Public international law, as traditionally defined, is the law governing relations between nation states.
Foreign law is simply the national law (also known as domestic or municipal law) of another country.
Private international law is a confusing term in that it refers to the national laws governing the interactions of private entities and individuals, who happen to be from different nations. It is, therefore, sometimes referred to as conflicts of laws. A number of private international law topics are covered by treaty (i.e. family law, estates and trusts, litigation). Since treaties are characteristic of the public international law system, the application of treaties to private international law issues can be confusing as well.
The sources of public international law are ennumerated by Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice, which is appended to the Charter of the United Nations, as follows: treaties, custom, general principles and case law and scholarly commentary as a subsidiary means for determining the rules of law. Treaties, custom and general principles are primary sources of law in the public international legal system. Court decisions and scholarly writings are secondary sources. Treaties are written agreements between nations. Customary law is state practice which is done out of a sense of obligation. General principles are those general legal principles which courts all over the world have recognized. Note that the documentation of inter-governmental organizations (IGOs) like the United Nations or so called "soft law" is not listed as a source of law under the ICJ Statute, perhaps because the Statute was drafted before the proliferation of IGOs.
Treaties are written instruments which can be found in several sources, both official and unofficial. In contrast, custom and general priniciples are not written down. Evidence of custom and general principles must be derived from other sources, such as treaties, UN documentation and court decisions.
The purpose of this guide is to introduce researchers to basic treaty and other sources for researching public and private international law. In addition, this guide will cover foreign law research and specific topics in international law, including international human rights law, intellectual property, international trade and international environmental law.
International legal materials are generally found under Library of Congress (LC) call number KZ.
Sample Library of Congress subject headings include:
Comparative legal materials (i.e. titles which compare or contain laws of multiple countries) can be found under call number K or subject headings, like those below, with no specific jurisdiction designation:
Catalogs are the key to using any library collection. Use the catalog when you want to find book titles on a particular topic. In addition to checking the JMLS library catalog, you can expand your search for relevant books titles to other libraries throughout the world by using Worldcat. Note that the same LC call numbers and subject headings used in this library's catalog are used in other law libraries and Worldcat.
Worldcat, as its name suggests, is a catalog of book titles held by libraries all over the world. Worldcat uses the same Library of Congress subject headings as those used in the JMLS Law Library catalog. Thus, you can use Worldcat to expand your research beyond the four walls of this Library. Use the advanced search template to search as shown below.
A traditional catalog is a tool designed to enable researchers to find book titles in a library collection. To find articles, researchers have to use a separate but similar tool known as an index. However, some catalogs now blur this distinction by including records for book titles and journal articles.
The Peace Palace Library catalog is an example of this new hybrid. It makes international legal research very efficient as researchers can now find book titles, chapters and articles on international law issues all in one place.
For more information on the use of catalogs and indexes, see the Treatises and Law Review Articles tab.
Need more help? Reference librarians are available to meet with JMLS students in one-on-one sessions (or in small groups) to discuss research strategies, recommend relevant resources or review specific topics of legal research.
Fill out a request form and a librarian will get back to you to set up an appointment. We ask that you request your appointment at least 2 days in advance, but remember that you can always stop by the reference desk for immediate help with a quick research question.