COMPARATIVE LAW: Ver bien esto:
Multinational Sources Compared by Alena L. Wolotira; Sherry L. LysenLimited to UCLA Law users
Call Number: Online & K85 .W65 2017
Publication Date: 2017-01-01
Many books collect foreign laws and guides to foreign laws on specific topics, such as intellectual property, family law, or arbitration, often with English translations. Multinational Sources Compared indexes these books by country and subject so that, for example, you can look up all books that include information on Chinese law or look up all books that cover intellectual property by country.
Guide to International Legal Research by George Washington Journal of International Law and Economics.Requires individual Lexis login
Call Number: Reference Desk KZ1234 .G85 & Lexis
Publication Date: Updated annually
This guide by George Washington University’s international law journal provides country-by-country and subject-by-subject lists of books, websites, and other resources for foreign and international legal research.
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Investigación Jurídica en este país
Investigación Jurídica en el Mundo
Visit Justia’s Mexico & Latin American Law Portals for free access to constitutions, cases, codes, and other legal information.
Central America & the Caribbean
South America
NON-U.S. LAW ON LEXIS, WESTLAW, AND BLOOMBERG
General Foreign Law Materials
Lexis, Westlaw, and Bloomberg’s foreign law coverage is limited but they do sometimes have useful materials, so it’s always worth double-checking:
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To access international materials on Lexis, select International > View All Countries.
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Westlaw International Materials
To access international materials on Westlaw, click International Materials on the homepage. -
Bloomberg Law Sources by Global Jurisdiction
To access international materials on Bloomberg Law, click Select Sources to the right of the search box and then click the tab to Select Sources by Global Jurisdiction.
Another useful strategy for locating international materials on Bloomberg is to select Browse > Practice Centers. Bloomberg Law provides a practice center on international trade, plus international categories under other practice centers, accessible by selecting the practice center and then clicking browse again. For example, selecting Browse > Practice Centers > Labor & Employment > Browse reveals a category on International Labor & Employment law.
Practical Law and Practical Guidance
Several years ago, Westlaw purchased a UK based company called Practical Law, which provides detailed articles written by practicing attorneys on how to perform legal tasks in specific practice areas. Because Practical Law began as a non-U.S. company, it has extensive international law material and is an excellent starting point for foreign law research:
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Detailed subject-by-subject, country-by-country articles and how-tos, written by practicing attorneys. To access international materials in Westlaw’s Practical Law tool, select Practical Law on the homepage and then select Global Home at the top of the Practical Law page.
Lexis has recently started building a competing Practical Guidance tool, which also includes international content:
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Practical Guidance International
To access international materials in Lexis’ Practical Guidance tool, select Practical Guidance > Jurisdiction > International.
OTHER DATABASES FOR NON-U.S. LEGAL RESEARCH
The library also subscribes to a handful of legal databases that provide non-U.S. law:
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vLex provides primary and secondary legal materials for many countries, focusing mostly on Latin America. To access international materials on vLex, go to Browse > All jurisdictions. In many cases, you can search the materials on vLex but will need to go the government website to retrieve the full text.
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Incorporated Council of Law Reporting (ICLR)
English case law, from the one of the most authoritative reporters of English case law. -
Kluwer Arbitration provides selected arbitration laws by country. Select Jurisdictions to browse to a specific country.
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Wolters Kluwer VitalLaw (Formerly Cheetah)
VitalLaw includes selected foreign securities materials under Securities – Federal & International and selected foreign tax materials under Tax – International. -
Checkpoint International Materials
To access international materials on Checkpoint, select the International tab.
Sometimes scholars will publish articles detailing a particular country’s laws or providing information on how a specific legal issue is handled in a variety of countries. Articles can be rich sources for citations to both primary and secondary sources and may even provide English translations of certain laws. In addition to standard sources for legal articles, you may also want to consult HeinOnline’s Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals:
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Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (1960-)
Index to articles and essay collections on foreign and international law topics. The total number of results are smaller than those from HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library and Lexis and Westlaw’s Law Reviews & Journals categories but include obscure, non-English language sources that other databases miss.
COUNTRY RESEARCH:
Nearly all private international law problems will involve researching the specific laws of both the U.S. (assuming a U.S. citizen or company is part of the legal scenario at hand) and one or more foreign countries. This is because, as stated before, there is not one well-defined body of private international law; rather, each country has its own way of handling private international law/conflict of laws issues. You will want to find out a country’s rules about jurisdiction, choice of law, and/or enforcement of judgments depending on the facts of the case.
One useful starting point is Reynolds & Flores Foreign Law Guide:
Reynolds & Flores, Foreign Law Guide on Conflict of Laws & Private International LawLimited to UCLA Law users
Provides country-by-country lists of laws on conflict of laws.
For more information see the UCLA Law Library’s guide to foreign law research:
Foreign Law Research for U.S. Attorneys
by Caitlin Hunter Last Updated Oct 17, 2022
SPECIFIC REGIONS
Africa
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Organization for the Harmonization of Business Law in Africa (OHADA)
As noted elsewhere in this guide, this organization is working on harmonizing business law in Africa.