We have written detailed research guides for Ghana, Nigeria, South Africa, Uganda and Zambia.
We also have a general guide to researching the law of Commonwealth countries.
We'd love to hear your comments about this Research Guide.
Email ials@sas.ac.uk
IALS Library has strong collections for English-speaking jurisdictions of Africa. 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.
The law of Francophone, Lusophone and other African jurisdictions is not collected in depth. Within the University of London, SOAS Library has primary responsibility for these countries.
IALS has a number of books covering Africa in general or one of its regions: see Catalogue.
Regional law reports and journals are also held, including the following titles:
Journal of African Law (print and e-journal)
Penant: Revue de droit des pays d'Afrique (held in print format only)
African Human Rights Law Journal (print and e-journal)
Many African 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 has good collections for Commonwealth member states, consisting of legislation, law reports, journals, book, law reform reports and other publications. We have very limited holdings for other African jurisdictions: within the University of London, SOAS Library is responsible for collecting this material.
To find hard copy material on the Library Catalogue, search by classmark (see list of classmarks). For example, a classmark search for GH4 will find all print holdings for Nigeria.
To find both print and e-resources, search the Catalogue by key word: for example torts tanzania.
HeinOnline's Law Journal Library includes journals from several African jurisdictions. It also has journals focusing on African law in general, including the Journal of African Law.
Sabinet Online provides 20 African law journals, mostly South African. Not all of them come up with the 'Law' filter on Sabinet, but all are on the A-Z title list, and all are searchable.
SCC Online has cases from about fifteen African jurisdictions (details on SCC coverage page under 'Foreign Materials').
Lexis+ UK has Butterworths Statutes of South Africa and Butterworths South African Constitutional Law Reports.
Westlaw International Materials has Constitutional Law of South Africa, a treatise published by Juta.
Westlaw UK has the more recent volumes of the Journal of African Law (2005 - )
For full details of IALS online resources, including global sources such as IBFD Online and World Constitutions Illustrated, see the Databases guide.