Welcome!
Welcome to our People's Republic of China Legal Research Guide. This guide provides some useful resources for the study of Chinese law and important materials available through Harvard Library and the Harvard Law School Library. If you have reference questions on Chinese law, you may request a research consultation, or email our Reference Department at research@law.harvard.edu.
Chinese Legal System
The Chinese legal system is a socialist system of law based primarily on the Civil Law model. The diagram below from the Law Library of Congress illustrates the structure of the Chinese court system:
The following sources provide a good introduction to the Chinese legal structure:
- The Law Library of Congress' Introduction to China's Legal Structure
- A Brief Introduction to the Chinese Judicial System and Court Hierarchy by Yifan Wang, Sarah Biddulph and Andrew Godwin.
- China’s Political Institutions and Leaders in Charts by Susan V. Lawrence, Specialist in Asian Affairs, Congressional Research Service.
- The Legal System of China from Pkulaw.com
China Law Research Guides
Many libraries or librarians have created useful research guides on Chinese legal research. If you don't find what you are looking for on this guide, you should also take a look at these other research guides.
Chinese Studies Research Guide
General research guides for Chinese studies are also valuable sources for the study of Chinese law.
- Research Guide for Chinese StudiesCheck out this research guide by the Harvard-Yenching Library for social science and humanities resources on China.
- Online Resources for Chinese Studies in North American LibrariesFrom the Library of Congress, this research guide provides introductions to library collections and hyperlinks to resources on Chinese studies in major North American libraries.