Skip to Main Content

Library Guide for the Chicago Journal of International Law (CJIL)

Foreign & Comparative Law Databases

Australasian Legal Information Institute (AustLII).

ChinaLawInfo (Chinese law database - Chinese-language interface version; see also LawInfoChina - English-language interface).

Constitute: The World's Constitutions to Read, Search, and Compare (comparative constitutions/constitutional law).

Constitutions of the Countries of the World - full text of foreign constitutions in English, English translation, with constitutional chronology, and bibliographies.  See also Historical Constitutions.

Constitutions of Dependencies and Territories - full text of foreign constitutions in English, English translation, with chronologies, and bibliographies.  See also Historical Constitutions.

Crime, Punishment, and Popular Culture, 1790-1920- "The collection covers Europe, North America, India, and the Antipodes and includes [archival] material in English, Spanish, French, Italian, and German."

Early English Books Online (EEBO) (inlcudes the Statutes at Large and law books).

Early European Books (printed sources to 1700).

Elgar Encyclopedia of Private International Law.

Encyclopedia of Law and Religion Online (Gerhard Robbers and W. Cole Durham eds., Leiden: Brill, [2015- ]) - The Encyclopedia covers Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, Oceania, international organizations and special territories (e.g. Gibraltar, Greenland). Each article provides social facts, historical background, the position of religion in the legal system, individual religious freedoms, active religious communities, including legal status and labor law, and religious assistance in public institutions, legal position of religious personnel and members of religious orders, matrimonial and familial laws, religious and criminal laws, and country-specific issues.

English Reports, Full Reprint (1220-1867) (via HeinOnline).

Foreign Law Guide - Reynolds & Flores' guide to legal systems and sources of major codes, court cases, and other primary and secondary law for jurisdictions of the world (including information on English translations, law by subject,  and links to websites).

Getting the Deal Through - "provides international comparative guides to law and regulation in close to 100 practice areas and more than 100 jurisdictions, with concise explanations to the most important legal and regulatory matters that arise in deals and disputes worldwide," including antitrust regulation and intellectual property. Also available through Bloomberg Law (under the "Search & Browse" tab --> "Books & Treatises").

Global Regulation - contains unofficial English-language machine translations of laws from many jurisdictions. You can do one Global Law Search (of laws from 90 countries) or search individual country's laws via the Global Regulation Law Database Coverage Details page. The page also lists the total number of laws for each country or jurisdiction (including the European Union) and has a scope of coverage map.

GlobaLex - a free online legal publication comprising research guides, tools, and articles on foreign, comparative, and international law topics written by scholars, lawyers, and law librarians well known in their respective fields. GlobaLex has foreign legal research guides for over 100 countries, over 50 international legal research topics from the African Union to Human Trafficking to International Treaties to the United Nations, and guides to researching foreign law generally, African law, comparative family law, religious legal systems, and the law of Latin American countries. GlobaLex is published by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU School of Law.

Guide to Law Online (Law Library of Congress) - include links to foreign primary law, legal research guides, and general country resources under "Nations of the World", international organizations under "International and Multinational", and the Indigenous Law Portal.

HeinOnline: Australian Law Reform Commission (ALRC) Library

HeinOnline: Canada Supreme Court Reports

HeinOnline: English Reports

HeinOnline: European Center for Minority Issues.

HeinOnline: International Journal of the Jurisprudence of Family Library

HeinOnline: Israel Law Reports (and Israel Law Review).

HeinOnline: Law in Eastern Europe - This collection of books, published by Brill, has been digitized for the first time and made available via HeinOnline. This series of more than 60 titles showcases the development, enactment, and impact of the rule of law in Eastern Europe.

HeinOnline: Legal Classics (includes foreign legal treatises such as on continental European legal history).

HeinOnline: Multinational Sources Compared: A Subject and Jurisdiction Index.

HeinOnline: Parker School of Foreign and Comparative Law Publications - includes more than 50 publications from the prestigious Parker School of Foreign & Comparative Law at Columbia Law School, such as the 22-volume set Charles Szladits's Bibliography on Foreign and Comparative Law and An Introduction to the Legal System of the United States by Allan Farnsworth.

HeinOnline: Philippine Law Collection.

HeinOnline: Provincial Statutes of Canada.

HeinOnline: Religion and the Law.

HeinOnline: Revised Statutes of Canada.

HeinOnline:  Scottish Legal History (Stair Society).

HeinOnline:  Selden Society Publications and the History of Early English Law.

HeinOnline:  Session Laws Library (Australia, Bahamas, Canada).

HeinOnline: Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law.

HeinOnline: Statutes of the Realm.

HeinOnline:  World Constitutions Illustrated (WCI; including current and historical foreign constitutions and constitutional law monographs).

HeinOnline:  World Trials Library.

ICLR: The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting forEngland & Wales - ICLR is the authorized publisher of The Law Reports for the UK Supreme Court, Courts of Appeals, and High Courts of England and Wales. In addition to case reports and summaries, ICLR offers access to UK legislation through integration with legislation.gov.uk. ICLR also includes a citator, a Briefcase function and print and PDF output options. Supreme Court and House of Lords judgments include a report of the arguments of counsel. Case coverage is from 1865 to present.

Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (IFLP).

International Comparative Legal Guides (ICLG, Global Legal Group) - Free online access to content in 46 practice areas for 140 jurisdictions.

