Foreign, comparative and international law collections: Comparative

IALS Library has one of the world’s leading comparative law research collections, including significant material not otherwise available in the United Kingdom. 

There is a dedicated Comparative Law section at classmark SB, as well as separate collections for particular legal systems, regions of the world, individual jurisdictions and so on: the Catalogue has full details. Substantial online resources are available (more below). 

More than seventy different journals with a substantial comparative law focus are held at IALS (not all are active subscriptions). Many of them are available online as well as in printed format - see Catalogue. 

Current subscriptions include the following series, among many others:

• African Journal of International and Comparative Law
• American Journal of Comparative Law  
• Asian Journal of Comparative Law
• International and Comparative Law Quarterly
• Legal Pluralism and Critical Social Analysis (formerly Journal of Legal Pluralism and Unofficial Law)
• Revue internationale de droit comparé 
• Uniform Law Review / Revue de Droit Uniforme
• Zeitschrift für vergleichende Rechtswissenschaft

The library has online journal indexes and full-text journal databases which can be for literature searches: see our guide to Finding journals and journal articles.

IALS holds a large collection of books on comparative law. The main location of print books on the subject is in the Comparative Law section, at SB. However, many are located in the Depository or the Short Loan Collection, relevant works may be found at non-SB classmarks, and a large number of e-books are also available. The Catalogue has full details, including links to e-books.

The collection includes a number of encyclopedias of particular relevance to comparative law research:

• Elgar Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, ed. Smits (3rd edn., Edward Elgar, 2023), online only.

• International Encyclopedia of Comparative Law, ed. Zweigert and Drobnig, (Martinus Nijhoff 1971-2020), print and online.

• Encyclopedia of Private International Law, ed. Jürgen Basedow, Giesela Rühl, Franco Ferrari and Pedro de Miguel Asensio. (Edward Elgar, 2017), print and online.

• ​Max Planck Encyclopedia of European Private Law, ed. Basedow, Hopt and Zimmermann (OUP, 2012), print only.

• Modern Legal Systems Cyclopedia, ed. Redden (W.S. Hein, 1984-2005), print and online.

• Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History, ed. Katz (OUP, 2009) - covers many different legal traditions, in the modern period as well as medieval and ancient times, print only.

The following subscription databases, available via the IALS Law Databases page, are of particular interest for comparative law research:

• Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (part of HeinOnline): indexes selected foreign, comparative and international law journals and essay collections;

• Foreign Law Guide: describes the legal systems of the jurisdictions of the world and gives detailed guidance on finding legislation for each jurisdiction;

• World Constitutions Illustrated: current and historical constitutions /constitutional legislation for every jurisdiction in the world, with commentary, bibliographies and links.

For full details of subscription databases, many more of which can also be used for comparative law research, see our Databases guide and Law Databases page.

Descriptions of our foreign law holdings may be found on the tabs above. For details of the UK law collection, see the UK law research guide.