

By Jessica Pierucci


Luxembourg sources of law.jpg

Professor Gilles Cuniberti discusses special features of Luxembourgish law.









Mapping the Civil Law World: Ancient Outlines

By Marylin Raisch

Why even mention ancient Roman law or medieval canon law to any modern-day law student? What possible relevance could it have to a student in a professional school studying law today with the aim of becoming a practicing lawyer, particularly here in the United States? It is a fair question in light of tight budgets at law schools with regard both to resources and time. As Dante Figueroa pointed out in his 2015 post to the Law Library of Congress’s blog In Custodia Legis, however, Roman law has been referenced by the U.S. courts in the past and Tim Kearley of the University of Wyoming has studied the appearance of major translations, such as Justinian’s work, undertaken by a state judge and others in our American legal history.

The traditional answer regarding the utility of studying comparative law or taking surveys of law around the world may be a surprisingly practical one: how does the rest of the world do it? That is, what do other constitutions provide by way of the structure of government and any rights of citizens. Who is even considered a citizen? What about federal and unitary states and the hierarchy of laws- where would you look to find out what body of law governs contracts between private citizens /entities or between the government of the country and one such private person?

It might be helpful to know where to look in a system that ultimately got codified by thinking first about remedies and then about keeping dispute resolutions somewhat consistent, a sort of rudimentary precedent system organized eventually into categories. Conservative Romans at a time long before Justinian wanted fidelity to edicts and honor in dealings (Schulz, 230-31). If you agree to supply someone with something or do something with or for the person in the future, you are under an obligation. If you injure them or their property, it’s an intentional or negligent wrong to be put right. People might acquire land or use it for planting or hunting. There could be a difference in how you can prove you own something, are owed something, or defend yourself from some allegation in this network of citizen cooperation often punctuated by disputes. The difference between you and another may be one of status: you are a child, a woman, or, terrible as it was, a slave. Even today you can be a minor, a non-citizen, a convicted felon, or a state official. So you could be ineligible for some procedures and immune from others, differences we have inherited and still recognize today for a much more limited list of people. Children, non-citizens, convicted felons, and “persons in need of supervision” or guardianship are fortunately some of the last groups whose status carries legal meaning in most (though not all) jurisdictions. (And in our modern world equality before the law may not match facts on the ground).

These categories, a kind of taxonomy of law and legal thinking, arose in ancient Rome and subsisted in various lists of laws and harmonized compilations.  As far back as this ancient time there arose even more basic common terms that our English as well as our civil law colleagues use: the distinction between public and private law and, it turns out, intentional and negligent acts. In fact, one way to encourage the embrace of civil law history as a way for students to understand more about civil and criminal law may be to point out that civil law countries group two big areas in the first year U.S. law school curriculum into one big area: contracts AND torts come under the big umbrella of obligations.

Here is what some scholars[1] think happened that makes Roman law similar both to English legal developments and to the categories of the more systematic modern civil law thinkers. The ancient Roman civilization started as did not much of human history: with rulers, kings, who controlled land, armies, and order in an agricultural city-state. There was a law code, the Twelve Tables, in the fifth century B.C and by the late third century B.C. things became more orderly in an ongoing struggle between aristocrats and peasants, or patricians and plebeians, and two consuls eventually replaced the king as authorities over law. Private law administration came under two praetors, one for laws and disputes involving citizens and the other for a regime involving at least one non-citizen. Disputes over injuries evoked a concept of justice that grew out of vengeance but came to straddle the line between public injuries, or crimes, and those more limited to private wrongs. The Romans also had a strong sense of honor and traditionally correct behavior. Not living up to an agreement or damaging property were both obligations and both generated some duty to make it right: the first type contractual; the other, delictual. (We have acts that can be pursued as criminal or as civil for damages, such as assault).

Actually, rather than organize similar cases of dispute, the praetor, really a magistrate, would draw up an action (formula) based on damage costs and other rules that had evolved, and hear facts about what happened within the parameters of the remedy and fact pattern. This is much like the English writ system, and some scholars find that Roman negligence theory arose by expanding on this kind of dispute settlement to prevent vengeance and uphold honor. But they were just bundles of random precedent. Looking through them suggested patterns that became rules, but with no Westlaw or Lexis, how to tell and be consistent?

After a few centuries of war, divided empire, lurid palace intrigue, social war, fanatical religions, and the like, the emperor in the east, Justinian, compiled writings of jurists from the late Republic through the third century A.C., the Corpus Juris Civilis (CJC), to gather it all in three parts (with a fourth update somewhat later) in the sixth century A.C. So where did all these categories end up- nowadays where DO we look in civil law countries for private law? Mostly, we look under these same categories in a civil code.

