This guide includes links to many of the best websites for finding information about the laws and legal system of the People's Republic of China (PRC). It also includes links to websites covering China's business, political & legal culture.
The best online resource available to UC Law SF students is LawInfoChina
In researching Chinese law keep in mind that China has a unified legal system. Judges are seen as those who apply the law, with no power to create (or destroy) legal rules. China does not officially recognize cases or judicial precedents as a source of law. Former judgments can not be cited directly in the later judgments. Cases judged by higher courts may have de facto authority over lower courts.
China also has a unified court system. There is no jury system like the US. Judges play an active role in questioning all witnesses. Both the trial courts and the appellate courts try factual issues.
Court procedures are governed by two main guiding principles:
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.
UC Law SF Library offers extensive resources for Chinese 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 in Advanced Search by double clicking on Simple Search.
Books at UC Law SF are organized by call number. Most of the Chinese Law books are on the 5th floor in the KNN & KNQ 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. Of course, if you are on campus, browsing the shelves is a great way to find relevant books.
You can use these same subject headings to search for books in:
Search for books in a Bibliography or Index:
Or run key word searches in the full-text of books in:
If you find a print book that you want to read, but it is not in our library, you can place an Interlibrary Loan. You may not request e-books but you may request a chapter in an e-book. See:
To do a preemption check to ensure that no one else has written on the topic that you have in mind, you will want to do some thorough research. A logical way to do this is to start with the easiest full-text databases to search across many law journal articles at once. Each of these databases has a different collection of law journals, and sometimes there will be overlap. After running searches in full-text databases, you will want to search some free databases where people publish articles before they are officially published. Then you will want to search the Indexes, these databases cover a wider variety of journals, some of which will be outside of the scope of the full-text databases. Indexes largely provide you with information about the article, and usually have an abstract that will let you know whether or not the article is on your topic. If you want to see the full text of these articles, you may need to place an interlibrary loan if they are not available in the UC Law SF full-text databases.
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.
includes the following e-journals:
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.
If you have a citation and you cannot decipher what the abbreviation means, you can use:
The Bluebook by 
Prince's Bieber Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations! by Search for the by journal title in:
You can also search for the journal title in:
Sample search for relevant journals
If you find an article of interest to you, you can search for that article using the techniques described above, in the resources available at UC Law SF, SFPL, or beyond, using WorldCat.
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:
LawInfoChina is the English language database maintained by The Legal Information Center of Peking University. It includes the most important and typical legal documents—chosen to reflect current and predicted trends in Chinese legal practice. Also contains editorially enhanced versions of select cases, including the case background, facts, parties, trial and appellate court procedure, reasoning and law application, and the court decision. Select laws and regulations are available.
The two main sources of Chinese legal information on Westlaw are:
You may get better search results by going to each of these sections of Westlaw instead of using the Westlaw global search box.
The Practical Law resources on Westlaw offer a rich collection business and commercial resources for China.
Examples of current in-depth content include:
Other search options on Lexis+ to find China legal information:
Select News tab > Select International by Country > Select
An excellent one-stop online subscription service providing information about arbitration laws and regulations in China. At the Kluwer Arbitration website, select "Jurisdiction" and then "China"
Login with your UC Law SF email address and Bloomberg Law password.
Bloomberg Law does not have a lot of international content, but there are a few resources that could be useful in researching U.S.-China trade and business issues including:
The Library's ProQuest subscription includes full-text access to a number of useful books and journals covering Chinese law including
Chinese Legal Research by 
Research Guide to Chinese Trademark Law and Practice by 
Research Handbook on Chinese Environmental Law by 
Research on Selected China's Legal Issues of E-Business by 
Chinese Law and Legal Research by 
China and the WTO by 
The Political Economy of WTO Implementation and China's Approach to Litigation in the WTO by 
China's Implementation of the Rulings of the World Trade Organization by 
China and the WTO by 
US trade policy, China and the World Trade Organisation by To do a preemption check to ensure that no one else has written on the topic that you have in mind, you will want to do some thorough research. A logical way to do this is to start with the easiest full-text databases to search across many law journal articles at once. Each of these databases has a different collection of law journals, and sometimes there will be overlap. After running searches in full-text databases, you will want to search some free databases where people publish articles before they are officially published. Then you will want to search the Indexes, these databases cover a wider variety of journals, some of which will be outside of the scope of the full-text databases. Indexes largely provide you with information about the article, and usually have an abstract that will let you know whether or not the article is on your topic. If you want to see the full text of these articles, you may need to place an interlibrary loan if they are not available in the UC Law SF full-text databases.
Some sample searches are provided below. You can use the key words from these searches in other databases.
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.
For more content, see the:
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:
