| Updated Aug. 29, 2003.
Contributors: Gallagher Law Librarians Jonathan Franklin, Ann Hemmens, Peggy Jarrett, Cheryl Nyberg, and Mary Whisner.
- Introduction
- Definitions
- Library Departments and Branches
- Electronic Resources
- Research Guides and Bibliographies--Foreign Law
- Language
- Directories
- Library Catalogs
- Periodical Indexes
- Overviews of Foreign Law
- The Library’s Foreign Law Strengths, by Jurisdiction
- The Library’s Foreign Law Strengths, by Subject
- Multi-jurisdictional Sets
- Selected Internet Sites for Foreign Law
- Other Sources of Foreign Law
- Useful Contacts
Introduction
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Definitions
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Library Departments and Branches
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Electronic Resources
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Research Guides and Bibliographies--Foreign Law
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Language
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Directories
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Library Catalogs
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Periodical Indexes
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Overviews of Foreign Law
- Martindale-Hubbell International Law Digest, KF190.M34, current Reference
Area, Reference Office & East Asian Law Reference; LexisNexis. Contains summaries of the laws of over 70 countries (and the EU)
prepared by law firms. Good starting place. Often provides citations to statutes.
- Kenneth R. Redden & William Emerson Brock, Modern Legal Systems Cyclopedia,
K530.M63 1984 at Reference Area. Summaries of the legal systems of most jurisdictions.
Essays on selected topics (e.g., Swiss banking law).
- International Association of Legal Science, International Encyclopedia of Comparative
Law, 1973-85). K530.I58 at Reference Area. A series of monographs and chapters on
comparative topics – e.g., the history of civil procedure in Europe, comparative tort
law. Volume 1 surveys many jurisdictions’ legal systems.
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The Library's Foreign Law Strengths, by JurisdictionThe following is a summary of the Law Library’s collecting practices for selected
jurisdictions. For more detail, see our Collection Development Policy, Z733.M375C6
1996 at Reference Area & Reference Office.
- The Law Library’s strongest collections are for East Asian jurisdictions: China,
Japan, Korea, and Taiwan. See guides listed above.
- Common law jurisdictions
- United Kingdom: Statutes, cases, and selected treatises, journals, legal encyclopedia
and digest, very strong historical collection. Many UK materials are also available
full-text on LexisNexis. See the British and Irish Legal
Information Institute, http://www.bailii.org
(cases, legislation, and other legal material from the UK and
Ireland).
- Australia: See Australian Legal Research Sources,
covering materials in the Gallagher Law Library and online resources.
- Canada: Federal and British Columbia statutes and cases, journals, and selected monographs.
Some Canadian materials are also available on LexisNexis. Various websites include
Canadian legal materials. See WorldLII's list, http://worldlii.org/catalog/213.html.
- India: Selected case reports, journals (mostly back runs). Collection is stronger for
older materials.
- New Zealand: Statutes and academic journals. Cases are available on LexisNexis.
- Philippines (mixed common law/civil law jurisdiction): Selected federal statutes and codes, case reports,
and academic journals.
- South Africa (mixed common law/civil law jurisdiction): Older statutes, cases,
and journals (subscriptions canceled in 1993-94).
- Civil law jurisdictions
- France: Limited collection. Older journals (33 titles were canceled in 1993-94).
- Germany: Statutes, selected case reports, and selected monographs (usually in English), especially on antitrust, criminal law, labor law, and intellectual
property law.
- Mexico: Selected codes; very limited print collection. Legislation and case law available on LexisNexis.
- Russia: Selected legislation and codes (in English). Over 1200 Russian language monographs. Legislation and
regulations (selected) available on LexisNexis.
- European Union: See European Union Research guide.
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The Library's Foreign Law Strengths, by SubjectEven in jurisdictions where collections are not strong, the Law Library may have
selected treatises and other sources on certain topics of interest. These are determined
by the curricular and research needs of the Law School. For instance, the Law School
used to have an LL.M. program in Law and Marine Affairs and still
offers classes in that area, so the Law Library acquires more books on
marine law in various jurisdictions than, say, domestic relations law. Subject areas of
special interest include:
- Environmental law
- Human rights
- Intellectual property
- Marine law
For many countries, the Law Library also collects (in English) selected research guides,
bibliographies, and general works on the legal system.The Law Library has English translations of civil codes from many civil law countries.
