Foreign and International Law Library Guide: The Americas

North America

Most subscription databases contain legal materials for the United States and Canada. You can access these materials on Westlaw, LexisNexis Academic and HeinOnline.

For resources not available on the subscription databases, the Legal Information Institute contains cases and statutes from the USA while the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CANLII) contains cases and statutes from Canada.

When researching the United States, it is important to become familiar with the legal system, as it differs from the South African procedures. Federal laws apply across all states, but are generally guidelines, while each state then enacts its own law to follow the policy or the decisions of each state's legislature. So often there will not be only one Act (as we have in South Africa) but rather a specific Act for each State.

South America and Central America

Some South American materials are available on Westlaw and LexisNexis academic, but not all. Free resources need to be relied on at this point, usually from Government websites.