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Searches the titles and summaries of indexed country records, research guides, sections and articles. Type a country, a subject or the name of a source.
All 43 pages are listed below.
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Check the spelling, try fewer words, or use a broader term such as a country name or "tort". Every jurisdiction covered so far is in the A to Z country index, and questions that start with a legal system or a subject are in the research guides.
Research guides
- Researching United States LawFederal and state law are published in different places. Settle which system governs, then which kind of text you need: statute, regulation, decision or case record.
- Researching Texas LawA Texas question needs Texas sources. Find the statute in the Legislature's codes, the court in the judiciary's own structure, and the research guides that connect them.
- Civil Law: The Tradition and the SubjectBefore searching, decide which meaning you have. One points to a family of legal systems; the other to the law of contracts, property, family and civil wrongs anywhere.
- Researching Tort LawAn injury is a fact. A tort is a legal conclusion about it, reached under a particular system's rules. Research the rules before drawing the conclusion.
- Researching a Personal Injury QuestionA general guide cannot assess a case. It can show which questions an injury raises, which sources answer each one, and where general explanations stop being reliable.
- Comparing Tort Law Across Legal SystemsThe same word can name different rules, and different words can name similar ones. Compare questions and sources rather than labels, and say plainly what each side leaves open.
Countries
- ArgentinaOne statute replaced two nineteenth century codes, a decree made the Boletin Oficial website authentic, and the constitutional text arrives as Ley 24.430.
- AustriaAustrian primary law: the Bundesgesetzblatt promulgated inside RIS since 2004, signed and archived, beside consolidations the same statute disclaims.
- BrazilBrazil prints one copy of its gazette and says in terms that its absence changes nothing. What that leaves, and how Planalto stacks amended wordings.
- ChinaChinese law has four gazettes, not one. The Legislation Law names which printed text is the standard one for statutes, regulations and rules alike.
- FranceFrench primary law in one place: the Journal officiel published by DILA, electronic only since 2016, the 1958 Constitution, and the codes on Legifrance.
- GermanyGerman primary law: a sealed electronic Bundesgesetzblatt since 2023, one instrument to a number, and sixteen separate services for the law of the Länder.
- IndiaIndian statutes are authoritative in English by article 348, and authoritative in Hindi as well once the President gazettes a translation of them.
- ItalyWhere Italian law is published: the Gazzetta Ufficiale, consolidated texts on Normattiva, the 1948 Constitution, and which version actually governs.
- JapanThe Kanpo became an electronic gazette on 1 April 2025. Ninety days of free access, a paid archive to 1947, and a notice board for the day it fails.
- LibyaLibyan primary law in practice: an Official Gazette numbered from year one, a ministry gazette link that goes nowhere, and instruments in three eras.
- MadagascarA Malagasy law binds a clear day after the Journal officiel reaches the sous-prefecture. What that rule means, and where the texts are actually served.
- MexicoMexico gazettes electronically and still sends six certified paper copies to six named institutions. Also why the language field here is not simple.
- NetherlandsDutch official publication turned on 1 July 2009. What the Staatscourant was before that date, what the file at officielebekendmakingen.nl is after it.
- PakistanThe Ministry of Law and Justice says its own consolidation of Pakistani federal law is not the authentic text and sends readers to the Gazette instead.
- PolandPolish acts are announced as signed electronic documents, and a certified printout of each gazette goes to three institutions that will never read it.
- RomaniaRomanian primary law: the Monitorul Oficial and the enterprise that runs it, the three day rule, and why a constitutional article number can move.
- South KoreaKorea runs a paper gazette and an electronic one and gives them equal effect by statute. Nine institutions still get the paper. Two fields here are open.
- SpainSpanish primary law: two authentic editions of the BOE and no rule on which prevails, publication in Castilian, and the plural civil law of article 149.
- SwitzerlandA Swiss act exists in German, French and Italian at once and the statute makes all three authoritative. How to address the platform that publishes them.
- TuvaluTuvalu publishes its whole statute book from one printable page. What the government site holds, how current it is, and the one thing it will not serve.
Sections of the guide
- Foreign law by countryEvery jurisdiction covered so far, arranged for browsing rather than searching.
- Country index, A to ZThe full alphabetical list, for when you already know the name you are looking for.
- Constitutions in forceWhere to find the current text of a national constitution and confirm that it is current.
- Comparative lawTools and collections for setting one jurisdiction's rules beside another's.
- Abbreviations and dictionariesDecoding the abbreviated citations that fill the footnotes of foreign legal writing.
- Periodical indexesIndexes and research guides for the journal literature on foreign and comparative law.
- ArticlesLonger pieces built from the country records.
- Italy: Principal Legal PublicationsThe Italian gazette, the codes with the Gazzetta reference for each, the principal law reviews and the annual Repertorio, each traced to a fetched page.
- France: Sources and NotesEvery document behind the France guide, with its publisher and the date it was read, plus what Legifrance refused to serve and what follows from that.
- Germany: Sources and NotesThe seven records behind the Germany guide, what each one is doing, and where the line falls between the binding German text and a convenience copy.
- How These Pages Are ReviewedHow country records are reviewed, how research guides record source-check dates, what each method can establish, and how to report a sourced correction.
- About this site and its sourcesWhat this publication is, how it is built, and what it is not.
- Contact and correctionsWhere to report an error or an old link that no longer resolves.
Articles
- Where Official Gazettes Are Published OnlineHow gazette platforms differ: how far back they reach, whether the pages are text or images, what they charge for, and whether a document can be linked.
- How to Read a Civil Code CitationThree citations pulled apart element by element, from Italy, Austria and Spain, then the local units of subdivision that catch a foreign reader out.
- When a Translation Is Not the LawAn English text of a foreign statute sits on one of several rungs, from equally binding original to disclaimed copy, and the publisher usually says which.
- What the Legal Information Institutes HoldThe movement publishes its own definition, and four tests sit inside it. Reading them against real institutes shows where coverage is deep and where absent.