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Private International Law: Westlaw, Lexis & Bloomberg

What's Available

The big three subscription databases provide limited resources for foreign law. In general, they cater to business clients, so tax, corporate and business law will be covered by secondary sources. Westlaw has a small collections of statutes and cases from English-speaking commonwealth countries.

Westlaw

                              

Currently, Westlaw has the best foreign law coverage of the three databases. Most are practice-oriented.

From Westlaw's home page, select Practical Law to locate the following foreign law resources:

  • Select the Resource Types tab > then select Global Guides and Cross-Border Topics
    • Global Guides
    • Cross-Border Topics
  • Select Global Home from the top of the Practical Law page
    • Select Practice Areas,
    • Featured Countries or
    • All Countries or
    • Global In-house Resources
    • Country Q & A comparison tool
  • Tip: Use "Related Content" when available
  • Tip: Search in both Global Home and Global Guides

For links to Foreign primary and secondary material:

  • From WESTLAW EDGE Home page, click on International Materials
  • Search by Jurisdiction or Content.
  • Additional materials on far right (International Arbitration, Journals, etc.

Lexis

                              

Lexis provides good international news coverage for all countries and some primary source coverage for a few countries.

  • From the "International" tab on the home page, select "View All Countries and Regions."

Search by legal topic or law review articles:

Bloomberg Law

Bloomberg Law also has the series Getting the Deal Through

  • Begin by clicking on "Secondary Sources" in the upper right of the home page.
  • Select "Search Reference Materials."
  • Under the list of sources, scroll down to "Getting the Deal Through." Use the dropdown menu to browse volumes by topic.
  • Once you've identified a volume on your topic of interest, click the "T.O.C." button to browse the contents of the volume.

For a comprehensive collection of materials on International Trade, visit Bloomberg's International Trade Practice Center.

A variety of other international materials are available to browse through this link.