Conceptual Design Question

Hello Everyone, 

In a text-heavy database, I'm trying to make an initial design decision in the following context. 

There is a lot of long text that I could break down into three different categories:a. Laws     i. Only 1 country per
law,many laws    ii. There are multiple types of laws (statutes, regulations, court cases, proposed laws, etc)    iii.
Eachlaw will have only one type    iv. Each law may refer to many other lawsb. Treaties     i. 2 countries per treaty
ii. At any one time, there will only be one treaty in force between any two countries    iii. There may be proposed new
treatieswhich will supercede old treaties when finally ratifiedc. Commentary     i. Any commentary could refer to one
ormore laws or treaties    ii. Any commentary may have one or more authors    iii. Any commentary may refer to one or
morecountries
 

The conceptual question is what are the trade-offs between having one textual table compared with multiple text tables?
Anyhelp on pointing out practical considerations would be appreciated.
 

Thanks.

Bryan