Web guide Legal Sources for Global Law (TLS) and Major Law (LAS)
About this guide
Searching legal information on national of international level can be challenging: you have to deal with divergent legal systems and various sources of law.
To support you in searching relevant legal information this guide
- offers an overview of websites and selected databases on international and national law for searching treaties, legislation, case law and legal literature
- refers to online tutorials and user guides
- provides information on referencing, useful tools and support
Tip: Do you want to know more about a specific legal system or topic? Check Starting points for research guides.
International and EU Law
Starting points
- Electronic Information System for International Law (EISIL)
Primary materials, authoritative web sites and helpful research guides to international law on the Internet. - Globalex - section: International Law Research
Guides on searching international treaties, the European Human Rights system Council of Europe and EU Legal materials. - Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law
Reference work containing over 1.600 peer-reviewed articles on every aspect of public international law. - European Documentation Center
Surveys of selected databases and websites with information from and on the European Union. The surveys are organized by theme and by EU organizations.
Treaties and EU legislation
- WorldLII - International Treaties Collection: links to databases on international treaties.
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United Nations Treaty Collection: UN treaty texts and information on treaties.
- European Treaty Series ETS: treaties of the Council of Europe.
- European Union: Treaty texts: overview of the founding treaties, including the full official texts.
- EUR-Lex: access t European Union Law; EU treaties and legislation (regulations, directives etc.).
Case law
- WorldLII – International Courts and Tribunal Collection: links to databases with international law cases.
- HUDOC: access to the case law of the European Court of Human Rights (EHCR).
- EUR-Lex: access to European Union law: case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union.
- European Union: Treaty texts: overview of the founding treaties, including the full official texts.
- EUR-Lex: access t European Union Law; EU treaties and legislation (regulations, directives etc.).
Case law
National law
Starting points
- Globalex - section: Foreign Law Research
Guides on how to research the law of individual jurisdictions. - Library of Congress - research help
Annotated guide sorted by country to free online law sources.
Legislation and Case Law
- Hein Online – section: World Constitutions illustrated: current constitution for every country in its original language format and an English translation, as well as links to scholarly articles and online resources, and bibliographic references.
- WorldLII – Categories: links to legislation by country and case law by country. Choose 'Legislation' or 'Court and Case Law'.
- Westlaw Next: full-text legislation and treaties mainly covering common law systems USA, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, UK and the EU law.
- Beck Online (German only): portal to German law: contains legislation, case law, books, journals and commentaries
- N-Lex: gateway for the national law of the EU-member states - from this page you can access the official databases of national laws.
- Overheid.nl (Dutch only): database containing the complete Dutch legislation in full-text.
- Legal Intelligence (Dutch only): portal to Dutch and European legislation, case law, official publications and legal literature.
- Kluwer Navigator (Dutch only): portal containing full text Dutch legislation, case law and legal literature.
Legal literature
Besides searching Google Scholar or multidisciplinary databases like WorldCat Local or Web of Science you find legal literature (articles, research papers, books, journals) in specialized databases:
- Hein Online – Law Journal Library: access to the full text of nearly 650 American legal periodicals.
- Westlaw Next – section: World journals: full text law journals mainly covering the USA, Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, United Kingdom and the European Union.
- Oxford Journals - section Law: full text of over 50 law journals
- Springer Link - full text of over 50 law journals
- SSRN Social Sciences Research Network: full text articles and working papers.
- Find-eR: catalog of the library of the European Commission with descriptions of books, reports, EU documents and articles on EU related issues.
Referencing
- RefCite: online course on using and referencing sources and avoiding plagiarism
- OSCOLA
The OSCOLA website contains the complete PDF-version of the OSCOLA 4th edition 2012 (PDF), a quick reference guide and an additional guide for citing other international law (e.g. treaties)
The following guide and tutorial help you to become familiar with using OSCOLA:- Guide to Using OSCOLA for Legal Referencing (Stanford University)
- Online tutorial ‘Citing the law’ (Cardiff University)
Support
Writing and information skills
- At the Scriptorium you can find everything about writing and information skills. The website offers a wide range of tips and tricks, tools, tutorials, links to courses and you can make an appointment for personal counseling.
Online tutorials or user guides for:
- Westlaw
- EUR-Lex – Perform a search
- EUR-Lex – Guided Tour
- Hein Online
- ECLAS choose 'Help'
- United Nations Treaty Collection
- Tutorials on searching in specialized databases - choose Tilburg Law School (Dutch only). Online modules on locating and searching the most important databases containing Dutch legal information.
Tools
Reference managers
To collect and manage references and for compiling reference lists bibliographies, you can use a reference manager. There are a lot of different reference managers systems, some freely available on the internet.
The reference manager that you can use as a Tilburg University student is Endnote (Web). More information. An example of a free online reference manager:
Dictionaries
- Inter Active Terminology for Europe (IATE)
Digital dictionary with terminology in the languages of the EU member states.