Justinian created a big collection of legal principles and writings that came at the end of the more creative and pragmatic era of Roman law, and since he forbade further commentary, many other primary texts are, or were, lost. One that was found showed earlier existence of many concepts in a work from the second century A.C. known as the Institutes of Gaius. It is the story of a palimpsest or the finding (in 1816) of the text of these Institutes under a writing of St. Jerome that had been transcribed over it.  Modern scholars now know more about the categories of laws and the history of the concepts.

After the canon law of the church (Roman law influenced) and contributions to some areas of law that developed from customary law (in France, coutume, and in the centuries after the German tribes became more settled, some of their codes and customs as well), interest in the older Roman law emerged in the 12th century in universities, principally Bologna.[2] And after more centuries and the emergence of nation-states, and the settlement of religious wars, rulers like Napoleon seemed ready to pull together a schema of the law that emerged with these basic categories for private law remaining in his and future codes (with variations in the details).  The topics are cross-referential and integrated. They are as follows:

  • Status of persons (married, minor, adopted, gendered; early aspects of family law)
  • Obligations (injuries and contracts)
  • Ownership or modes of acquiring property (land transfer and inheritance)
  • Procedure (also often in separate codes for civil and criminal matters)

Thank you, ancient Romans. You just gave us a 1L curriculum. And a few second year electives as well. Our laws in the U.S and the common law world are not really in codes but really in collections of revised statutes, even if we call them a code. So we have to search through a lot of separate texts: statutes and cases. The internally consistent civil code was in once sense a boon to early legal research. Feel free to consult the table of contents (the topics above) and the index. You also gave us an outline for researching much of non-U.S. law. And thanks for the mind map.

[1] Summarized by Reinhard Zimmermann, Delict in General  in Law of Obligations: Roman Foundations of the Civilian Tradition (1996).

[2] For more detail on the CJC afterlife, see Frederick J. Dingledy, The Corpus Juris Civilis: A Guide to Its History and Use, 35 Legal Ref. Serv. Q. 231 (2016).

AALL 2017 Recap: Cuban Law and Legal Research: A Snapshot During the Deshielo

By Caitlin Hunter

PanelDuring this year’s AALL conference I enjoyed the opportunity to attend “Cuban Law and Legal Research,” a panel discussion by Jorge R. Piñon (Director, Latin America and Caribbean Energy Program, University of Texas at Austin), Julienne E. Grant (Reference Librarian/Foreign & International Research Specialist, Loyola University Chicago School of Law Library), Marisol Florén Romero (Assistant Director for Library Services & Foreign & International Law, Florida International University), and Teresa M. Miguel-Stearns (Law Librarian and Professor of Law, Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Library.) The three librarians explained the theoretical structure of Cuban law, which Piñon tempered with his own practical experiences on the ground promoting trade between Cuba and the U.S.

Government StructureCuba is a civil law country and, more importantly, a socialist legality, where law is an instrument for moving society to socialism and communism. The basic government structure is established by the Constitution of 1976 and includes four branches:

  • The National Assembly of People’s Power, a legislative body that issues laws (leyes) and agreements (acuerdos) and is nominally Cuba’s highest authority;
  • The People’s Supreme Court, the highest judicial body;
  • The Office of the Attorney General, responsible for enforcing the laws; and
  • The Council of Ministers, an executive body that issues decrees (decretos) and is roughly analogous to the U.S. cabinet.

Except for the Council of Ministers, each branch has both provincial and municipal lower levels. Someone bringing a case would file it in a People’s Municipal Court, appeal to a People’s Provincial Court, and finally appeal to the People’s Supreme Court. Correspondingly, in addition to the national Office of the Attorney General, there are also Municipal and Provincial Attorney Generals. The legislative branch has not only Provincial and Municipal Assemblies, but also People’s Councils consisting of delegates elected down to the neighborhood level.

However, Piñon observed, you can rip up the formal chart and throw it out the window. Real power is actually held by much smaller groups. Within the People’s Supreme Court, only the smaller Governing Council issues binding decisions, in the form of instructions (instrucciones), agreements (acuerdos), and opinions (dictámenes.) Both the National Assembly and Council of Ministers also have smaller councils that are responsible for decision-making when they are not in session. The Council of State consists of 31 delegates from the National Assembly, issues decree-laws (decretos-leyes), and handles international treaties (tratados internacionales). The Executive Committee of the Council of Ministers consists of an unfixed number of ministers and issues resolutions (resoluciones). These smaller bodies wield considerable power because the National Assembly meets only two weeks a year and receives its marching orders from the Council of State when it does meet. Raúl Castro is the President of both the Council of State and the Council of Ministers. Regardless of the organizational chart, Castro and the Cuban Communist Party hold the real power.

