An Introduction to Foreign and International Legal Research Tools
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
University of Colorado Law School Colorado Law Scholarly Commons Articles Colorado Law Faculty Scholarship 2016 An Introduction to Foreign and International Legal Research Tools Nick Harrell University of Colorado Law School Follow this and additional works at: https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons, International Law Commons, and the Legal Writing and Research Commons Citation Information Nick Harrell, An Introduction to Foreign and International Legal Research Tools, Colo. Law., Aug. 2016, at 59, available at http://scholar.law.colorado.edu/articles/199/. Copyright Statement Copyright protected. Use of materials from this collection beyond the exceptions provided for in the Fair Use and Educational Use clauses of the U.S. Copyright Law may violate federal law. Permission to publish or reproduce is required. This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Colorado Law Faculty Scholarship at Colorado Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Articles by an authorized administrator of Colorado Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. +(,121/,1( Citation: 45 Colo. Law. 59 2016 Provided by: William A. Wise Law Library Content downloaded/printed from HeinOnline Sun Mar 12 15:21:27 2017 -- Your use of this HeinOnline PDF indicates your acceptance of HeinOnline's Terms and Conditions of the license agreement available at http://heinonline.org/HOL/License -- The search text of this PDF is generated from uncorrected OCR text. -- To obtain permission to use this article beyond the scope of your HeinOnline license, please use: Copyright Information LEGAL RESEARCH CORNER An Introduction to Foreign and International Legal Research Tools by Nick Harrell The Research Process international law to encounter a foreign or international To research foreign or international issues, a researcher should Coloradolegal research legal researchersproject. These need projects not specialize can arise in from foreign repre- or complete the following steps: senting local businesses (e.g., a company that uses foreign manufac- 1.Determine whether the research project involves foreign law, turing has labor concerns) or individuals (e.g., a client isn't sure international law, or both. whether a divorce in the Philippines will be recognized in Colo- 2. Identify the relevant jurisdiction (e.g., German domestic law rado). This article explores some resources and tools available to or international environmental law). Colorado legal researchers who confront questions of law involving 3. Identify the structure of the legal system or governing body a foreign country or the international landscape. All of the resources (e.g., common law or an international tribunal). discussed in this article are free, except the Foreign Law Guide,' 4. Locate secondary authority. which is available in most publicly accessible law libraries. 5. Locate primary authority (ifavailable). While often grouped together-including in this article-for- This process is similar to the process used for a Colorado or fed- eign law and international law are distinct areas of law. Foreign law eral research project. However, the last step, locating primary involves the domestic laws of a non-U.S. country (e.g., Canadian authority, differs from typical research because a researcher may not tort law or Chinese contract law), while international law deals with have access to foreign primary authority for every jurisdiction. And legal relationships among countries. International law is generally if the researcher can access primary authority, it may be in a lan- divided into two areas: public international law (i.e., the laws and guage that the researcher cannot read. Depending on the impor- norms that regulate interactions among countries) and private inter- tance of the legal research project, the researcher may want to con- national law, which is typically referred to as conflicts or choice of tact a foreign and international law specialist or an attorney in the law. foreign country for assistance. Many of the resources discussed below may be used for research- ing both foreign and international law. However, a foreign law Foreign and International Legal Research research project will likely focus on a particular country and its laws. As the process above indicates, it is helpful to determine In contrast, international law research often involves materials such whether a research problem involves foreign law, international law, as treaties and international court proceedings, which can be found or a combination of both. This determination may lead the re- through governmental and intergovernmental organizations. Fur- searcher to seek out country-specific sources rather than interna- thermore, foreign law materials are often published only in the offi- tional sources. Sometimes a legal research project may touch on cial language of the country, but international law materials are both foreign and international law. For example, if the researcher often available in English. represents a technology company with valuable patents and is con- About the Author Nick Harrell is the students services and outreach librarian at the University of Colorado Law Library- nickholas.harrell@ colorado.edu. This Department, published quarterly, is sponsored by the Colorado Association of Law Libraries (CoALL) to provide helpful information about legal research. Readers are welcome to send research questions to CoALL's Legal Research Corner at www.aallnet.org/chapter/coall/pubs/rc.asp. CoALL members will attempt to answer questions individually or as part of this Department. The information provided in this Department is for educational purposes only and is not intended as legal advice. No endorsement or recommenda- tion is made of any product named in articles. Department coordinators are CoALL members Robert Linz, Madeline Cohen, and Peter Kersten. For more information about CoALL, visit www.aallnet.org/chapter/coall. The Colorado Lawyer | August 2016 | Vol. 45, No. 8 59 LEGAL RESEARCH CORNER cerned about whether those patents will be honored in Japan, the informs the researcher about the area of law and its respective researcher may need to consult international intellectual property resources. Often researchers may want to consult several research law (e.g., treaties between the United States and Japan regarding guides for a foreign or international law research project because the treatment of patents) and the domestic intellectual property of the variability in the scope and currency of the research guides. laws ofJapan. The Hauser Global Law School Program at New York Uni- If a research project requires foreign law research, the researcher versity's School of Law maintains GlobaLex,3 an extensive collec- should determine what type of legal system governs the country of tion of research guides on foreign and international legal topics. interest.JuriGlobe, 2 a project from the University of Ottawa, pro- Those guides are prepared by practitioners in those countries or by vides a thorough list of countries and their respective legal systems. experienced researchers, and are updated periodically. To access the Determining whether a country uses a common law, civil law, or most up-to-date version of a particular guide, click on the other system informs the type of primary and secondary sources "UPDATE"link for the relevant guide. (See Figure 1.) the researcher may expect to find. For example, while civil law The Foreign Law Guide, another great starting point, is a fee- countries may have reported court opinions, they will have fewer based collection of legal research guides available at most law opinions than the United States, and those opinions will often have libraries. Other good sources of foreign and international legal re- little or no precedential value. search guides include: After making these preliminary determinations, the legal re- * the Law Library of Congress4 searcher can explore secondary sources discussing the relevant * the University of Denver Westminster Law Library country or international legal system. * the Georgetown University Law Library.' Secondary Sources Websites Research guides should lead to other relevant secondary sources, Researchers may use several types of secondary sources to re- such as treatises and websites, which may include English-lan- search foreign and international legal issues. The following is a guage primary sources. The availability and scope of these sources sample of those resources. vary by country and international legal topic. Generally, more resources exist and are available for topics and countries in which Research Guides U.S. businesses are involved; for example, resources on manufac- When researching foreign or international legal issues, as with turing in China will be easier to find than resources on criminal Colorado or federal legal issues, beginning with a research guide procedure in Chad. Some useful websites are: Internatona Law Research Comparative aw Research Foreign1 Law Research Figure 1. Click "UPDATE for GlobaLex researchguides. Hauser GlobalLawSchool Program,New York University SchoolofLaw, ForeignLaw Research, GlobaLex, www.nyulawglobal org/globalex. 60 The Colorado Lawyer | August 2016 | Vol. 45, No. 8 LEGAL RESEARCH CORNER * Weom o teUrted Nations Engis taC lmaa Pcn4 Epto ther . OFFICIAL DOCUMENT SYSTEM t,2 Twnootlon R~ght Left R#I&Left None Item ofe on Sub ad, Word(s)n Agenda Date of pubhcation U i Date