F. Researching the Domestic Laws of Foreign Countries

• Author: Ted Tjaden
• Profession: National Director of Knowledge Management McMillan LLP
• Pages: 179-183

Page 179

Governments around the world are increasingly publishing their legislation and case law for free on the Internet. The scope and depth of such material is variable from country to country. Equally important is the notion that it is rare for countries whose official languages are not English to publish their primary sources of law in English. Therefore, do not expect to get Italian case law in English for free on the Internet. Most primary sources of law are published in the vernacu-

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lar or "native" tongue. It also goes without saying that lawyers should not provide legal advice outside of the jurisdiction in which they are licensed to practise law. Nonetheless, access to foreign laws still plays an important role for lawyers in getting a sense of what foreign law might be with the goal of getting an understanding of the foreign law and assessing when it might be necessary to retain counsel from that foreign jurisdiction to provide a formal legal opinion.

There are a number of excellent print and online sources for finding the domestic laws of foreign countries (set out below in no particular order):⁴⁰

· Reynolds, Thomas H. & Arturo A. Flores. Foreign Law: Current Sources of Codes and Basic Legislation in Jurisdictions of the World. Littleton, CO: F.B. Rothman, 1989. Also available online via subscription is the Foreign Law Guide: www.foreignlawguide.com

As described in the online version of this product, the Foreign Law Guide "is designed for the practitioner, scholar, and researcher and provides essential information on primary and secondary sources of foreign law - what it is, where to find it, and how to use it. It contains information on more than 170 jurisdictions from major nations to crown colonies, semi-independent states and supra-national regional organizations. The work is comprehensive in content and global in scope and contains exhaustive links within the work and to many URLS on the world level."

· LEXISNEXIS Martindale-Hubbell. International Law Digest (3 volumes). Also available online on LEXISNEXIS Quicklaw by subscription.

This three-volume set, often included in the multi-volume legal directory published by Martindale-Hubbell, provides digests of the laws of the fifty states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands, and provides summaries of the laws of over sixty countries, in addition to the complete texts of over fifty Uniform and Model Acts and International Conventions.

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