Sources of LawCuban laws are difficult to find due to a lack of publishers and the government’s low commitment to transparency. There is no Lexis, Westlaw, or CLII Cuba. Government websites are here today, gone tomorrow and not necessarily accurate or intuitive to use. Cuba’s Gaceta Oficial posts Cuban laws in rar format, an old school competitor to the zip file that requires special software to decompress. The Gaceta includes codified Cuban law, but the codes aren’t up-to-date and there are differences even between the HTML and PDF versions posted on the Gaceta’s website. The problem is not restricted to online access. The government’s Instituto Cubano del Libro reviews all books and only authorizes a handful of publishers (e.g. ONBC) to print short runs that quickly sell out. During a recent book-buying trip to Cuba, Miguel-Stearns struggled to find something as simple as the current commercial code and spent hours waiting outside a bookstore while the Uruguayan publishers serving as intermediaries haggled for the handful of books available. Nevertheless, resources on Cuban law are expanding. For years the Supreme Court’s website was routinely down and nearly impossible to access, but following a recent reworking, it is now (usually) up and filled with useful information about the court and its rulings.  Other useful websites are the government-sponsored Granma and EcuRed; the independent Translating Cuba and Havana Times; and Cuba Trade Magazine, which focuses on the growing trade between the U.S. and Cuba.

Piñon believes that promoting trade between the U.S. and Cuba is key to both countries’ interests. Castro is now in his mid-eighties and has failed to identify a sufficiently charismatic, popular successor. Additionally, Cuba is heavily dependent on subsidies from Venezuela, which will end as soon as Maduro’s government falls. The imminent power vacuum could leave Cuba vulnerable to drug cartels. However, if the U.S. helps Cuba build a stable economy now, Americans and Cubans alike can benefit from the buying power of Cuban consumers and the contributions of the well-educated and entrepreneurial Cuban workforce. The Cuban government understands that it cannot continue to support hundreds of thousands of government workers once the Venezuelan subsidies end and is actively pushing both foreign investment and small businesses, such as B&Bs. For their part, American corporations are eager to access Cuban workers and markets and don’t care about the property the Cuban government seized from them decades ago. (Piñon quipped that most American companies would happily settle with Cuba for a dollar–and if Cuba does not have a dollar, they will reach into their pockets and give it the dollar.) The current re-freezing of Cuban relations has nothing to do with Cuba and everything to do with domestic U.S. politics. American politicians support the embargo because they fear losing support for their own policies from colleagues such as Marco Rubio, who in turn fear losing the votes of their Cuban exile constituents. It is up to us to counter this pressure and lobby the politicians who represent us to oppose the embargo.

All of the speakers were passionate and knowledgeable about their subjects and I wished this had been a deep dive so I could have heard everything they had to share. Happily, however, the presenters have also extensively documented their work elsewhere, including on this blog. Grant’s detailed travelogue of the Latin American Law Interest Group’s trip to Cuba is a special highlight. The presenters also provided an extensive handout, documenting and expanding on their presentation. Finally, I’ll be keeping an eye out for the Latin American Law Interest Group’s full guide to Cuban law, forthcoming in the month’s issue of the International Journal of Legal Information.

#IALL2016 Recap: Precedent and Authority: the Continental Dimension


By: Jim Hart

















By Julienne Grant














Recap: Asian Legal Information in English: Availability, Accessibility, and Quality Control

By Amy Flick

Because I frequently need to help students find primary authority of other countries, yet have no hope of finding materials published in Chinese, Korean, or Japanese, I was pleased to see a program on Asian Legal Information in English in the AALL Annual Meeting program. I was even more pleased to find the program interesting, useful, and supplemented with handouts.

Alex ZhangAlex Zhang was the coordinator, moderator, and introductory speaker. She started by stressing the importance of good, reliable translations, but noted that even “official” translations by government entities are still for informational purposes only. In presenting the portion of the program on finding primary law of China, she included:

  • The official site NPC (National People’s Congress) Database of Laws and Regulations. The search box is unreliable, so Alex recommended browsing by category, requiring some knowledge of the structure of Chinese law to find the appropriate category. She cautioned that the laws retrieved may not include the dates of coverage, making it unclear for the user if they have the most current version.
  • State Council Laws & Regulations
  • Commercial sources including Lawinfochina, Westlaw China, and Lexis China, all comparable, and expensive, but Alex is most familiar with Lawinfochina. She recommends it for comprehensive coverage and inclusion of the most recent laws, and for a citator link to amendments to laws.
  • Although case law is not considered primary authority in China, a Stanford Law School project is translating Chinese Guiding Cases.

