Foreign, comparative and international law collections: Asia

Need more help with your research?

We have written detailed research guides covering the law of Hong Kong, India, Malaysia and Singapore.

We also have a general guide to researching the law of Commonwealth countries. 

IALS Library has strong collections for some Commonwealth Asian jurisdictions and for Hong Kong. As well as recent publications, our holdings include a unique collection of historical Commonwealth legislation transferred to IALS from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library and held under a trust deed. 

We do not collect the law of Pakistan, Bangladesh, or the Indian states: these jurisdictions are covered by SOAS Library.

For most of the Asian jurisdictions that are not in the Commonwealth, our holdings are very limited: within the University of London, SOAS Library has primary responsibility for collecting Asian law. 

The library has some general books on the law of Asia, or particular regions of Asia: see Catalogue for details.

Several regional journals are held, notably:

• Arab Law Quarterly (print and online) 

• Berkeley Journal of Middle Eastern & Islamic Law (online).

• Columbia Journal of Asian Law, formerly Journal of Chinese Law  (print and online)

• Lawasia Journal (print and online)

Several Asian jurisdictions are members of the Commonwealth. For print material relating to the Commonwealth in general, or to a range of Commonwealth jurisdictions, search the Catalogue by classmark GB1. This collection comprises approximately three hundred books, several journals and other publications. Key titles include:

Law Reports of the Commonwealth  (print and online, 1980 - );

Commonwealth Law Bulletin (print and online), the journal of the Commonwealth Secretariat's Rule of Law division (ceased publication after the 2021 issues);

Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal (print and online, 2001 -).

The main open-shelf location for GB1 classmarks is the fourth floor reading room. Older material is kept in the basement Reserve, indicated by 'RES' or 'Depository' on the Catalogue.

IALS Library legislation and law reports for many of the Asian Commonwealth states, and for Hong Kong. Our legislation collections include historical material from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library. 

We do not generally collect primary material for other Asian jurisdictions, but a few older titles are held, such as Basic Japanese Laws (1997).  Within the University of London, SOAS Library has main responsibility for collecting Asian law.

To find hard copy material for a particular jurisdiction on the Catalogue search by classmark (see list of jurisdictional classmarks), for example, a classmark search for GM4m will find Singaporean material.

To find both print and online resources, search by key word: for example India contracts.

IALS Library's largest collections of Asian law books are from Commonwealth jurisdictions such as India, Malaysia, and Singapore, but we also have books from China, Hong Kong and elsewhere.

Many Asian law journals are also available: for example, the Journal of the Indian Law Institute, Malayan Law Journal, and Hong Kong Law Journal.

IALS Library subscribes to the Indian law database, SCC Online, which contains extensive primary and secondary Indian legal material, cases from other Asian and many African jurisdictions and some other content.

HeinOnline includes journals from numerous Asian jurisdictions.

Westlaw and Lexis have some Asian content.

For further details, see our Databases guide.