Please see IALS Library's individual research guides for Australia and New Zealand and our 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 substantial holdings of primary and secondary legal material for Australia and New Zealand.
We have small collections for Pacific island states that are members of the Commonwealth and we also cover the Cook Islands and Niue; little or no material is held for other jurisdictions in the region.
As well as recent publications, our holdings for Oceania include a unique collection of historical legislation transferred to IALS from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office Library and held under a trust deed.
IALS Library has some Pacific regional print material at classmarks GM1, GM7 and GT35; relevant publications are also found at classmark SB (Comparative Law).
We also have e-books on Pacific law (see Catalogue), and e-journals including Asia Pacific Law Review and Journal of South Pacific Law.
IALS Library has a very large collection of primary and secondary material for Australia as a whole, and significant holdings for Australian states. Print material is located on floor L2, at classmarks GD1 to GD9; for e-resources, search the catalogue by key word (e.g. australia torts). Our guide to researching Australian law has full details of the collection.
Australia is also covered by the Commonwealth Law Bulletin, the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal and other Commonwealth titles, as well as by some publications on the law of the Pacific region.
IALS has a large collection of primary and secondary legal material for New Zealand. Print material is located on floor L2, at classmark GE1; for e-resources, search the Catalogue by key word.
For full details of the New Zealand collection, see our guide to researching the law of New Zealand.
New Zealand is also covered by publications on the law of the Pacific region and the Commonwealth.
IALS Library has collections covering the law of the Cook Islands, Fiji, Kiribati, Niue, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tuvalu and Vanuatu; one or two titles are also held for Micronesia. The largest collections are for Fiji, Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands.
Our holdings for Pacific island jurisdictions include substantial amounts of historical legislation (from the 1800s or early 1900s up to the 1990s, typically, though coverage varies), constitutions, a few law reports and some books. Recent legislation is not held, but is available on PacLII.
To find print material for a particular jurisdiction, look up its classmark, then do a classmark search on the Catalogue; add .E to the classmark to restrict your search to legislation (for example, GM9.E). To find online material as well as hard copy, search the Catalogue by the name of the jurisdiction.
Pacific island states that are members of the Commonwealth may be covered by the Commonwealth Law Bulletin, the Oxford University Commonwealth Law Journal, Law Reports of the Commonwealth and similar titles.
The IALS Databases Guide has detailed information about e-resources, including multi-jurisdictional databases.
Australia
Lexis+ has Australian cases and journals (some of the Australian journals are under 'United States').
Westlaw International also has Australian case law and a few journals, but not the same journals as Lexis.
HeinOnline's Law Journal Library includes over a hundred Australian journals.
New Zealand
Lexis+ UK has New Zealand cases, New Zealand Law Journal, and Laws of New Zealand (an encyclopedia).
Westlaw International Materials has a few New Zealand journals.
HeinOnline's Law Journal Library includes more than 15 New Zealand journals.
Pacific islands
The Pacific islands are covered by some multi-jurisdictional sources: see Databases guide for further information.
Journal articles about the law of Pacific islands may be found in e-journal collections such as HeinOnline's Law Journal Library and Westlaw International's World Journals.