Alex wrapped up by noting that good translation is hard: “the question in legal translation isn’t which one is right, but which one is less wrong.” She suggests comparing and contrasting multiple translations and asking experts for help.


Anne Cathrine Mostad-JensenAnne Mostad-Jensen presented on law of Hong Kong and Macau. For these jurisdictions, she stressed that it is particularly important to understand their histories. Because of Hong Kong’s history as a British colony, it has a hybrid system of common and civil law, and English is one of its official languages for legal publication. Sources for Hong Kong legal information in English include:

Macao as a former Portuguese colony has a civil law system. English translation is available for only select legislation and some indexes, not for caselaw, and the translations are not official. Sources include:


Juice LeeJootaek “Juice” Lee demonstrated resources on law of the Republic of Korea in English. Although South Korea has a civil law system, it has been influenced by U.S. common law. English translations are not official, but English is widely used, and there are English language versions of most government websites. However, terminology can be an issue because of differences in civil and common law. Most primary sources are available in English, and government publishers try to provide accurate translations. Juice warned that Korean law changes rapidly, and English translations may not keep up. There are also issues with understanding the differences between public, private, and social law. He recommended sources including:


Mike McArthurMike McArthur had the final presentation in the program on finding Japanese law in English. Japanese efforts to be more international led to a 2004 Japanese law requiring translation of Japanese laws. Laws are first made available in tentative translation before an “official” version is available. Of course, translations are still unofficial. Mike warned that the Japanese calendar has a different date system, so he provided a “cheat sheet” for Japanese dates.  Sources for Japanese law in English include:

  • The Ministry of Justice’s Japanese Law Translation The database of laws and regulations is searchable with multiple options (title, number, category), and it has a dictionary for finding Japanese legal terms.
  • The Supreme Court of Japan. Although Japan has a civil law system, Supreme Court decisions are relevant, and some are translated into English.
  • An additional resource for Japanese legal research is ministry reports and white papers, which are translated into English, and which include detailed statistics.

Mike reminded the audience, as did the other speakers, that a legal researcher working with foreign languages and translations can get in over their head quickly, and that they should reach out to a specialist for help.


All of the presentations in the program were outstanding, and I appreciate the hard work by the speakers in putting them together!

Recap: Jurisdictions Interest Groups Joint Meeting

By Alyson Drake

This year’s Jurisdictions Interest Groups Joint Meeting was a fantastic opportunity to hear from our FCIL-SIS colleagues on interesting topics and interest group projects.


jenJennifer Allison from the European Law Interest Group kicked off the meeting with an informative discussion of recent changes to German asylum law.  First, Jennifer explained that asylum for the politically persecuted is a constitutional right in Germany, under Grundgesetz article 16a.  She highlighted three 2016 laws related to German asylum law:

  • The Data Exchange Improvement Act, aimed at improving procedures for the exchange of data between government groups and other entities dealing with refugees;
  • The Act Introducing an Accelerated Asylum Procedure, which explains how accelerated asylum procedure will work for those cases where a fraudulent application for asylum is expected or where there’s a potential risk to the safety of the country by an applicant; and
  • The Act Simplifying Expulsion of Foreign Criminals and the Broadened Suspension of Refugee Recognition for Criminal Asylum Applicant, which amends earlier asylum laws.

She also discussed the Integration Act, the latest asylum legislation, which has yet to come into force and encourages asylum seekers and grantees to participate in training programs to help integrate them into German culture.

german law guideJennifer also provided a handout with various German law sources and other helpful sources, which can be found on her German Law Research Guide; it includes a section on German asylum law.  She also highly recommended following Jenny Gesley, who is the German Law Specialist at the Library of Congress, on Twitter for updates relating to German law.  One other resource she highly recommended is the Linguee German-English Dictionary, which gives good examples of legal terminology in context.


Next up were Juice Lee and Steven Alexander de Costa, speaking on behalf of the Latin America Interest Group.  They presented the IG’s progress on the “Guide to Legal Research on Cuba.”  The guide will include information on Cuba’s history and Cuban law.  It will also include both Spanish and English language resources. The expected completion date of the guide is September 1st, 2016, and the group is still deciding on where to publish the guide after completion.

