Research Guides: Foreign, Comparative, and International Legal Research: Electronic Research Resources

Research Guides

GlobaLex
GlobaLex is an electronic legal publication dedicated to international and foreign law research. The information and articles published by GlobaLex represent both research and teaching resources used by legal academics, practitioners and other specialists around the world who are active either in foreign, international, and comparative law research or those focusing on their own domestic law.
Foreign Law Guide
FLG contains relevant information on sources of foreign law, including bibliographic citations to legislation.

Open Access Treaty Resources

League of Nations Treaty Series
Database on treaties and international agreements recorded with and published by the League of Nations.
United Nations Treaty Series Online
The UN Treaty Series is a searchable database containing all treaties and international agreements filed and recorded by the UN Secretariat since 1945.
Treaties in Force
The U.S. Department of State publishes Treaties in Force, an annual listing of bilateral and multilateral treaties and international agreements to which the United States is a party.

Subscription Databases

HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline has vast collections related to foreign and international law, including major treaty publications and treaty indexes for the UN, multilateral and U.S. treaties, other UN materials, journals, and historical books.Two excellent resources offered through Hein are World Treaty Library and World Constitutions Illustrated.
Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (IFLP) This link opens in a new window
A subject index to selected international and comparative law periodicals and collections of essays. The IFLP database coverage includes records from 1984 to date.
Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law This link opens in a new window
Contains peer-reviewed articles on every aspect of public international law.
Written and edited by an incomparable team of over 800 scholars and practitioners, published in partnership with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, and updated throughout the year, this major reference work is essential for anyone researching or teaching international law.
Oxford Reports on International Law
This resource includes Oxford Reports on International Human Rights Law which covers international law jurisprudence. All reported decisions
have a headnote and the full text of the decision and are linked to the
Oxford Law Citator.
Oxford bibliographies. International law This link opens in a new window
Oxford Bibliographies in International Law is designed to provide authoritative guidance. The field is rife with debate and controversy, as with most anything that deals with such a complex system of rules and principles meant to govern the relations between states and other institutional subjects, such as the United Nations or the European Union. This resource covers areas related to courts and procedure, history of international law, human rights, international criminal law, international economic law, international environmental law, international humanitarian law, specific nations and regions, statehood, territory and sea law, theory of international law, use of force, and sources, foundations, and principles of international law.
JSTOR This link opens in a new window
Online archive of peer reviewed/scholarly journals in all disciplines.

Subject-Specific Open Access Resources

FAOLEX
FAOLEX is a comprehensive and up-to-date legislative and policy database, one of the world's largest online repositories of national laws, regulations and policies on food, agriculture and natural resources management.
WIPO Lex
WIPO Lex provides access to legal information pertaining to intellectual property globally. Contains national and regional IP legislation, WIPO administered and IP related treaties, and judicial decisions of national and regional courts on IP.
ECOLEX
ECOLEX combines the environmental law information holdings of FAO, IUCN and UNEP, seeks to put this information at the disposal of users world-wide, in an easily accessible service, employing modern technology. It includes information on treaties, international soft-law and other non-binding policy and technical guidance documents, national legislation, judicial decisions, and law and policy literature.
ECOLEX combines the environmental law information holdings of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), seeks to put this information at the disposal of users world-wide, in an easily accessible service, employing modern technology. It includes information on treaties, international soft-law and other non-binding policy and technical guidance documents, national legislation, judicial decisions, and law and policy literature.
ICSID Investment Disputes
The International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID) maintains a database that covers all cases registered at ICSID.

Open-Access Resources

WorldLII
The World Legal Information Institute is a free legal information database with coverage that includes case law, legislation and other legal materials from numerous jurisdictions.
Constitute
All of the world's constitutions in force, indexed by topic.
EUR-lex
Comprehensive access to EU legal documents, including treaties, legal acts, and preparatory documents.
EU Law
Primary website of the EU, providing guidance on legislative procedures and databases that include primary legal sources.

Gazettes

Foreign Legal Gazettes in the Law Library of Congress
The Law Library of Congress' collection of foreign official gazettes, containing a wide range of primary sources of law.