Anaya Nolan
When navigating the legal system of a foreign country, it is important to be informed about the laws and regulations that govern that nation. While there is no single resource that compiles the laws and cases of every country, there are several tools and databases that can aid in this process. These include the Law Library of Congress, which has a collection of over 2.65 million volumes covering jurisdictions around the world, as well as country-specific databases, subject-specific collections, and foreign law guides that provide English translations of foreign laws. Understanding the legal traditions and history of a country, such as civil law, common law, customary law, or religious law, can also provide a framework for navigating its legal system.
| Characteristics | Values |
|---|---|
| Number of sources | Varies depending on the country |
| Language | English translations may be available, but check the authoritativeness of the translation |
| Databases | Country-specific databases, the Law Library of Congress, GlobaLex, and more |
| Websites | Government websites, intergovernmental organization websites, Foreign Law Guide, Basic Guide to Researching Foreign Law on GlobaLex |
| Legal traditions | Civil law, common law, customary law, religious law, or a combination of these |
| Legal systems | French civil law, German civil law, Scandinavian civil law, Sharia law, Canon law, Italian civil law, Swiss civil law, etc. |
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What You'll Learn
Check country-specific databases and websites
When researching the laws of a foreign country, it is important to consult country-specific databases and websites. These sources will provide you with direct access to the legal materials you require. Here are some examples of country-specific databases and websites that offer valuable insights into foreign legal systems:
Country-Specific Databases
- LawInfoChina: This database covers Chinese laws, regulations, essays, gazettes, and other legal information from 1949 onwards. It provides English translations, although the translations may not always be up to date with the most recent amendments.
- Databases for Indian Law: The University of Pennsylvania Law School's website offers access to Indian case law, legislation, regulations, ordinances, bills, and secondary materials. The website also provides coverage of primary and secondary law sources for conducting Indian legal research, including complete coverage of the Supreme Court of India and other historical courts.
- Databases for French Law: The University of Pennsylvania Law School's website also provides access to the full text of French legislation and case law, comprising over 400,000 pages of commentary. However, all materials are exclusively in French.
- Databases for UK Law: The website offers access to various UK reports, including The Law Reports, The Weekly Law Reports, The Industrial Cases Reports, and more. It also includes access to Citator+, which provides index information for each case.
- Databases for Australian Law: AustLII is an online database providing access to official and unofficial Australian legislation, bills, laws, Hansards, and other parliamentary documents.
- Databases for Canadian Law: The Justice Laws Website offers access to the consolidated Acts and regulations of Canada, with all consolidated Acts and regulations being considered "official" as of June 1, 2009.
- Databases for New Zealand Law: The University of Wollongong Library's website provides links to online legislation, bills, regulations, and the New Zealand Gazette.
Country-Specific Websites
- Israeli Parliament (Knesset): The Knesset's website provides access to the basic laws of Israel and selected other laws in official English translation. Basic information on the legal system of Israel is also available in English at www.mfa.gov.il.
- Colombian Government: The Biblioteca del Congresso Nacional de Chile website offers free access to the legislative provisions of Colombia in their official versions dating back to 1985.
- Costa Rican Government: This website provides free access to the laws of Costa Rica in their official version as of 1999.
- Angolan Government: The Angolan Government's website gives searchable access to selected legislation. It also provides a portal to other authorities, such as the Parliament and the Supreme Court.
- Venezuelan Supreme Court: This website offers free access to the laws adopted since 2000, as published in the official gazette. It also provides consolidated versions of some important laws.
In addition to these country-specific sources, there are also subject-specific collections of laws that gather legal information from various countries pertaining to a particular subject. These include resources like GlobaLex, which covers environmental law, intellectual property law, and food and agriculture-related legislation from multiple jurisdictions.
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Search for English translations of foreign laws
When searching for English translations of foreign laws, it is important to note that primary sources of a foreign jurisdiction are never officially translated into English. Instead, major academic law libraries in the US purchase topical services that contain unofficial translations of selected laws from selected non-US jurisdictions. These subject-oriented services are invaluable sources of foreign laws in English.
A good starting point is to consult a research guide. NYU's GlobaLex is constantly updated and free, making it a trustworthy source for information and links. Research guides often include information on where to find English-language translations of primary sources. Other research guides on comparative legal research include Duke University's Foreign & Comparative Law research guide and Georgetown University's Foreign and Comparative Law Research Guide.
