Foreign, Comparative, and International Law: Foreign Law

Secondary sources analyze, describe, discuss and/or comment upon the law; they synthesize the law for you and place it in an analytical context.  They will also help you locate relevant primary sources of law.

General Secondary Sources

These secondary sources are excellent starting places to learn the basics about a particular foreign jurisdiction.

The Guide to Foreign and International Legal Citations is another great reference to find primary law sources of foreign jurisdictions. The Guide provides standards for citing country-specific constitutions, legislation, and jurisprudence for over forty nations, and includes a profile of each country along with official sources available online.

Treatises on Specific Foreign Jurisdictions

Find books and other secondary materials on specific foreign jurisdictions by searching the Library catalog.

• Using the advanced search function, set the subject field as "Law [country]."
• Narrow your results by including a relevant term in the "any" field. 
• Limit your results to English using the Language filter. 

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Foreign Law Journal Articles

Journal articles are a rich source of information on narrow legal topics. Use these resources to find legal journals and articles published around the world.

Considerations

• Depending on the jurisdiction's legal system, cases may have varying degrees of authority. In civil law countries, cases are generally not considered as primary law, while they are the highest authority in common law countries.
• Cases tend not to be translated as readily as legislation. 
• Cases may appear in official or unofficial general reporters, or topical reporters. They may also appear in journals or legal newspapers.

Locating Cases

• Determine where court decisions are published by looking at the Foreign Law Guide  or Globalex. These sources may tell you whether there are any English translations.
• More and more courts of foreign jurisdictions are making court opinions available on their websites. Search by name or subject under the E-resources list on the Law Library website. The following two resources also provide links to the higher courts websites of individual jursidictions worldwide.
  • WorldLII: Links to online sources of caselaw (and other primary sources) for over 120 jurisdictions.
  • Guide to Law Online: annotated links to Supreme Court websites of many jurisdictions in the world.

Foreign Official Gazettes

Publications of legislation may be official and unofficial, codified in various forms. Many jurisdictions publish laws in official Gazettes. These are daily, weekly, or monthly publications, similar to the Federal Register, that generally contains the first version of the text of legislation, regulations, rules, legal notices, treaties, and court cases for foreign countries.

A number of resources are available to identify the title of a country's official gazette.

• Foreign Official Gazette Database maintained by Center for Research Libraries, that contains records of approximately 650 titles so far. 
• European Forum of Official Gazettes links to European nations' official gazettes online.
• Globalex and Foreign Law Guide indicate official sources of legislation on each country's page.
• Guide to Official Publications of Foreign Countries is a print guide, published in 1997.
• You can also search by name or by subject under E-resources on the Law Library website.

Legislative Compendiums

Certain types of laws may be collected in various compendium sources, in English translation. For example:

• World Constitutions
  • HeinOnline World Constitutions Illustrated (e-resource). Includes the current constitution for every country in its original language format and an English translation, as well as substantial constitutional histories for all countries.
  • Constitutions of the Countries of the World (1995-). This looseleaf set contains English translations of current and historical constitutions with annotations. Constitutions of dependencies and special sovereignties are in a companion volume.
• Business and Tax Law
  • Commercial Laws of the World (1974-2006). It contains English translations of selected major commercial and company-related statutes from more than 100 jurisdictions. More recent editions are available electronically through RIA Checkpoint's Worldwide Tax Law.
  • Tax Laws of the World (1974-2006). It provides English translations of selected major tax legislation from more than 100 jurisdictions. More recent editions are available electronically through RIA Checkpoint's Worldwide Tax Law.
  • Investment Laws of the World (1972-). It provides English translations of selected major investment related laws for more than 100 jurisdictions