Legal Research

This lesson will introduce you to researching foreign law.

The purpose of this lesson is to provide an introduction to customary law systems and to offer suggestions for researching the laws of countries where customary law is still being practiced. Because customary law is not written down and is therefore very difficult to research, the lesson will discuss the importance of secondary source, non-legal sources, government, IGO, and NGO reports, and case law or codifications reflecting principles of customary law as might be found in a mixed legal system.

This lesson will introduce you to the civil law tradition and discuss research in civil law historical sources. The lesson covers the five major types of world legal systems, explains the current and historical sources of the civil law, and discusses the importance of historical sources in civil law research and interpretation. Specific historical sources are identified, as well as ideas for using secondary sources to make sure that your research is on the right track.

This lesson provides an overview of the history and structure of the European Union, followed by an introduction to researching European Union documents, specifically EU treaties, regulations, directives, and opinions of the European Court of Justice. The European Union is a truly unique structure which represents over half a century of cooperation between select nations.

This lesson begins by defining customary international law and placing customary international law into context through historical examples. Two research strategies for locating custom will be introduced. The first strategy is to locate pre-defined custom using a source that discusses state practice that has risen to the level of custom. The second and more complex strategy involves searching directly for evidence of customary international law.

In this lesson, you will learn about the International Court of Justice, one of the principal organs of the United Nations. After an introduction to the Court, you'll learn about some of the print reporters of the Court's decisions and online sources for these opinions. Finally, there will be a discussion of print and online digests of the Court's decisions.

This lesson will show you the basic tools for finding United Nations materials. It first gives an overview of how the United Nations is organized. It includes descriptions of each of the principal organs of the U.N. and an overview of the United Nations document numbering system. It then shows online tools for United Nations research: the U.N.'s website; the Official Document System; and the U.N. Digital Library.

This is an introduction to researching the law relating to intergovernmental and non-governmental agencies. IGOs and NGOs have significant input into international law and finding their resources can be integral to researching international law.

This lesson will give you some background about Regional Organizations, collections of countries, organized by region, engaged in collaborative work toward some common goal. You will learn to find the documents of some of the most important Regional Organizations on the web.

This lesson is a general introduction to resources and strategies for researching tribunals and truth commissions.