The Foreign Law Guide is a subscription database that permits searches by country and subject. It includes links and sources for translated statutes by subject. The Basic Guide to Researching Foreign Law on GlobaLex is another useful starting point. Constitutions are one of the most consistently findable sources of foreign law in English. The Constituent Project is a user-friendly database with constitutions from around the world. Oxford's Constitutions of the World includes the text of national and regional/state constitutions, while HeinOnline's World Constitutions Illustrated includes current and historical constitutions of many jurisdictions.
Other databases that include foreign law in English are Westlaw and Lexis, which contain a great deal of foreign law, and you can check by jurisdiction. The Institute for Transnational Law: Foreign Law Translations includes select decisions and statutes from France and Germany translated into English, but the cases are mostly older. The Versa Cardozo Israeli Supreme Court Project is a searchable database of key Supreme Court opinions and summaries translated into English. The Japanese Law Translation database allows you to browse codes and legislation by title, number, category, or keyword, and the Korean Legislation Research Institute includes lists of recently translated laws.
Full-text translations may not always be available, so you may have to rely on summaries in practice notes, journal articles, or legal encyclopaedias. Machine translation can be used to get a rough idea of the content, but it should not be relied upon.
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Consult subject-specific collections of laws
When researching the laws of a foreign country, it can be useful to consult subject-specific collections of laws, which collect laws from various countries pertaining to a particular subject. These resources often have better search capabilities than foreign government websites.
GlobaLex, for example, provides a publicly accessible resource that includes jurisdiction-specific guides for most countries, as well as guides on international and comparative law. It also offers a Foreign Law – Subject Law Collections on the Web research guide, which provides a comprehensive guide to subject law collections. This includes access to IP laws, environmental laws, and national laws, regulations, and policies pertaining to food, agriculture, and natural resources management from various jurisdictions.
The Foreign Law Guide is another subscription resource that is organized by country and subject and assists users with finding materials in the original language and English translations. Stanford University's LibGuides also recommend the CIA World Factbook, a US government website with basic profile information about countries worldwide, including their legal systems.
The Pritzker Legal Research Center at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law also provides a Foreign Legal Research Guide with a list of selected databases that provide access to laws and cases from multiple countries. These include laws and cases from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, England & Wales, India, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. The guide also provides access to national monographs from selected countries for the following topic areas: contracts, criminal law, family and succession law, private international law, corporations and partnerships, civil procedure, intellectual property, constitutional law, labour law and industrial relations, and commercial and economic law.
The University of California, Irvine's Law Library also provides a Foreign Law Research Guide, which includes a list of free and subscription collections of legislation and cases. This includes access to election documents and laws from over 200 jurisdictions, links to animal welfare legislation, and climate change laws from various countries. The guide also provides access to employment protection, termination, and related labor laws, as well as food, agriculture, and natural resources management laws from approximately 190 jurisdictions.
Additionally, the University of California, Irvine's Law Library provides a list of country-specific resources within the International collection, including Canada and the United Kingdom. It also includes the ICLR, which offers case reports from England and Wales, along with UK legislation, and the official home of revised enacted UK legislation, 1267-present.
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Research the country's constitution
Researching a country's constitution is a crucial aspect of understanding the legal framework of a nation. Constitutions are the foundational documents that outline the principles, structures, and rules governing a country, and they can be classified into two types: codified and uncodified.
A codified constitution is a single document that serves as the sole source of constitutional law in a state. It encompasses all the fundamental laws and principles by which the country is governed. Countries with codified constitutions include the United States, which has the U.S. Constitution, and Algeria, which adopted a new constitution in 2020. These documents can often be found on government websites or legal databases. For instance, the U.S. Constitution Annotated is available on Congress.gov, providing a comprehensive overview of its interpretation over time, including discussions of Supreme Court opinions.
On the other hand, an uncodified constitution consists of multiple sources, both written and unwritten. This type of constitution is not confined to a single document but is found across various sources, such as constitutional conventions and other documents that may not be legally enforceable. The United Kingdom is an example of a country with an uncodified constitution.
When researching a country's constitution, it's important to consider the following steps:
- Identify the Country's System: Determine whether the country follows a common law or civil law system. This distinction is crucial because common law systems rely heavily on case law and judicial precedents, while civil law systems are based on codified statutes and legal codes.
- Language Considerations: If the country's official language is not English, finding English translations of the constitution and legal materials can be challenging. Resources like the Foreign Law Guide and GlobaLex's Basic Guide to Researching Foreign Law can help identify available translations, but always check their authoritativeness and currency.
