Foreign and Comparative Law

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This section of the guide focuses on sources for primary law for selected countries, such as Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United Kingdom. The Law Library collects the law for many jurisdictions, so please ask if you need to research other countries. For more assistance researching foreign law, see the Researching Foreign and Comparative Law guide. Some of the databases listed below with "UCB only" require that you set the proxy settings on your browser in order to access these materials from home. You will also need to enter your CALNET Id and Passphrase to gain access to these databases.

Constitutions

• Blaustein, Albert P., Constitutions of the Countries of the World (Dobbs Ferry, NY: Oceana Publications, 1971-) [BSR K44 .C755]. This resource is also available on the web, see the Law Library's list of databases.
• International Constitutional Law.
• Constitution Finder (University of Richmond).
• Researching Constitutional Law on the Internet (University of Chicago).
• Collection of links to Constitutional Law sites on the Internet (WashLaw).

Legislation

• T. Reynolds & A. Flores, Foreign Law: Current Sources of Codes and Basic Legislation in Jurisdictions of the World (Littleton, CO: Rothman, 1989-) [Reference Desk K20.A1 R49]. See also the electronic version, Foreign Law Guide (UCB only). Arranged by country, it provides information on the legal system, legal resources, and information about selected legislation by topic. See the following topics: aliens, citizenship and nationality, and immigration and emigration.
• Country of Origin and Legal Information (UNHCR). Arranged by country, this portion of the UNHCR site contains legislation and other information.
• Annual Review of Population Law. This web site contains a database of summaries and excerpts of legislation, constitutions, court decisions, and other official government documents from every country in the world relating to population policies, reproductive rights and health, women's rights, HIV/AIDS and related topics.
• Legislationonline. Contains national legislation and other documents from the OSCE participating States regarding human rights issues and the rule of law. See the Citizenship and Migration sections in particular.
• An Annotated Guide to Web Sites Around the World (Harvard Law Library). Links to country web sites and national laws by subject.
• A Selective List of Guides to Foreign Legal Research (Columbia Law Library). Links to research guides for many countries.

Case law

• Researching Asylum Cases (UC Berkeley Law Library). This guide covers basic case law research for Australia, Canada, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the United States.
• Refugee Case Law (University of Michigan). Database containing contains cases from the highest national courts of Australia, Austria, Canada, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
• Court Decisions by Country (Refugee Law Center). Provides selected decisions from Australia, Canada, England, New Zealand and the United States.

Prepared by Marci Hoffman, International and Foreign Law Librarian, UC Berkeley Law Library, January 2006.