Foreign Law
last revised October 26th, 2012
Contents
Portals & Databases
- WORLD LEGAL INFORMATION INSTITUTE (WorldLII): Extensive databases, with particularly strong coverage of common-law jurisductions, plus a "Catalog" portal for all countries.
- Commonwealth Legal Information Institute: a subset of WorldLII, covering just the Commonwealth and other common-law jurisdictions.
- vLex (Rutgers Newark Law School access only). Strong coverage of civil-law jurisdictions in Europe and Latin America.
- Foreign & International Law (Washburn Univ.)
- Foreign Law Translations (Institute for Transnational Law, Univ. of Texas at Austin) -- "French, German, Italian, Austrian and Israeli legal materials in the fields of constitutional, administrative, contract and tort law "
- Global & Comparative Law Resources (Law Library of Congress)
- Government Gazettes Online (Univ. of Michigan School of Information)
- Guide to Law Online: Nations (Law Library of Congress)
Research Guides
- GlobaLex Research guides on law of many countries, and on comparative law and international law. Hint: "Updates" are complete revisions of the guides, not just supplements. (Hauser Global Law School Program, New York Univ.)
- Foreign Law Guide (Rutgers Newark Law School access only): by Thomas H. Reynolds & Arturo A . Flores. Extensive research guide for all countries, referencing English-language translations. Information for each country is divided into three parts: a textual "Introduction," a "Major Publications" section, and a "Subject Arrangement" of references to particular laws. Covers mainly legislative sources, but includes some information about court reports.
- Comparative/Foreign Law (LLRX.com)
- Foreign Law Collections in U.S. Libraries (Univ.of Pittsburgh)
- Foreign Law Research (FLARE), a collaborative project in the U.K. including research guides to some foreign jurisdictions.
Regional Sites (Selected)
Africa
Asia
Latin America
- Dret Hispanoamericà Latin-American law sources (by Albert Ruda Gonzalez)
- Justia.com includes legislation of Latin American countries.
- Latin American Network Info.Ctr, Law & Justice page (Univ. of Texas)
- LatinLaws.com: compilation of major legislation from all the Latin American countries.
- Political Database of the Americas (Georgetown Univ.) Includes constitutions by country and comparative compilations of constitutional provisions on the three branches of government; and extensive bibliographies.
Pacific Islands
Countries (Selected)
Australia
Canada
- Canadian Legal Information Institute
- Duhaime Law (Lloyd Duhaime). A legal dictionary and a collection of articles on various Canadian legal topics.
China
- China Guiding Cases Project (at Stanford Law School)
- LawInfoChina: public portion includes description of Chinese legal system and texts of some basic laws.
- Hong Kong Legal Information Institute
France
- Legifrance.gouv.fr French legislation and caselaw. Includes English translations of the codes.
Germany
- BGH Edition (Carl Heymanns Verlag): a commercial caselaw database; free to search but fee-based full-text retrieval.
- Das Bundesverfassungsgericht German Constitutional Court. Includes decisions from 1998 forward.
- Deutsches Fallrecht (DFR) Selected German caselaw from 1951 forward.
- German Law Archive Selected statutes, caselaw, commentary, and bibliographies, in English.
- Gesetze im Internet German statutes, including some English translations.
India
Mexico
- The Best Mexican Web Sites (Prof Jorge A. Vargas) (scroll to section 1.2 for links)
- Justia México: federal and state codes, laws, and regulations.
- Unidad de Documentación de Legislación y Jurisprudencia (at Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas)
New Zealand
Norway
Spain
- Pagina Juridica. (by Albert Ruda Gonzalez) Includes Spanish and Catalan law sources.
Sweden
United Kingdom
- British & Irish Legal Information Institute
- English Reports (1220-1873) (at Commonwealth Legal Information Institute)
- Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England & Wales
- legislation.gov.uk: Official browseable and searchable database of all United Kingdom legislation in force. This site is replacing the UK Statute Law Database
Topical Sites
Business Law
- Business Laws (World Bank): includes civil codes, banking, labor, securities, tax laws; can be browsed by country ("economy") and broad topic. Mostly in original languages.
- International Center for Not-for-Profit Law. Includes many laws in English translation.
Competition
Constitutional Law
- Constitution Finder (Univ.of Richmond)
- Rule of Law Initiative, Publications & Assessments (American Bar Association)
Criminal Law
- Criminal Law Resources on the Internet (Buffalo Criminal Law Center) Links to criminal codes of various countries
Environmental Law
Intellectual Property
- Collection of Laws for Electronic Access (World Intellectual Property Organization)