by Lyonette Louis-Jacques
Foreign and International Law Librarian and Lecturer in Law
D'Angelo Law Library, University of Chicago Law School
llou@midway.uchicago.edu
Presented on Thursday, March 7, 2002, for the Continuing Education Committee of the Chicago Association of Law Libraries and sponsored by the Chicago Library System
Basic Documents of International Economic Law (ASIL; online on WESTLAW and LEXIS)(see also Documents supplements for International Law casebooks)
Bieber's Dictionary of Legal Abbreviations (3d ed., 1988 - the green one)
(note also LAWLINKS's list of common Legal Abbreviations, TP-ALL, and Google)
The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation
Encyclopedia of Public International Law
Restatement of the Law, The Foreign Relations Law of the United States (American Law Institute; also online on LEXIS and WESTLAW)
Thomas H. Reynolds & Arturo A. Flores, Foreign Law: Current Sources
of Codes and Legislation in Jurisdictions of the World (F.B. Rothman &
Co.)(multi-volume looseleaf)
http://www.foreignlawguide.com/
International Legal Materials (ILM, and its predecessor, the Supplement to the American Journal of International Law)(American Society of International Law)(online on LEXIS, WESTLAW, Hein Online)
Martindale-Hubbell International Law Digest (online on LEXIS)
http://www.martindale.com/xp/Martindale/Products/Law_Digest/law_digest.xml
Modern Legal Systems Cyclopedia
Parry and Grant Encyclopaedic Dictionary of International Law
World Almanac
World Factbook (CIA)
Europa World Year Book (include information on legal systems, including courts and addresses, for all countries, and information on international organizations; previous title was Europa Year Book)
Government Agencies (U.S. Department of State, Department of Commerce, USDOJ, USITC, USTR, USPTO, etc. - .gov; links to non-U.S. governments at http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govpub/resource/internat/foreign.html
IGO & NGO web pages (United Nations, European Union, World Trade Organization, World Intellectual Property Organization, ILO, OECD, OAS, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, etc - .org, .int, .ch); links to IGOs at http://www.library.northwestern.edu/govpub/resource/internat/igo.html
LEXIS (U.S. treaties, GATT/WTO panel decisions, ILM, full texts of statutes for Australia, Argentina, Canada, Central & Eastern Europe Legal Texts, China (PRC), France, Hungary, Mexico, Russia, UK; full texts of cases for Australia, Canada, Ireland, UK, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Mexico, Northern Ireland, New Zealand, South Africa Constitutional Law Reports, Scotland, Singapore, Brunei; European Court of Human Rights decisions (Council of Europe); European Union regulations, directives, decisions, cases; BBC; treatises)
WESTLAW (USTREATIES, GATT/WTO panel decisions (WTO-DEC), ILM, United Kingdom legal materials (Great Britain and Northern Ireland); Sweet & Maxwell publications, EU law; INT-ICJ; INT-ICTR; INT-ICTY; INT-IRAN; IACHR-OAS; NAFTA; IEL (international economic law documents); INTLENVL; Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, Mexico, Russia)
Google (or your favorite other Internet search engine)
http://www.google.com/
TP-ALL (full text journals and texts database on WESTLAW - includes
Practising Law Institute Course Handbooks - available separately also
in the PLI database)
(or full text searches in LEXIS' LAWREV library, ALLREV file)
How to Find the Law (9th ed., 1989, Cohen, Berring, & Olson)
Public International Law in a Nutshell (2d ed., 1990 has a section on "International legal research sources" at pages 243-257)
Legal Research in a Nutshell (7th ed., 2000, Cohen & Olson)(includes chapters on researching foreign and international law)
ASIL Guide to Electronic Resources for International Law
http://www.asil.org/resource/home.htm (electronic version)
http://www.asil.org/Bulletin.htm (print version)
LLRX.com: International/Foreign Law Resource Center
http://www.llrx.com/resources4.htm
Guide to Foreign and International Legal Databases (New York
University)
http://www.law.nyu.edu/library/foreign_intl/
Foreign and International Law Resources: An Annotated Guide to Web
Sites Around the World (Harvard)
http://www.law.harvard.edu/library/ref/ils_ref/annotated/index.htm
Legal Research on International Law Issues Using the Internet
(U of Chicago)
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/~llou/forintlaw.html
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/~llou/forintlaw.html#guides
Foreign Law: Legal Research Resources on the Internet (U
of Chicago)
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/~llou/foreignlaw.html
Foreign Law Librarians (Wiltrud Harms (UN & Human Rights specialist), Claire Germain (French lawyer and law librarian), Pedro Padilla Rosa (Latin American legal materials), Francisco Avalos (Mexican Law), Jonathan Pratter (ditto), Barbara Sloan (European Union), Mirela Roznovschi and Radu Popa (Eastern Europe), Bill McCloy (East Asia), etc.)
