Foreign Law by Jurisdiction: Getting Started

If you're researching a jurisdiction for the first time, it 's essential to get a sense of how its legal system is organized and what its hierarchy of authority is. The sources listed below provide this information, as well as titles of specific legal publications, e.g., code, case reporter, official gazette:

For the title of a specific legal publication, you can also search a library catalog with keywords from your topic combined with these subjects:

• law [country]
• law reports, digests, etc. [country] 
• constitutions or constitutional law [country]
• delegated legislation [country]
• [subject] law [country], e.g., constitutional law Brazil

If you're searching for a non-English or non-Roman alphabet title in our catalog, here some tips:

• Find the ISBN or ISSN using Google or Worldcat. Then, search the catalog by that ISBN/ISSN number. This approach will give you certainty as to whether or not NYU Law Library has that particular title.
• Non-Roman alphabet titles (e.g. Hebrew, Russian, Chinese, etc.) are transliterated in Julius. So, search for non-Roman alphabet titles using Roman alphabet characters. Use Worldcat or Google to help you figure what the transliterated title is.  
• If you don't have a way to input non-English letters that are not on the standard English keyboard, here are few search tips:
  • Try to the find the titles in Google or Worldcat and cut and paste them into the search. 
  • You can also use the symbol insert option in Microsoft Word to type out the title and then cut and paste it 
  • Add the keyboard langauge to your computer (Windows 7 instructions)
    •   Start menu > Control Panel > Region and Language > Keyboards and Languages tab > Change keyboards...> Add
    • Then use the on-screen keyboard to type the non-English language title: Start Menu > All Programs > Accessories > Ease of Access >  On-Screen Keyboard > Left alt + shift to switch the keyboard from English to the one you just added.