Foreign and Comparative Law Research Guide

Map by Maximilian Dörrbecker.  (Creative Commons attribution-share-alike license via Wikimedia Commons).

Before you begin researching the law of a foreign jurisdiction, take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with its legal system. Developing a basic understanding of a jurisdiction's legal system will help you to determine what are the primary sources sources of law and what types of legal materials you can reasonably expect to find.

The two dominant legal traditions in the world are civil law systems, in which core principles are codified as primary sources of law, and common law systems, in which judge-made decisional law has equal standing with statutes enacted by legislatures and regulations adopted by administrative agencies.  

Some foreign jurisdictions, particularly those in Europe and the Western Hemisphere, have legal systems which fall exclusively within either the civil law or the common law tradition.  Other jurisdictions have mixed legal systems, which incorporate elements of two or more legal traditions.  This is especially true in Africa and Asia, where many countries that have adopted civil law or common law systems also have retained elements of customary law and/or religious law.

The electronic and print resources described below will help you to determine what kind of legal system is in place in a particular foreign jurisdiction.

For a brief overview of a foreign jurisdiction's legal system, consult one or more of the following online resources:

• JuriGlobe World Legal Systems
  This free resource, sponsored by the Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa, offers the following quick reference tools:
  • Legal Systems Index (alphabetical by jurisdiction)
  • Geographical Distribution of Legal Systems (mapped by region)
  • Civil Law Systems & Mixed Systems of Civil Law
  • Common Law Systems & Mixed Systems of Common Law
  • Customary Law Systems & Mixed Systems of Customary Law
  • Islamic Law Systems & Mixed Systems of Islamic Law
  • Mixed Legal Systems (all types)
     
• The Foreign Law Guide
  Content in this subscription database is organized by jurisdiction and by subject.  To browse by country, scroll down from the homepage and use the menus to select the desired jurisdiction.  After the page refreshes, click on the relevant links to access background information about the jurisdiction's legal system and its primary sources of law.
   
• GlobaLex
  Hosted by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU, this free resource offers jurisdiction-specific legal research guides for nearly every country in the world.  Each guide includes a narrative overview of the country's legal system.
   
  Although the interface is dated and text-heavy, the content is reliable and regularly updated (usually every three to five years).  Begin by clicking on the link labeled "Foreign Law."  Then scroll down the alphabetical list to find the desired jurisdiction.  Be sure to click on the link labeled "UPDATE" to the right of the country name to access the most current information. 

The Federal Judicial Center's Primer on the Civil Law System provides a helpful introduction to the civil law tradition. To develop a deeper, more nuanced understanding of the world's major legal traditions, or the legal system of a particular foreign jurisdiction, consult one or more of the print resources listed below:

To locate jurisdiction-specific resources from the Georgetown Law Library's collection, use the Advanced Search and select Law Library Catalog.  In the first line, select Subject as the search field and enter the name of the desired jurisdiction in the search box.  Use the remaining lines to search for additional words or exact phrases using the default Any Field setting.