AALL Foreign, Comparative, and International Law SIS (and FCIL-SIS
listserv)
http://www.lawsch.uga.edu/fcil/fcil.html
People on electronic discussion groups such as EURO-LEX (send to listserv@listserv.dfn.de:
subscribe euro-lex Your NameINT-LAW (send to majordomo@listhost.ciesin.org the message:
subscribe int-lawLIS-LAW, ALLG-ANZ, CALL-L, etc.) and related law librarian organizations
Treaties in Force: A List of Treaties and Other International
Agreements of the United States (TIF; U.S. Department of State, Office
of the Legal Adviser; annual as of January...;2000 most recent
edition)
http://www.state.gov/s/l/c3431.htm
http://www.state.gov/www/global/legal_affairs/tifindex.html
Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General (annual as
of December...; 2000, parts 1&2 most recent edition; lists of
signatures, ratifications, accessions, etc., with full texts of
reservations; online version is updated seemingly every day)
http://untreaty.un.org/ENGLISH/bible/englishinternetbible/bible.asp
Multilateral Treaties : Index and Current Status (compiled and annotated within the University of Nottingham Treaty Centre by M.J. Bowman and D.J. Harris); not online
World Treaty Index
Multilateral Treaties Project (Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy,
Tufts University)
http://fletcher.tufts.edu/multilaterals.html
United Nations Treaty Collection (index and full text of bilateral and
multilateral treaties; digitized version of the United Nations Treaty
Series (U.N.T.S.))
http://untreaty.un.org/
Researching U. S. Treaties and Agreements (by Marci Hoffman,
Georgetown University Law Center)
http://www.llrx.com/features/ustreaty.htm
Researching Non-U. S. Treaties (by Stefanie Weigman, International
Legal Studies Library at Harvard Law School)
http://www.llrx.com/features/non_ustreaty.htm
ASIL Guide to Electronic Resources for International Law: Treaties (by
Jill McC. Watson)
http://www.asil.org/resource/treaty1.htm
Treaties and Other International Agreements: The Role of the United
States Senate (prepared by the Congressional Research Service,
January 2001; S. Prt. 106-71)
http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS11656 (text version)
http://purl.access.gpo.gov/GPO/LPS11657 (PDF format)
http://www.access.gpo.gov/congress/
Eur-Lex (European Union legal database)
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex
CELEX
http://europa.eu.int/celex/
United Nations Documents
http://www.un.org/
http://www.unhchr.ch/
See also Yearbook of the United Nations and United Nations Documentation Research Guide: International Law
SICE: Foreign Trade Information System (OAS)
http://www.sice.oas.org/
National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade
http://www.natlaw.com/
Reynolds & Flores' Foreign Law (green looseleaf set)
Matthew-Bender's Business Transactions in Germany, Doing Business in Japan
Sweet & Maxwell's Commercial Laws of Europe, European Commercial Cases
Tax Management Portfolios - Business Operations in...
Finding Foreign Law Online When Going Global
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/~llou/global.html
Local Libraries:
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/e/law/db/ref/catalogs.html
Libraries Strong for Foreign and International Law:
http://www.lib.uchicago.edu/~llou/forintlaw.html#catalogs