2000 Law Library Louis D. Brandeis School of Law, University of Louisville. All rights reserved.
Persons trying to find the law of a particular civil law nation face three significant impediments.
First, very few of the current civil and criminal codes are found in English translation. Second, since the basic premise of civil law is that the codes are the sole source of law and that judicial precedents have no authority, cases are irregularly published and almost never found in translation. Third, because the U of L Law Library has not identified civil law texts as a priority, some of the more expensive materials available in English have not been purchased. Still, there are resources available. However, given the U of L Law Library's focus on American law, it is inevitable that a serious research project concerning foreign law may require a visit to a larger library.