introduction
When using online sources to find foreign law, you will find that the quality, updating, and depth of resources can vary widely. Sometimes the information is provided by a government office or agency, sometimes it has been gathered together by an educational institution, and many times, it has been gathered together or linked to by a non-profit organization, such as the Legal Information Institute. Some websites will provide links to repositories of foreign law, and others will actually provide the full text of laws or court reports.
Provided to the right are some of our favorite foreign law websites. You should also refer to our Foreign and International Law Gateways guide, where we have gathered together resources for constitutions, and constitutional courts, government offices and ministries, foreign laws by subject, as well as regional sources of law for various countries.
Online Sources of Foreign Law
- Legal Information InstitutesThis link points to the World LII, from which you can also find the smaller, region, or country-specific legal information institutes.
- Lexadin: The World Law GuideIncludes more than 56,000 links to legal sites for over 180 countries. For students, the most helpful portions of the site will be Courts and Cases, Articles, Legislation, and Indices (provides access to many LIIs, see above.)
- Harvard Law Library's Foreign and International Law GatewaysThese web pages link you out to where you can find laws by subject area for many countries. It also provides information on how to find the constitutions of many countries, government offices, and country reports.
- Lexis Nexis JurisClasseur (also known as Lexis Nexis France)
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Searchable only in French. Includes legal encyclopedias, journals/law reviews, laws, regulations, case law, parliamentary responses, bibliographies, news, and some EU materials. - Jutastat
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Be sure to click on "subscriber access" once you get to the home page for this database which contains case law and the Statutes of Zimbabwe, as well as case law from the South African Appellate Division Reports, South African Law Reports, and the Statutes of South Africa. - LLMC Digital
