Foreign Law Research

Provides a quick overview of the legal system for a specific country. Countries are identified by their prevailing legal system. Includes brief descriptions

Law determined by precedent and judicial decisions. Like that of Civil law, the Common law system has taken on a variety of cultural forms throughout the world. Notwithstanding the significant nuances that such diversity can sometimes create, and which political circumstances further accentuate, this category includes political entities whose law, for the most part, is technically based on English Common law concepts and legal organizational methods which assign a pre-eminent position to case-law, as opposed to legislation, as the ordinary means of expression of general law. Thus this category includes political entities that have more or less close ties with the English tradition and that sometimes possess an abundance of codes, legislation and non-jurisprudential normative instruments, but for which Common law jurisprudence retains its character as the fundamental law (e.g. California in the United States).

Law determined by codes/statutes; past judicial decisions are not used as legal precedent, law should be in the code. In this category you will find political entities that, apart from other sources, have drawn their inspiration largely from the Roman law heritage and which, by giving precedence to written law, have resolutely opted for a systematic codification of their general law. However, you will also find political entities, generally with mixed legal systems, which may not have resorted to the technique of codification but which have retained, to varying degrees, a sufficient number of elements of Roman law as "Raison écrite" to warrant their affiliation to the civilian tradition (e.g. Scotland). On the other hand, this category also includes political entities less influenced by Roman law but whose law, whether codified or not, is founded on a perception of the role of statute law which, in many regards, approaches that of countries with a "pure" civilian tradition (e.g. Scandinavian countries, which occupy an original position in the Civil law, or sometimes called "Romano-Germanic", family).

An overview for judges and lawyers who want to expand their knowledge of the civil-law tradition. The authors discuss the history of the civil-law system, beginning with the Roman Empire. References are made to the civil-law systems of France and Germany and Chile and Brazil because of their strong influence on many other systems. The authors review the basic features of the modern-day civil-law tradition and compare the civil-law and common-law systems.

Today, hardly any political entity in the world operates under a legal system which could be said to be typically and wholly customary. Custom can take on many guises, depending on whether it is rooted in wisdom born of concrete daily experience or more intellectually based on great spiritual or philosophical traditions. Be that as it may, customary law (as a system, not merely as an accessory to positive law) still plays a sometimes significant role, namely in matters of personal status, in a relatively high number of political entities with mixed legal systems. This obviously applies to a number of African countries but is also the case, albeit under very different circumstances, as regards the law of China or India, for example.

The Muslim legal system is an autonomous legal system which is of a religious nature and predominantly based on the Koran. In a number of countries of Muslim tradition, it tends to be limited to the laws relating to personal status, although personal status can be rather broadly defined.

The term "mixed", which we have chosen over other terms such as "hybrid" or "composite", should not be construed restrictively, as certain authors have done. Thus this category includes political entities where two or more systems apply cumulatively or interactively, but also entities where there is a juxtaposition of systems as a result of more or less clearly defined fields of application.

Detailed reports on a country's economy, commerce, finances and other related information.

This database provides company information by country, including articles from business journals, magazines and newspapers including the Harvard Business Review, McKinsey Quarterly and many others.

To find books online or in print, use the UC Law SF Library catalog. You can also use this resource to search for journals or articles.

Locate books and articles available in libraries around the world. You can use the same subject headings from the searches shown above. Use the blue button in the item record to place an interlibrary loan request for the item.

A comprehensive index and research guide to current sources of codes and basic legislation in jurisdictions of the world.

An extensive list of foreign and international law research guides hosted at NYU School of Law.

A subject index to selected international and comparative law periodicals and collections of essays.

ChinaLawInfo, also known as Beida Fabao, pkulaw.com, or pkulaw.cn, is a comprehensive database that includes Chinese laws, regulations, and cases. It offers content in both Chinese (ChinaLawInfo) and English/Chinese (LawInfoChina). LawInfoChina is an excellent resource for finding English translations of Chinese laws, regulations, and judicial cases. This subscription database provides access to both the original Chinese texts and their English translations. It is accessible with IP access both on and off campus. By using LawInfoChina and comparing it with free Chinese law websites, you can be confident that you have located the most relevant laws and regulations on a specific topic.

Practical Law (from Westlaw) provides access to extensive global research guides and subject-based country comparison tools.

Free online access to European Union law and other E.U. documents, including daily editions of the Official Journal of the European Union, Court of Justice case law, and preparatory acts.

FILRD includes the publications of the American Society of International Law along with prominent Yearbooks from around the world, including the Hague Permanent Court of International Justice series. Includes U.S. Law Digests, International Tribunals/Judicial Decisions and more.

Provides access to a rapidly growing searchable database of 763,843 regulations from jurisdictions around the world.

An excellent source for UK cases: As well as the official Law Reports (1865-current), the Incorporated Council of Law Reporting for England and Wales (ICLR) publishes The Weekly Law Reports (1953-current), The Industrial Cases Reports (1972-current), The Business Law Reports (2007-current), The Public and Third Sector Law Reports (2009-current), and the Consolidated Index to leading law reports. ICLR case links also work from Lexis+.

Westlaw UK is an online legal information service which provides full text access to UK case law, legislation, legal journals, commentary, and current awareness alerts, as well as Scots Law and EU legal materials. LOGIN NOTE: UC Law SF faculty & students: - Login with your current individual Westlaw Username & Password.

This library enables legal scholars to research the constitutional and political development of every country in the world. It includes the current constitution for every country in its original language format and an English translation, as well as substantial constitutional histories for countries such as Australia, Brazil, China, France, Mexico, the United Kingdom, and many more. It also includes constitutional periodicals, thousands classic books, other related works such as the World Fact Book, links to scholarly articles and online resources, and bibliographic references.