International Encyclopaedia of Laws (IEL) (encyclopedia/monographic sets on 25 areas of law online via Kluwer Law International).  See our Guide for detailed contents.

iSinoLaw (Chinese law database with English translations).

JustCite - Justis citator for UK Statutes and International Law Reports (I.L.R.).

Justis:  Singapore Law Reports (SLR).

Justis:  UK Statutes - includes every Act of Parliament from the 13th century to the present, with PDF images and noter-up.  Some similar content in Statutes of the Realm via HeinOnline and Statutes at Large via ECCO.

LawInfoChina - English-language interface version, Chinese law database; see also ChinaLawInfo, Chinese-language interface version.

Lexis UK Library - Full text database of UK case law, legislation, and commentary, including Halsbury's Laws, legal treatises, handbooks, and law journals. Lexis Library also has cases from Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and from the Commonwealth Law Reports.

LexisNexis for Law Students - includes case-law for Australia, Canada, China (via the LNCHNL file), England & Wales, Hong Kong, India (not updated), Ireland, Israel (Supreme Court), Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Northern Ireland, Scotland, South Africa (constitutional and tax cases), United Kingdom; Doing Business .../Business Transactions in...(Matthew Bender treatises).;  non-English news.

LLMC Digital covers historical government documents (constitutions, statutes/statutory compilations, codes, case reports, treaties) and legal titles from multiple foreign jurisdictions with strong collections of works from Canada, Cuba, Germany, Haiti, and the United Kingdom; includes pre-1920 international law treatises. Has special focus collections on canon law, ancient legal systems, Blackstone, comparative law, Islamic law, Roman law, Dutch Colonial Studies, Pacific Studies, and the British Empire.

The Making of Modern Law: Legal Treatises, 1800-1926 (Gale/Cengage Learning)(includes historical UK law treatises).

The Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative and International Law, 1600-1926 (Gale/Cengage Learning) - includes classic international law treatises (books/monographs), such as works by Gentili, Grotius, Selden, Zouche, Pufendorf, Bijnkershoek, Wolff, Vattel, Martens, Mackintosh, and Wheaton; pre-1900s non-U.S. legal treatises, principally from Argentina, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Netherland, South Africa, Spain, and Switzerland; and works comparing more than one legal system, and on Roman Law, Islamic Law, Jewish Law, and Ancient Law. Works are mostly in English and Western European languages.

The Making of Modern Law: Foreign Primary Sources: 1600-1970 (Gale/Cengage Learning) - World civil law collection includes historical regulations, session laws, journals, codes and commentaries of Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Great Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and other African, Asian, European, and Latin American jurisdictions. Analogous materials from canon law and Roman law are also included. Searches can be limited by content type, country, language (Dutch, English, French, German, Irish, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish), and by type of illustrated work.

Manupatra (Indian law database).

Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law(MPECCOL).

Nevo Israel Legal Database.

OECDiLibrary (was SourceOECD).

Oxford Constitutions of the World - contains fully-translated English-language versions of all the world's constitutions (both national and sub-national), accompanied by individual commentaries, supplementary materials, including foundation documents, historical constitutions, and amendment Acts/laws.

Oxford Handbook of Roman Law and Society - "surveys contemporary research into Roman law and society. More than a guide to Roman law as a doctrinal system, it employs the full resources of contemporary legal history, from comparison to popular constitutionalism, from international private law to law and society."

Oxford Handbooks Online in Criminology and Criminal Justice - Oxford Handbooks in Criminology bring together the world's leading scholars to discuss research and the latest thinking in a range of major topics in criminology. Containing specially-commissioned essays with extensive referencing to further reading, the handbooks offer both thorough introductions to topics in the discipline, and a useful reference resource for scholars and advanced students.

Practical Law Global - transactional law resource that provides model documents (with legal drafting and negotiating tips), step-by-step checklists, timelines, handy overviews of transactional practice areas, and legal updates on the latest market developments. PLC focuses on corporate, securities, and finance law. Available via Westlaw.

SCC Online - “India’s premier legal database. Access complete coverage of the Supreme Court, all High Courts, Tribunals and Commissions, Statutory Material and many foreign jurisdictions and International material.”

SourceOECD (see OECD iLibrary)- includes economic surveys, labor and population statistics,  member-country competition policy information, and the OECD Journal of Competition Law and Policy (foreign antitrust law).

vLex Global - foreign law database which contains cases, statutes, and other legal materials in 13 languages for 134 countries. It is strongest for the law of the following countries: United States, Canada, Mexico, Spain, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Panama, Ecuador, Uruguay, Venezuela, Puerto Rico, India, Portugal, Italy, the UK, Belgium, and France. It includes collections of primary material for the European Union and other jurisdictions. vLex Global features automatic parallel translation, and includes secondary materials.

Wangfang Data: Policies and Laws of China (PLOC) (database via Chinese Studies).

Westlaw - includes case-law for Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, and the UK; U.S. treaties.

WIPO Lex (World Intellectual Property Organization) - contains national laws and treaties on copyright, patents, and trademarks, as well as intellectual property (IP)-related legislation such as civil codes, constitutions, etc.

Witchcraft in Europe and America (includes transcripts of trials and other legal documents from 1500 to 1930).

World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII).  Includes databases of foreign primary and secondary law.

Subject Specialist

Profile Photo
Lyonette Louis-Jacques
Contact:
Foreign and International Law
Librarian and Lecturer in Law

D'Angelo Law Library
University of Chicago Law School
773-702-9612