Steven discussed a little about his experiences working on the legal history portion of the guide.  He explained that the project was unique because materials relating to Cuba’s legal history weren’t widely available, particularly in English.  He noted that he learned some interesting facts about Cuba’s legal history, including that the modern history of Cuba began with the 1959 revolution, and that the legal system entwines both civil and socialist law, as well as some common law.  Interestingly, Cuban law still owes a lot to Spanish civil codes.

cuban lawIn the discussion that followed the update, it was noted that LLMC is currently working on digitizing approximately 200 Cuban materials, and that the National Library of Cuba has joined to cause and is helping find rare titles and more materials.  Teresa Miguel-Stearns also briefly discussed her recent trip to Cuba.


The third speaker was Yemisi Dina from the Africa Interest Group, updating the group on completing phase one of her the South Western Nigeria digitization project.  One recent development is that she’s created a blog, digesting cases before customary courts in two cities in South Western Nigeria.

Yemisi shared several observations with the group:

  • yemisiCustomary law has a future in the legal system of Nigeria and other African countries. Customary courts are disorganized, but the government is interested. Yemisi noted that the government put a structure together for her to visit.
  • The resolution process is open to everyone, not just certain demographic groups. Yemisi observed that educated people are using the customary courts to resolve their disputes.
  • The majority of issues before the customary courts are divorce; rent; and child custody. Yemisi mentioned that land disputes used to be before the courts a great deal, but that those disputes have died down.
  • The courts face several challenges, including financial issues, as they are not funded by the government; limited resources, such as courts having only one staff person working at the court; and a lack of technology.

Yemisi welcomes comments about and suggestions for her project.


perkinsFinally, Steven Perkins from the Indigenous Peoples Interest Group gave an interesting talk on some of the issues regarding DNA testing of Indigenous Peoples.

First, Steven discussed some of the different types of DNA testing that can take place, including the testing that can be done to determine the ethnic groups from which a person gets their DNA.  Next, Steven provided a brief history of the relationship between scientists and Native American tribes, namely that scientists have been analyzing tribe blood over the last 50 years, but that some challenges arose in how scientists were using their samples.  Scientists conducted research beyond the scope of what they told the tribes would be done, gave samples out to other scientists, and moved around the blood samples to different schools.  As such, the tribe had to set some boundaries and recollect the blood that had been passed around.  As such, tribes have created a guide to decide how to approach these situations.  The guide is found on the National Congress of American Indians website.  Most notably, the tribes keep the data and keep custody of the samples, and have procedures for determining whether a person is part of a particular tribe.

Thank you to all the speakers for presenting such a robust Jurisdictions IG meeting!

FCIL-SIS Jurisdictions Interest Groups To Meet On Sunday

FCIL-SIS invites all AALL conference attendees to join us for our Jurisdictions Interest Groups Joint Meeting this Sunday, from 12:30pm to 2:00pm, in the Hyatt-Water Tower Room.  The program will include substantive presentations from several of our interest groups, as well as 15 minutes at the end of the meeting for each group to discuss their plans for the coming year.

The agenda for the meeting is as follows:

SUNDAY July 17, 2016

12:30 PM – 2:00 PM

FCIL-SIS Jurisdictions IG Joint Meeting (Africa, Asia, Latin America, Europe, Indigenous Peoples, Customary & Religious Law, Roman Law) (Hyatt-Water Tower)

Meeting Topics:

  • Welcome and Intro (Susan Gualtier, Louisiana State University School of Law Library) – 5 minutes
  • European Law: Recent Developments in German Law Related to Asylum and Refugees: A Brief Overview for Law Librarians (Jennifer Alison, Harvard Law School Library) – 20 minutes
  • Latin America: Cuban Legal Research Guide (Julienne Grant, Loyola University Chicago Law Library, et al.) – 10 minutes
  • Africa: Updates of the Digitization Case Law Project from South Western Nigeria (Yemisi Dina, Osgood Hall Law School Library) – 20 minutes
  • Indigenous Peoples: Indigenous Peoples and DNA Testing: Friend or Foe? (Steven Perkins, Greenberg Traurig, LLP) – 20 minutes
  • Individual Interest Groups business meetings – 15 minutes

Everyone is welcome to attend the presentations and to check out our interest groups, so please spread the word to anyone interested in these areas of foreign law.  FCIL-SIS looks forward to seeing you there!



By Alyson Drake


4) the Novels: posthumous compilations of Justinian I’s constitutiones.




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By Alex Zhang and Anne Mostad-Jensen