- Utilize Online Resources: Take advantage of online resources specifically designed for constitutional research. Websites like Constituent allow users to read, search, and compare the world's constitutions. Additionally, the Law Library of Congress, with its vast collection of legal materials, can be a valuable source for researching foreign constitutions.
- Subject-Specific Collections: Explore subject-specific collections of laws, which gather legislation from various countries pertaining to particular topics. These resources often offer better search capabilities than foreign government websites and can provide insights into specific areas of law, such as environmental law, intellectual property rights, or human rights.
- Country-Specific Databases: Check country-specific databases and websites to find the foreign legal materials you need. These sources can provide access to the laws, cases, and legal codes specific to the country you're researching.
- Academic Institutions and Projects: Academic institutions and research projects often provide valuable resources for constitutional research. For example, the Pritzker Legal Research Center at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law offers guides and databases for foreign legal research.
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Explore international law resources
There are numerous online resources available for researching international law. Many of these are free to access and provide a wealth of information on foreign and international law.
The Law Library of Congress, established by Congress in 1832, has a collection of over 2.65 million volumes spanning virtually every jurisdiction in the world. The Library's website provides access to guides, news, and other resources. The Law Library of Congress also offers a Guide to Law Online, which collects links to constitutions, executive, legislative, and judicial branches, as well as legal research guides, for over 200 countries and territories.
The University of California, Irvine, Law Library also provides free legal resources on foreign and international law. Their website includes links to current constitutions for almost every country, translated into English, as well as draft and historical texts. They also offer guides from the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU School of Law, with over 160 individual country guides and comparative law research guides.
The University of Southern California Gould School of Law's LibGuides also provide free web resources for foreign and international law research. This includes access to translated legislation from over 90 countries, as well as online access to the International Monetary Fund's periodicals, books, working papers, studies, data, and statistical tools. They also provide a link to the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (IFLP), a multilingual index to articles and book reviews in over 500 legal journals published worldwide.
The Northwestern Pritzker School of Law's Pritzker Legal Research Center offers a Foreign Legal Research Guide with information on finding foreign legal materials. This includes country-specific databases and websites, as well as subject-specific collections of laws from various countries pertaining to a particular subject. GlobaLex, a research guide, provides access to legislation and jurisprudence related to environmental law, intellectual property law, and food, agriculture, and natural resource management from various jurisdictions.
The United Nations Dag Hammarskjold Library provides a guide to understanding and deciphering the unique tools and citation style of UN publications, as well as resources for researching foreign and international law. This includes access to the Official Journal of the European Union and other public documents and laws of the EU, as well as links to research guides and legislative procedures.
Other notable resources include the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law and the Oxford Constitutions of the World, which provides regularly updated and translated constitutions from countries around the world. The World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) is another free, independent, and non-profit global legal research facility.
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Frequently asked questions
There are several online resources that can help you find the laws of a different country. You can try the following:
- Foreign Law Guide: This resource identifies English translations of laws from other countries.
- Basic Guide to Researching Foreign Law on GlobaLex: This guide provides useful starting points for finding foreign laws in English.
- Law Library of Congress: This library has a collection of over 2.65 million volumes covering virtually every jurisdiction in the world.
- Pritzker Legal Research Center at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law: This centre provides access to laws and cases from several countries.
- Cornell University Law School’s Legal Information Institute: This institute provides an overview of legal systems, defining terms and concepts surrounding constitutions, laws, and legal systems around the world.
Foreign laws and cases are sometimes available in English. You can use the Foreign Law Guide to identify these translations. However, it is important to check the authoritativeness of the translation. For instance, check whether it was translated by a human or by machine translation.
You can refer to the CIA World Factbook – Legal System. This resource provides a brief overview of types of legal systems and descriptions, along with a country-by-country listing of legal systems. Wikipedia also has a List of National Legal Systems, which can give you an overview of the legal system of your destination country.
You can check country-specific databases and websites. For instance, the EU N-Lex is a common gateway to national laws for EU member countries. You can also refer to subject-specific collections of laws, which collect laws from various countries pertaining to a particular subject.
You can refer to the following resources:
- OAS: Hemispheric Network for Legal Cooperation on Criminal Matters, which provides criminal codes and related laws for OAS countries.
- International Criminal Court Legal Tools Database, which has a large collection of criminal laws.
