An Introduction to Foreign and International Legal Research Tools

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2016

An Introduction to Foreign and International Legal Research Tools

Nick Harrell University of Colorado Law School

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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 researchers project. 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 researching 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 .

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Figure2. The ODS searchpage with a UNSymbol UnitedNations, OfficialDocument System, https.//documents.un.org/prod/ods.nsf/home.xsp.

* Export.gov, maintained by the U.S. Department of Commerce International Law International Trade Administration, which "help [s] U.S. com- Researchers may look to intergovernmental organizations and 7 panies export." Its Country Commercial Guides provide non- nongovernmental organizations to find primary and secondary legal and legal information about foreign countries.The guides international law materials. The United Nations is a particularly include summaries of trade, labor, intellectual property, and good source, and its specialized organizations (e.g., the World other regulations. Export.gov also describes and links to vari- Intellectual Property Organization) host many of their respective ous free trade agreements that the United States is a part of, documents. including the pending Trans-Pacific Partnership. United Nations (UN) documents can be found in the Official * Electronic Information System for International Law Document System (ODS).11 ODS has many search options, but (EISIL),j maintained by the American Society of Interna- the easiest way to find a specific document is to input its UN sym- tional Law (ASIL), which serves as a gateway to many inter- bol. (See Figure 2.) The Dag Hammarskjold Library, the UN's national primary and secondary sources. EISIL has a standard library, has a useful research guide for finding UN documents, search box, but its table of contents navigation is useful as well. including information on UN document symbols.12 In particular, most of the main subject headings on EISIL in- Individual UN specialized agency websites have documents spe- clude links to "Basic Sources,"which direct researchers to the cific to their respective topics. For example, the World Intellectual main treaties and websites on a given topic. ASIL also main- Property Organization (WIPO) website's Reference section serves tains the Electronic Resource Guide (ERG), which is a col- as a gateway to intellectual property laws and regulations for indi- lection of thorough research guides on various international vidual countries as well 13 9 as international treaties. The WIPO site, research topics. These librarian-created guides are available as like other intergovernmental organization sites, also provides infor- PDFs and provide important background information and mation about the signatories of various treaties and general over- links to resources for the topics they cover. views of the areas of law that the body covers. * The World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII),10 a member of the Free Access to Law Movement, which pro- Foreign Law vides access to and a search engine for primary and secondary Foreign governmental websites, like U.S. sources of legal information for 20 countries. governmental websites, often provide access to primary legal materials. However, these materials might not be published or updated regularly, and they Primary Sources might not be available in English. Secondary source research should lead to relevant primary sources. While most U.S. research projects involve direct citation to In conducting primary source research, researchers should keep in binding primary authority, research on a foreign law issue might mind the type of legal system that is applicable, and specifically end with citation to a secondary authority where access to foreign what that means for the weight of the primary authority they find. primary materials is not available.

The Colorado Lawyer | August 2016 | Vol. 45, No. 8 61 LEGAL RESEARCH CORNER

Other Resources In addition to sources available on the Internet, researchers may find useful primary and secondary resources in print in local law libraries. The holdings of for- BOLETiN OFICIAL eign and international materials vary de la Repdblica Argentina SlITIO FOUR5R&IJ~M among libraries, so researchers should consult the online catalog or librarians SECTIONTWOC-1 SECTION THREE -,, at particular locations. Librarians can also direct researchers to additional resources and help with creating a research strategy for a project.

~ard~ Overcoming Language Barriers First Section HMB ...... NTtRIO Language barriers are a recurring problem in international and foreign legal research.The resources for a particular country may be in a language that MINISTRY OF FOREIGNAFFAIRS AND WORSHIP the researcher cannot read, or cannot read proficiently enough to conduct legal PUBLIC MINISTRY analysis. The legal researcher's most authoritative option is to find an official In; m41 coun man esmone t. sUm or credible unofficial translation of the Figure3. The websitefor theArgentinian Official Gazette translatedby Google Chrome's built-in trans- desired text. Most law libraries have col- lation. RepublicaArgentina, Boletin Oficial, www.boletinofcial.gob.ar. lections of foreign laws and codes in print, sometimes with translations. To find these, search library catalogs to determine whether a library has a particular translation. The above-referenced research guides also indicate where a researcher might find an English-lan- al~d26Ma, Ar, -6 STAHMS -PROCUC105YMNVK0 RRDERP guage translation of various resources. BOLETiN OFICIAL When such translations are not avail- de la Repdhlica Argentina able, Google Translate provides a work- able solution. 14 Machine translation has SEGLANDA SECCH5N TERCERA SECT ON CUARTA SECC61N its drawbacks, but Google Translate can quickly and relatively accurately translate almost any text it receives. Even bet- ter, Google's Chrome browser automat- ically asks researchers whether they would like to translate foreign HTML text into English when navigating on Primera Secci6n foreign language websites. (See Figures 3 and 4.)

MINISTERIO DE RELAC10NES EXTERIORESY CULTD Conclusion This article provides just a sample of foreign and international law resources MINISRER POntiLCO available to legal researchers. Beyond the free resources mentioned above, librarians and other more experienced foreign MINISTERIO POBUCO and international legal researchers may offer leads to specialized subscription databases. However, the tools discussed Figure4. The websitefor theArgentinian Official Gazette without translation.Republica Argentina, in this article can give researchers a good Boletin Ofcial, www.boletinofciaLgob.ar. starting point for-and often a final answer to-a foreign or international legal research project.

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Notes 1. The Foreign Law Guide is edited by Marci Hoffman, an international and foreign law librarian at the University of California Berkeley. 2. University of Ottawa, JuriGlobe-World Legal Systems, www. Read a book. juriglobe.ca/eng/index.php. 3. Hauser Global Law School Program, New York University School Write a review. of Law, Globalex,www.nyulawglobal.org/globalex. 4. The Law Library of Congress, "Guide to Law Online," wwwloc. CBA members who are interested in reading a gov/law/help/guide.php. law-related book and writing a review for publica- 5. University of Denver Sturm College of Law, Legal Research Guides, http://ibguides.law.du.edu/index.php. tion in The Colorado Lawyer may contact Susie 6. Georgetown Law Library, Foreign & International Law, http:// Klein at [email protected] for guidelines and dead- guides.11.georgetown.edu/home/foreign-law. lines. If you have not previously written a review for 7. U.S. Department of Commerce International Trade Administra- The Colorado Lauyer, please provide an abbreviated tion,www.export.gov. 8. American Society of International Law, EISIL, http://eisil.org. resum6 or self-description, stating your areas of 9. American Society of International Law, "Electronic Resource expertise and interest. Titles listed below were avail- Guide,"wwwasil.org/resources/electronic-resource-guide-erg. able at press time. 10. World Legal Information Institute, www.worldlii.org. 11. United Nations, "Official Document System," https://documents. ; Turning Points at Trial: Great Lawyers Share un.org/prod/ods.nsf/home.xsp. Secrets, Strategies, and Skills, by Shane Read 12. Dag Hammarskjold Library, UN Documentation: Overview, http://research.un.org/en/docs. (Westway Publishing, 2016); 5 36 pp. 13. World Intellectual Property Organization, Reference, www.wipo. int/reference/en. 14. Google Translate, https://translate.google.com. U

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