This research guide focuses on English language sources of Japanese law. It includes:
If you have any questions on your research stop by the Reference Desk and ask a Librarian, or e-mail Dean Deane, Foreign, Comparative & International Law Librarian and book an appointment to discuss your research.
These resources may be useful to ensure that your topic has not been written in a non-law journal, but these databases may also be useful later when you are doing research for your paper, because you may want to use knowledge (including statistics) from other disciplines to support your arguments.
If you want to be thorough in your searching, or if you are having difficulty finding relevant articles, you can try searching a journal index. Index searches are only search the title or abstract of the article, (NOT a full-text search).
| Advantages to Index Searching | Disadvantages to Index Searching |
|---|---|
| Legal periodical indexes allow you to search nearly all U.S. law review articles from 1918 to present. Therefore, searching these indexes allows you to search more journal articles than you can search in Lexis or Westlaw. | After you find the citation, you still need to find the full-text. |
| Good for historical research. | Your search is limited to title and abstract. |
| Index searching can help you eliminate many irrelevant articles from your full-text search results. But after you find the citation, you then need to find the full-text. |
Once you find a citation to an article, search for the full-text in the UC law SF Law Library's e-Journals List.
Search for the by journal title in:
You can also search for the journal title in:
You can search for articles that may not be in the UC Law SF collections, using:
If an article you have found is not in:
UC Law SF Library offers extensive resources for Japanese law research, including print & e-books. If you do not see the books that you need, you can borrow books from other institutions via interlibrary loans.
Here are some searches that you may want to try using in various databases. Following the links takes you to that search in the UC Law SF catalog. Use filters to refine your search:
You can use these same subject headings to search for books in:
Or run key word searches in the full text of books in:
If you find a book that you want to read, but it is not in our library, you can place an Interlibrary Loan. See:
It might also be worth looking for subject-specific books with country-by-country summaries of the law. For example, these titles all have good current chapters on Japan:
World Arbitration Reporter: International encyclopaedia of arbitration law and practice by 
The Littler Mendelson Guide to International Employment and Labor Law by 
International Labor and Employment Laws by 
International Encyclopaedia of Laws: Labour Law and Industrial Relations by You can find these types of sources by combining multiple subjects using an Advanced Search in the Library Catalog. See below for some sample searches.
These types of searches might find books with sections on Japan even if the subject of the book is not about Japan.
The Japanese Legal System by 
Competition Law and Policy in Japan and the EU by 
The Changing Role of Law in Japan by 
Legal Issues in Japanese Real Estate Investment by 
The Quest for Japan's New Constitution by 
The Constitution of Japan by Books at UC Law SF are organized by call number. Most of the Japanese Law books are on the 5th floor in the KNX call number range.
If you find a book that looks interesting and you are not on campus, locate the book in our library catalog, then click on the book title, and then scroll to the bottom of the screen to virtually browse the titles nearby on the shelf. If you are on campus, browsing the shelves is a great way to find relevant books.
There are Japanese news sources and a limited number of Japanese secondary law sources available on Lexis. They can be found by following these paths:
Some of the best Lexis news sources on Japan include:
Westlaw has sources available to help you locate: 1) news, 2) journal articles, 3) legal analysis, and 4) law related business information about Japan.
News sources include:
The best resources with legal analysis of Japanese law in Westlaw will be located by selecting:
Some of the best Bloomberg Law resources covering law in Japan include:
Many Japanese government agencies issue official white papers summarizing key policies, laws and legislation. The websites listed below link to some of these documents:
Maintains databases of selected Japanese Legal Information including:
World Arbitration Reporter: International encyclopaedia of arbitration law and practice by 
The Development of Jury Service in Japan by 
The Rule of Law in Japan by 
Enterprise Law: contracts, markets, and laws in the US and Japan by 
Japanese Business Law by 
Corporations and Partnerships in Japan by 
The Annotated Constitution of Japan by The Constitution of Japan: a contextual analysis by The Quest for Japan's New Constitution: an analysis of visions and constitutional reform proposals, 1980-2009 by 
Japanese Constitutional Revisionism and Civic Activism by Japanese Business Law by 
Japanese Law by The Development of Jury Service in Japan by 
National Criminal Law in a Comparative Legal Context by 
Crime and Justice in Contemporary Japan by 
International Environmental Law: The Practitioner's Guide to the Laws of the Planet by 
The Japanese Legal System by 
Japanese Patent Litigation by 
Guide to Foreign and International Legal Citations by 
Prince's Bieber Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations by 
Princes Dictionary of Legal Citations by The modern Japanese legal system is based on the civil law system, following the model of 19th Century European legal systems, especially the legal codes of Germany and France. Japan established its legal system when imperial rule to Japan was restored in 1868 as part of the Meiji Restoration.
The current Japanese legal system is a hybrid of continental and American law. Both the Civil Law concepts and the more recent Common Law influences are all effected by traditional Japanese values.