For example, the Library has a 1996 English translation of Mexico’s civil and
commercial codes, which is cataloged with the subject heading
Civil law -- Mexico. To find
civil codes, search the catalog for Subject Heading = civil law [country].
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Multi-jurisdictional SetsThe Library subscribes to several sets that publish laws (translated into English) or
summaries of laws from many nations. The texts are not always current but are generally
less than ten years old; the translations, while not official, are generally reliable.
Multi-jurisdictional sets include:
- American Bar Association, Committee on Inter-American Law, Inter-American Legal
Materials, 1983-date. KG3.I572 at Classified Stacks.
- Albert P. Blaustein & G.H. Flanz, eds. Constitutions of the Countries of the
World: A Series of Updated Texts, Constitutional Chronologies and Annotated
Bibliographies, 1971-date. K3157.A2B58 1971 at Reference Area.
- Albert P. Blaustein, Phyllis M. Blaustein & Eric B. Blaustein, Constitutions of
Dependencies and Special Sovereignties, 1975-date. K3157.E5C65 1975 at Reference
Area.
- Foreign Tax Law Association, Commercial Laws of the World, 1976-date. K1004.15 1976 at Reference
Area.
- Foreign Tax Law Association, Tax Laws of the World, 1964?-date. K4504.15 1974 at Reference
Area.
- International Bureau of Fiscal Documentation, Taxes and Investment in Asia and the Pacific, 1978-date. K4460.4.I57 at Classified Stacks.
- International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes, Investment Laws of the World, 1972-date. K1112.A48 1973 at Reference
Area.
- International Environment Reporter: Reference File, K3585.4.I57 at Reference
Area. Vols. 2-4 reprints many European Union decisions, directives and regulations; vol. 4 also
includes summaries environmental laws of 32 countries, with directory of environmental agencies.
- Lester Nelson, George Kohlik & Ernest A. Rovelstad, Digest of Commercial Laws of the World (National Association of Credit Management), 1966-date. K1004.2.D5 at
Reference Area.
- Lester Nelson & George Kohlik, Digest of Commercial Laws of the World. Digest of Intellectual Property Laws of the World (National Association of Credit Management),
1975-date. K1500.D54 1975 at Reference Area.
- Lester Nelson, Digest of Commercial Laws of the World. State Variations of Commercial Law, 1985-98. K1004.2.D5Z95 at
Classified Stacks.
- Lester Nelson, Digest of Commercial Laws of the World. Forms of Commercial Agreements, 1984-98. K1004.35.D54 1984 at
Classified Stacks.
- Julian O. Von Kalinowski, Competition Laws of the Pacific Rim Countries, 1988-date. K3856.C65 1989 at Classified Stacks.
- World Intellectual Property Organization, Copyright and Related Rights Laws and Treaties, 1987-date. K1420.5.C66 1987 at Reference
Area.
- World Intellectual Property Organization, Industrial Property Laws and Treaties, 1978-date. K1500.A47I5 at Reference
Area.
There are also some multi-jurisdictional databases on special topics. For example:
- LexisNexis has Central and Eastern Europe Legal Texts, a database produced by the U.S. Commerce Department with English translations of laws of Poland, Hungary,
Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Romania, Bulgaria, Albania, Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania on commercial topics.
- LexisNexis and Westlaw both have ENFLEX databases with translations of environmental and occupational health and safety laws from Brazil, the European Union, France,
Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, Spain, and the United Kingdom.
- FAOLEX Legal Database, http://faolex.fao.org/faolex_eng/index.html,
indexes and abstracts treaties, laws, and regulations taken from official gazettes of
member nations. Subjects include environment, fisheries, forest, and wildlife &
biodiversity.
