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Chinese Law Research Guide

Resources for researching Chinese law.

Guide Overview

Introduction to Chinese Legal Research at UC Law SF

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.

Note

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:

Research Help

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.

Current Legal Topics & News

Legal News and Current Awareness

Subscription Databases
Free Web

English Language Chinese Law Blogs & Posts

Featured Blogs
Blogs
IP Law Blogs

China Law and News Podcasts

Podcast Collections
Individual Podcast Episodes
2022
2021
2020
Pre-2020
February 2010 - From Yale Law School's “Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series” Prof. Jerome Cohen

Other China News

Chinese Law Books

Find Books on your Chinese Law Topic at UC Law SF

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.

 

The following searches locate various series of books on Chinese law:

Online Treatises

Browsing for Books

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.

browse books

Find Books Outside of UC Law SF

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:

Google Book Search

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:

Chinese Law Articles

Preemption Check or Thorough Research

Find Articles and Book Chapters

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.

Full-Text Databases

Multidisciplinary 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.

Databases containing prepublication drafts of forthcoming articles

Select Bibliography of e-journals

SSRN's Legal Scholarship Network, 

includes the following e-journals: 

Search Indexes

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 and Disadvantages to using an Index
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.

Citations and Abbreviations

If you have a citation and you cannot decipher what the abbreviation means, you can use:

To determine if UC Law SF has online access to a journal.

Search for the by journal title in:

You can also search for the journal title in:

HeinOnline

Sample search for relevant journals

Bibliography of Academic Writings on Chinese Law

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.

Find articles in collections at other libraries

You can search for articles that may not be in the UC Law SF collections, using:

Obtain the full-text to articles that you have identified in Indexes, WorldCat or Google Scholar that are not in the UC Law SF Collection

If an article you have found is not in:

LawInfoChina

Introduction to LawInfoChina

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.

Search Advice

  • If you have difficulty accessing the LawInfoChina database, click "IP Login" at the top of page.   If the "IP Login" link doesn't work, then try switching browsers.  (Chrome and Firefox tend to be reliable.) 
  • See this example showing that we are not logged in. (Notice the empty User ID & Password boxes at the top of the screen.)
  • The default search is Title. You can use the pull-down menu to switch from Title search to Full-Text search. 
  • To the right of the search bar, is an Advanced Search option. Search by keyword, topic, issuing authority, and date. 
  • There are several LawInfoChina versions (to accommodate different browsers) including version 5 & version 6. Some links go to v.5 and others to v.6.

LawInfoChina search options

Materials in LawInfoChina

Chinese Language Subscriber Services

ChinaLawInfo search options (Chinese)

Westlaw

Westlaw Chinese Law Content

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.

Practical Law Global

The Practical Law resources on Westlaw offer a rich collection business and commercial resources for China. 

Examples of current in-depth content include:

  • Practice Notes
  • Standard Documents and Clauses
  • Checklists
  • Toolkits
  • Legal Updates
  • Country-by-Country Legal Research Guidance
  • Country Comparison Tools
  • Subject Specific Practice Resources
Chinese legal resources in Practical Law
Westlaw International Materials
Use the pull-down menu to toggle between Westlaw & Practical Law

Lexis

Lexis+ Chinese Law Content

Other search options on Lexis+ to find China legal information:

  •  Select Practice Area tab > Select International Law > Select All International Law Treatises, Practice Guides & Jurisprudence > Select one of the following:
  • Select Practice Area tab > Select International Law > Select
  • Select Practice Area tab > Select
  • Select News tab > Select International by Region > Select 

Select News tab > Select International by Country > Select

  • Other resources you can locate by typing the title in the main search box:

Other Subscription Databases

All Subscription Databases at UC Law SF

The UC Law SF Library subscribes to a number of Internet-accessible resources that may be useful in your research. You can access all of them on campus. Nearly all of them can also be accessed off campus after logging in to the UC Law SF proxy server with your email username/password.

The information in these databases is not comprehensive, and the English translations of the Chinese laws are not authoritative and not always accurate. This is the nature of English translations of foreign laws. When available, students should compare more than one English translation of a legal document.
 
In addition to LawInfoChina, Westlaw and Lexis, the databases shown below are recommended for Chinese legal research.

China and the Modern World: 1860-1950

Kluwer Arbitration database

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"

Bloomberg Law

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:

ProQuest Research Library

The Library's ProQuest subscription includes full-text access to a number of useful books and journals covering Chinese law including

Free Web Sources of Chinese Law

Judiciary: Cases & Court Information

China has four official online platforms for publicizing court information. For an overview of these resources, see the following White Papers

Laws & Regulations

General Legal Information

Business, Commercial, and Cybersecurity Law Resources

The CAC’s statutory basis

Select Chinese Law Research Guides

Featured Online Research Guides

Additional Online Research Guides

Print Research Guides

Statistics / UN Documentation / WTO Resources

Country Profiles, Legal System, Statistics

China & the WTO

Books at UC Law SF Library about China & the WTO

Journal on China and WTO in Print at UC Law SF Library

US-China Trade Books and Articles

Find Articles and Book Chapters

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. 

Full-Text Databases

Multidisciplinary 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.

Databases containing prepublication drafts of forthcoming articles

For more content, see the:

Find articles in collections at other libraries

You can search for articles that may not be in the UC Law SF collections, using:

Obtain the full-text to articles that you have identified in Indexes, WorldCat or Google Scholar that are not in the UC Law SF Collection

If an article you have found is not in: