LibGuides: International Human Rights: Foreign Law

Researching Foreign Law

International human rights law research often includes the domestic law of other countries, which we call foreign law. Here are a few research guides and sources for foreign law.

Foreign Law Guide
This is the most up-to-date and authoritative research guide for foreign law and should be your first stop. Includes detailed descriptions of the legal systems of each country.

vLex This link opens in a new window
vLex is home to the largest collection of legal and regulatory information in the world. This includes exclusive collections of case law, legislation, books and journals from across both common law and civil law regions. Machine translation into English is also available (if not completely accurate, it can at least give you an idea of what the original means). In 2019, vLex acquired JustisOne, and is now home to their comprehensive full text online database of EU, UK and Irish case law and legislation. The database covers primary case law dating back to 1163 and legislation back to 1235.

WorldLII.org
Online law collected by the 14 Legal Information Institutes world-wide. Codes, legislation, case law, and regulations from over 123 jurisdictions.
CanLII
Statutes, case law, regulations, and commentary on Canadian Federal and Provincial Law, from the Canadian Legal Information Institute.
EUR-Lex
The legal portal for the European Union. It has all EU legislation, regulations, and case law. It also has some national legislation and case law for the member states.
LegislatiONline.org
From the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), this provides direct access to international norms and standards relating to specific human dimension issues (including many international human rights issues) as well as to domestic legislation and other documents of relevance to these issues.
WIPO's Collection of Laws for Electronic Access
WIPO's Collection of Laws for Electronic Access database provides access to intellectual property legislation from a wide range of countries and regions as well as to treaties on intellectual property
LLMC-Digital
Along with a lot of U.S. primary legal materials, LLMC-Digital has in its collection some foreign law, including the British Foreign & State Papers, German, Canadian, and other law and commentary.

GlobaLex This link opens in a new window
"GlobaLex is an electronic legal publication dedicated to international and foreign law research. Published by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU School of Law, GlobaLex is committed to the dissemination of high-level international, foreign, and comparative law research tools in order to accommodate the needs of an increasingly global educational and practicing legal world."

World Law Guide
Links to online law from over 180 countries, from Lexadin (Netherlands).
Guide to Law Online: Nations of the World
Guide to foreign law from the Library of Congress.
Global Legal Monitor
Timely news on legal developments from around the world from the Library of Congress.
Locating Foreign Civil Codes
An excellent article on finding foreign codes by Lyonette Louis-Jacques at the University of Chicago.
Official Gazettes & Civil Society Documentation
Official gazettes from 10 African and Persian Gulf nations where the integrity of the public record is at risk.
Finding European case law using the ECLI
It's a bit into the weeds, but if you need to find obscure case law from an EU country, you need to understand how the European Case Law Identifier (ELCI) works.
LLRX's comparative & foreign law guides
Links to the LLRX's comparative & foreign law guides, which are few and can be somewhat dated, but which are nonetheless useful.
LegisPALOP+TL
The Official Legal Database of the African Portuguese Speaking Countries (Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé, & Principe) & East-Timor. Exclusively in Portugese, free registration required.

Pence Law Library Guides

International Human Rights: Foreign Law

Researching Foreign Law