- UNESCO National Copyright Legislation database, http://www.unesco.org/culture/copy/index.shtml,
contains full-text of national legislation related to copyright and neighboring rights laws, which are regularly communicated to UNESCO by its Members States. The Handbook of National
Regulations Concerning the Export of Cultural Property (prepared for UNESCO by Lyndel Prott & Patrick O'Keefe, 1988), is
available online in PDF format, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0011/001191/119126eo.pdf.
- World Health Organization, International Digest of Health Legislation (IDHL), http://www.who.int/idhl/,
contains a selection of national and international health
legislation. (Note: "health" includes environmental
protection and consumer protection.). Most laws are summarized,
but some are available full-text (through links to other sites).
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Selected Internet Sites for Foreign LawWebsites for foreign law are proliferating. When using a website, consider factors that
might affect reliability: Who created and maintains the site? (government agency, law
school, law firm, publisher, individual?) How often is it updated? Where do the texts come
from?
- The World Legal Information Institute, http://www.worldlii.org/,
a website unveiled in the fall of 2002, is the premier site for
foreign law. WorldLII aims to provide free, independent and
non-profit access to worldwide law. It is a joint initiative of nine
university-based Legal Information Institutes (e.g., the
Australasian Legal Information Institute, http://www.austlii.org).
The WorldLII site catalogs web resources by jurisdiction and by
topic. It also includes hundreds of searchable databases - for
example, caselaw from dozens of jurisdictions.
- Other useful foreign law websites include:
- Library of Congress, Guide to Law Online: Nations of the World, http://lcweb2.loc.gov/glin/x-nation.html,
is an annotated list of links to the law of jurisdictions around the world.
- Library of Congress, The Global Legal Information Network project (GLIN), http://lcweb2.loc.gov/law/GLINv1/GLIN.html,
has a searchable database of summaries of laws from many different nations. (Officials
from nations that are members of the project may view the full text of gazettes; anyone
may search the summaries.) A "guest" may search, for example, for
country=Argentina and subject=agrarian reform and get summaries of legal instruments with
detailed citation information.
- Harvard Law School Library, Foreign and International Law Resources: An Annotated Guide to Web Sites Around the
World,
http://www.law.harvard.edu/library/ref/ils_ref/ils_web_sites.htm.
- Washburn Law Library, Foreign and International Law, http://www.washlaw.edu/forint/, links to
law-related sites around the world.
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Other Sources of Foreign Law
- International Legal Materials, 1962-date. JX68.I543 at Reference Area
(last two years) & Classified Stacks (older issues); Hein Online; LexisNexis;
and Westlaw (ILM and INM-INDX). Publishes text of some foreign laws (in
English), often in international trade area.
- Check news sources. Sometimes the BBC Summary of World Broadcasts (on LexisNexis) or
another news source will translate a foreign statute.
- Check other secondary sources. A law review article or monograph might quote the
relevant portions of a law (or reprint the entire law as an appendix).
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Useful Contacts: Embassies, Consulates, and Country DesksEmbassies and consulates often have information about the home country’s laws
(often in English), especially in areas such as immigration, extradition, investment,
trade, etc.
- Washington Information Directory, E154.5.W38, current at Reference Office. Lists, by
country, foreign embassies in the U.S. and U.S. ambassadors in each country.
- U.S. State Department, Foreign Consular Offices in the United States, http://www.state.gov/www/travel/consular_offices/fco_index.html,
lists consulates by country, then by state where the consulates are. Individual
officials are listed (for instance, there are ten officials in Japan’s consulate
in Seattle, a Consul General, five consuls, and four vice consuls).
- The State Department’s Diplomatic List, http://www.state.gov/www/about_state/contacts/diplist/,
lists embassy staff.
- For links to embassy websites, see http://www.lib.umich.edu/libhome/Documents.center/forcomp.html#embass
(University of Michigan site).
Other useful contacts are the State Department and Commerce Department staff people
(called "desk officers") assigned to follow political cultural, and economic
developments in each country.
- Washington Information Directory, E154.5.W38, current at Reference
Office. Lists the State and Commerce Departments desk officers.
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