To obtain the citation to a statute or code of a foreign jurisdiction, use Foreign Law Guide. Entries are arranged by jurisdiction and subject, and include both citations to the most recent version of a statute, as well as references to English-language translations and summaries.
Proper citation formats for foreign jurisdictions are listed in Table 2 of the 19th edition of the Bluebook. For Civil Law jurisdictions, citation of statutes may be to either a code or to the official gazette (for uncodified statutes).
For a general introduction to codification in Civil Law jurisdictions (i.e. European legal systems and their offspring), see John Henry Merryman and Rogelio Pérez-Perdomo, The Civil Law Tradition (3rd ed., 2007) (K585 .M467 2007).
.
To find the text of cited statutes, codes, and cases, begin by checking a comprehensive web portal, such as WorldLII (the World Legal Information Institute) or Lexadin (the World Law Guide). These web indexes provide links to thousands of web sites containing legal sources of all sorts. Many are open source sites, created by law firms or government agencies, such as justice ministries and court registries, responsible for creating or hosting authoritative, official versions of dispositive law.
When you use WorldLII, the best method usually is to link to the list of countries, select the jurisdiction of interest, and then select from among the links avaialable. Typically, these links will be indexed by type of material (e.g., court databases) or subject (e.g. tax law).
When you use Lexadin, you can choose initially between legislation or courts and cases (as well as several other categories of information). Having selected the type of material, you can then select your jurisdiction, and follow the links from there.
Beyond WorldLII and Lexadin, it is important to keep in mind that there are many specialized case law and statutory databases available on the internet that may not be indexed in either of these two web portals. For example, if you have a statutory citation to an official gazette, you might go directly to Government Gazettes Online to find the text of the cited statute. If looking for 18th century English criminal case law, you might use Proceedings of the Old Bailey, a database of more than 100,000 criminal trials concluded between 1714-1759. These are just two examples of the rich variety that exists on the internet, often times in open sources.
More traditional subscription databases, such as HeinOnline, Lexis.com, and WestLaw also contain substantial foreign law content, and are particularly useful for finding legal sources that may predate content freely available on the internet.
Many international organizations that serve as treaty depositaries, or otherwise focus on particular areas of law, have compiled databases of national legislation in their subject areas of interest. Examples are listed below.
Ecolex is a database of national statutes and case law related to environmental and natural resources law. It is a merger of databases created and maintained by the U.N. Food and Agricultural Organization, the U.N. Environmental Program, and the International Union for the conservation of nature.
WIPO Lex is a database of national legislation on all aspects of intellectual property, maintained by the World Intellectual Property Organization.
NatLex is a database of national labour, social security and related human rights legislation maintained by the International Labour Organization's International Labour Standards Department. Records in NATLEX provide abstracts of legislation and relevant citation information, indexed by keywords and by subject classifications. The ILO also maintains several other labor law databases, including CARIBLEX (labor laws of the 13 ILO member States of the English- and Dutch-speaking Caribbean), EPLex (employment termination laws of 85 countries), and HIV/AIDS Laws and Policies.
Pkulaw.cn is a database containing the law of the People’s Republic of China. It includes over 5,000 national and local laws and regulations translated into English, together with judicial interpretations issued by the Supreme People’s Court. It also includes over 500 judicial decisions translated into English, as well as news articles from 2000 onward.
Westlaw China is another database of law of the People’s Republic of China, containing statutes, regulations, cases, and secondary sources in Chinese and English. It currently includes 8,500 laws and regulations in English, as well as 5000 English-language case summaries and summaries of articles from law reviews. Case summaries are in the areas of intellectual property, competition, arbitration, and civil law and procedure. Special features include asubject index and an encyclopedic digest of 35 topics, 11 in English.
Statutes of the Republic of Korea is an English-language versions of some 1400 South Korean statutes and regulations from the Korean Legislation Research Institute (KLRI), a government-funded research institute.
Manupatra includes the full text of cases from the Supreme Court of India, the state High Courts, and courts during the colonial period. It also includes federal and state legislation, federal regulations, bills and committee reports of the federal parliament.
If you are searching for foreign constitutional provisions, use Constitutions of the World, which includes both national constitutions and constitutions of sub-national units, such as states, provinces, or territories. This database has a browse-by-country function, as well as a search template that permits you to search across constitutions for provisions on a single topic. This database also includes some historical constitutions, encyclopedic commentary, and bibliographies. All constitutions are in English translation.
Another excellent source for constitutional research is World Constitutions Illustrated. This database includes the current constitution of every country in the world, both in its original language and in at least one English language version. The database also includes some historical constitutions, together with amending laws, consolidations, and related laws. Finally, World Constitutions also includes for each country a listing of scholarly articles, books, external links to other web sites, as well as a news feed that can be useful for students looking for topics to write about.