Before you begin researching the law of a foreign jurisdiction, take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with its legal system. Developing a basic understanding of a jurisdiction's legal system will help you to determine what are the primary sources sources of law and what types of legal materials you can reasonably expect to find.
For a brief overview of a foreign jurisdiction's legal system, consult one or more of the following online resources:
Provides a starting point for foreign law research by identifying the best research guides and databases for conducting legal research for each country.
Provides links and resources to key government and legal materials for each country
For most foreign jurisdictions, constitutional texts are relatively easy to locate and are often available in English translation. Listed below are the best electronic resources and print resources for researching current and/or historical constitutions from jurisdictions around the world.
It's also worth noting that some foreign jurisdictions amend their constitutions much more frequently than the United States does.
In almost all jurisdictions outside the U.S., newly enacted legislation and newly promulgated regulations are published chronologically in an official gazette. Many gazettes also publish amendments made to existing statutes and regulations. In some jurisdictions, commercial publishers produce unofficial compilations of statutes and regulations currently in force.
The Library of Congress maintains the most extensive collection of official gazettes in North America. Use the Library of Congress Foreign Law Gazette collection. The Law Library of Congress’s Foreign Law Gazette collection contains records from many national and subnational jurisdictions. In some cases, however, the gazettes are only available in print at the Law Library of Congress.
Another option is using GlobaLex, by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU, this free resource offers jurisdiction-specific legal research guides for nearly every country in the world. Most country-specific guides contain links to official government websites, including those for accessing country legislation if one exists.
The availability of English translations varies widely, depending on the subject matter of the law and, to a lesser extent, the size of the jurisdiction. For example, WIPO Lex and the ILO’s NATLEX database provide free access to translated collections of laws and regulations from various countries. WIPO Lex focuses on legal information on intellectual property (IP) from around the world, consisting of IP laws and regulations, WIPO-administered treaties and IP‑related treaties, and IP judgments. The NATLEX database focuses on national labor, social security and related human rights legislation, including over 100,000 records covering 196 countries and over 160 territories and subdivisions.
Automated machine translation tools, such as Google Translate, are steadily improving. Nevertheless, legal researchers should exercise caution when using them, as they may fail to recognize specialized jargon or overlook critical nuances in meaning.
When researching foreign case law, the first step is to identify the type of legal system in place in the jurisdiction that interests you. Knowing the type of legal system will enable you to assess the likelihood of finding relevant case law and help you to determine where to look for it. If you don't know, or aren't sure, what kind of legal system is in place, consult the Foreign Legal System above or JuriGlobe World Legal Systems.
To retrieve a case by citation or by party name, start with an online case law database, such as WorldLII. For links to relevant case law databases, visit Georgetown University's Multi-Jurisdictional Resources page and the Case Law by Jurisdiction page of their Foreign and Comparative Law Research Guide.
Some examples of sites with country-specific case law available include the Codices database, WorldLII Courts & Case-Law and RefWorld. The Codices database contains the full text of over 10, 000 judgments from over 100 courts mainly in English and in French. WorldLII Courts and Case Law category is a directory of websites organized by country. Each country includes links to official websites for different courts and court databases. RefWorld is a database containing cases related to refugee law from several different jurisdictions.
Comparative law is a form of study and not a body of law. Comparative law books and materials present information in several different ways. Some focus on comparing legal families or traditions (civil law versus common law, ancient law, etc.). Some books compare specific countries (German law as compared to French law). Others focus on comparing topics within laws and within countries (constitutional law in Germany and the U.S.). Some sources do all of the above.
The GlobaLex website has a section on comparative law research and includes guides on comparative law generally, comparative civil procedure, and comparative criminal procedure. Other more general guides on this site are also useful, such as Foreign Law: Subject Law Collections on the Web.
Searching the web for comparative law surveys or databases can be quite fruitful. Law firms and international organizations post many useful reports and documents. For example, the World Bank has a very good background paper on anti-discrimination laws in the developing world.
Another handy comparative tool is the International Comparative Legal Guides (ICLG). These guides cover 43 practice areas (copyright, family law, enforcement of foreign judgments, etc.) and 135 jurisdictions. Some content is available for free on the ICLG website, and you can also purchase the guides as a book or a PDF chapter. These are written by lawyers in specific jurisdictions and provide references to relevant laws and procedures.
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