently on different...

 countries) already do an official use of the URN LEX standard draft v0.3, as a namespace for sources of law.

Syntax

The identifier has a hierarchical structure as follows:

"urn:lex:"

where NSS is the Namespace Specific String composed as follows:

::=":"

where:

is the part providing the identification of the jurisdiction, generally corresponding to the country where the source of law is issued.

is the uniform name of the source of law in the country or jurisdiction where it is issued; its internal structure is common to the already adopted schemas.

Examples of sources of law identifyed by lex URNs:
urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2003-09-21;456 (Italian act)
urn:lex:fr:etat:lois:2004-12-06;321 (French act)
urn:lex:es:estado:ley:2002-07-12;123 (Spanish act)
urn:lex:ch;glarus:regiere:erlass:2007-10-15;963 (Glarus Swiss Canton decree)
urn:lex:eu:council:directive:2010-03-09;2010-19-UE (EU Council Directive)
urn:lex:us:federal.supreme.court:decision:1963-03-18;372.us.335 (US FSC decision)

Concrete examples

• urn:lex:br:federal:constituicao:1988-10-05;1988: Brazilian Constitution
  Constitution
  A constitution is a set of fundamental principles or established precedents according to which a state or other organization is governed. These rules together make up, i.e. constitute, what the entity is...
  
   of 1988.
• urn:lex:br:federal:lei:2008-06-19;11705: Law nº 11.705, of June 19, 2008, known also as "Brazilian Prohibition
  Prohibition
  Prohibition of alcohol, often referred to simply as prohibition, is the practice of prohibiting the manufacture, transportation, import, export, sale, and consumption of alcohol and alcoholic beverages. The term can also apply to the periods in the histories of the countries during which the...
  
  ".
• urn:lex:it:stato:legge:2003-09-21;456 Lei italiana.