Finding Foreign Law

Thanks to robust free access through government websites, as well as subscription resources with primary law, most American legal researchers can locate a U.S. state or federal court opinion or statute with ease. But what about finding primary legal materials from other countries? Online access can vary widely, and language barriers can also make searching difficult. Whenever you're tasked with tracking down legal materials from outside the U.S., keep these three helpful starting places in mind.

• The Bluebook, Table 2: Foreign Jurisdictions. While selective in the number of countries it covers, the legal citation manual The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (20th ed. 2015) has increased its attention to non-U.S. jurisdictions in recent editions. The Bluebook table for a particular country (listed alphabetically by country name in Table 2) highlights preferred sources and citation formats for most primary legal materials, and includes titles, dates, and URLs where available. Identifying the appropriate publication title is an excellent first step in tracking down the needed document in a library or on the web.
• Foreign Law Guide: A subscription database, available to current members of the Duke University community. Entries for a particular country will provide an overview of the legal system, details about primary sources of law, and a subject index. Foreign Law Guide includes pointers to online availability, in both free and subscription resources. Notes about English translations (either official or through unofficial secondary sources) are also often included.
• GlobaLex: A free website maintained by NYU Law's Hauser Global Law School Program, GlobaLex’s Foreign Law Research section provides detailed guides to researching the law of most countries, including some not featured in Foreign Law Guide (such as North Korea and South Sudan).

These guides are all a great preliminary step in locating legal materials for other countries. For additional resources and assistance, consult our research guide to Foreign & Comparative Law or Ask a Librarian.