Research Guides

ASIL Guide to Electronic Resources for International Law Explanatory guides for doing research in international law and international relations topics, with links to sources. An excellent starting point for the topics covered, including copyright, commercial arbitration, criminal law, family law, intellectual property, foreign primary law, refugees, trade, treaties, transport, and the WTO.

Brooklyn Law School Library Introduction to International Law Research Although written for those doing research at the Brooklyn Law School Library, contains good explanation and resources for researching international law.

GlobaLex is an electronic legal publication dedicated to international and foreign law research. Published by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU School of Law, GlobaLex is committed to the dissemination of high-level international, foreign, and comparative law research tools.

Harvard Law School Library Research Guides See the section for International, Foreign and Comparative Law Research Guides.

Legal Research on International Law Issues Using the Internet from Lyonette Louis-Jacques at the University of Chicago Law Library. A comprehensive and well-organized guide to research.

llrx.com Excellent guides to doing legal research in specific countries as well as guides to researching many international law topics, including human rights, international commercial arbitration, international criminal law, international economic law, international environmental law, private international law, treaties, and the United Nations.

Gateway Sites

Australasian Legal Information Institute (Austlii) See the World Law category for a list of resources by country and good information on international agreements and other topics in international law.

CataLaw Sites arranged by topic and region. Under region, choose international law to find a quality ranking of sites.

Columbia International Affairs Online (CIAONet) A gateway to working papers, policy briefs, journals, conference proceedings, maps and links. 

Council on Foreign Relations "The Council on Foreign Relations is dedicated to increasing America’s understanding of the world and contributing ideas to U.S. foreign policy. The Council accomplishes this mainly by promoting constructive debates and discussions, clarifying world issues, and publishing Foreign Affairs, the leading journal on global issues." The website collects important articles of interest grouped by topic and region.

EISIL from the American Society of International Law. A gateway to primary materials, authoritative web sites and helpful research guides to international law on the Internet.

Findlaw Subject categorization of legal sites. See the Foreign and International category for links to country sources and the usual international sites.

Foreign Affairs Online Searchable and browsable by topic or information source. Special section of links on the "Digital Divide".

Foreign and International Law Resources From the Harvard Law School Library.

Guide to Foreign and International Legal Databases from NYU Law Library. A very comprehensive list of links organized by subject.

Hieros Gamos A large practice-oriented site with many types of legal information. In the International area there are links to law of 230 countries, United Nations, NAFTA, European Union and other Organizations.

Jurist: the Legal Education Network. The World Law section contains basic information about the legal systems of many countries, as well as links to government, court and legal education sites within the countries.

LAWLINKS from Kent Law School, University of Kent at Canterbury. An annotated list of web sites for legal information. Particularly good sections on the European Union and UK resources.

LawResearch Internet Law Library  A browsable directory of internet law sites including many for international law and individual countries and governments.

Legal Information Institute from Cornell Law School. Legal information organized topically, by type and by source.

Political Science: a Net Station from the University of British Columbia Library.

SOSIG Law Gateway A UK site which also covers other jurisdictions, the EU, International law and law by subject area.

Washburn's International Law Page from Washburn University School of Law; links are arranged by subject in one A-Z list.

WWW Virtual Library -- International Affairs Resources Organized by topic, region, organization, and media sources.

WWW Virtual Library -- Law via Indiana University School of Law Under the topic Foreign and International Law, browse links by country and region.

Researching Specific Subjects

In addition to the sites below, see the many subject-specific guides at ASIL and llrx.com, listed above.

Air University Library Bibliographies Compiled bibliographies on military and intelligence topics.

Global Banking Law Database From the World Bank Group/ The International Monetary Fund. Banking law can be viewed or downloaded by jurisdiction or topic. 

Resources for International Business from Rutgers University.

Researching International Economic Law from the Institute of International Economic Law at Georgetown University Law Center.

Researching International Economic Law from the University of Houston Law Center.

Researching International Human Rights Law from the Georgetown University law library.

Getting Started in Human Rights Research: On-line and off-line resources from Harvard Law School.

Guide to Sources of Labour Information from the International Labour Organization.

Labor Research Portal from the Institute of Industrial Relations Library, University of California, Berkeley. Includes sections on globalization and international labor unions.

International Legal Research Tutorial Concentrates on treaties, customary law and international organizations; from librarians at UC Berkeley and Duke University.

How to Research NAFTA Issues: A Selective Bibliographic Checklist by Timothy F. Mulligan, O'Quinn Law Library, University of Houston Law Center.

Duke University Law Library Research Guide: NAFTA

Researching U. S. Treaties and Agreements by Marci Hoffman, UC Berkeley Law Library.

Researching Non-U. S. Treaties by Stefanie Weigman, International Legal Studies Library at Harvard Law School. 

United Nations Documentation Research Guide "This guide is designed for researchers and information professionals new to United Nations documentation. It provides an overview of the various types of documents and publications issued by the Organization (e.g, reports, resolutions, meeting records, sales publications, press releases) and gives guidance on how to work with them."

Laws of countries other than the U. S.

European Union Legal Materials "A Guide for Infrequent Users" (.pdf, 144kb) to aid in locating sources of EU law and official documents.

Foreign Governments from Northwestern University Library. An A-Z listing by country of foreign government web sites.

LawResearch Internet Law Library A browsable directory of internet law sites including many for international law and individual countries and governments.

Legal Information Institute Global resources Links to sources of national law material from around the world and also to sources on international law.

Library of Congress Guide to Law Online "The Global Legal Information Network (GLIN) maintains and provides a database of laws, regulations, and other complementary legal sources. The documents included in the database are contributed by the governments of the member nations from the original official texts...