Researching Foreign Law

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ResearchingForeign Law

• Mary M. McCormick, Head of Public Services
• Florida State University College of Law Library

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Where to Start

• Understand the structure of the legal system in
  the foreign country
• Look for Research Guides for the foreign country
• Identify the sources of law for the foreign
  country cases, statutes, regulations, executive
  decrees, etc.
• Identify what you are looking for Law?
  Summaries? Explanation? Analysis?

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Understanding the Structure of World Legal
Systems

• University of Ottawa World Legal Systems
• Flores and Reynolds, Foreign Law Guide
• Law Library Research Xchange Comparative and
  Foreign Law Guides

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Research Guides

• American Society of International Law
• LLRX
• JURIST
• Univ. of Chicago, DAngelo Law Library
• NYU School of Law Library

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Finding Sources of Foreign Law

• EISEL (ASILs Electronic Information System for
  International Law
• Library of Congress,
• Portals to the World
• GLIN
• World Law Institute

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Finding Sources of Foreign Law

• Martindale-Hubbell International Law Digest
• Jurist
• Legal Intelligence
• International and Comparative Law Subject Guide
• CATALaw Legal Resources by Country
• Westlaw and Lexis

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Finding the Item you are Looking for

• Look by subject
• Look by jurisdiction
• WebLUIS
• WorldCAT
• EISEL

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Laws in Translation

• Translations are rarely
• Authoritative
• Up-to-date
• Of known quality
• Tips on Translation
• Problems in Translating Foreign Law

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Databases for Scholarly Articles

• Social Science Research Network - SSRN
• JSTOR
• ISI Web of Science
• Hein Online
• Wilson Web
• PAIS
• Eureka ( for Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals)

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Databases for Cutting Edge Issues

• Current Contents
• Conference Papers
• Proceedings
• Papers First
• SSRN

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Discussion Lists

• INT-LAW
• EURO-LEX

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Social Science Research Network

• Use to find very recent, unpublished papers in
• Law
• Economics
• Financial Economics
• Accounting

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Social Science Research Network

• SSRN allows access to
• Working papers
• Papers from Conferences and Workshops
• Accepted articles
• SSRN has e-mail notification for subscribers of
  new postings
• FSU College of Law has a Working Papers Series

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Searching SSRN

• Searching is primitive
• Keywords in Title and Abstract
• Author
• SSRN Search Screen
• Because the search engine is so limited, you may
  need to use critical key words that should appear
  in an abstract.

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Results in SSRN

• Search results
• Red Diamond full text available
• No Red Diamond abstract only information for
  obtaining article from author
• Downloading full text
• Click on Download from SSRN
• Click Open
• You need Adobe Acrobat to open a document