New Foreign, Comparative & International Law Database

The Goodson Law Library recently subscribed to The Making of Modern Law: Foreign, Comparative & International Law, 1600-1926. This new resource offers the full text of nearly 3,500 historic treatises on foreign, comparative and international law topics, from the 17th century to the early 20th.

The collection offers a fascinating perspective on legal history, with titles like 1911's Patent and Trade Mark Laws of the World, which gives a country-by-country summary of then-current intellectual property requirements (ever wondered what a patent application cost in Uruguay at the turn of the 20th century? It's in there), or its earliest title, 1602's tongue-twisting The Pandectes of the Law of Nations: Contayning Seuerall Discourses of the Questions, Points, and Matters of Law, Wherein the Nations of the World doe Consent and Accord: Giuing Great Light to the Vnderstanding and Opening of the Principall Obiects, Questions, Rules, and Cases of the Ciuill Law and Common Law This Realme of England. In keeping with the database's global perspective, about 50% of the collection is in a language other than English (particularly French, Latin, German, and Spanish). The collection can be searched by a variety of options, or browsed by title or author.

The Goodson Law Library subscribes to several other Making of Modern Law (MoML) collections, including Legal Treatises 1800-1926 (American and British legal treatises from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries), U.S. Supreme Court Records & Briefs, 1832-1978 (records and briefs from approximately 150,000 historical U.S. Supreme Court cases), Primary Sources I & II (early state codes, state constitutional conventions, city charters, law dictionaries, case digests, records of the American colonies), and Trials 1600-1926 (transcripts, popular printed accounts, briefs, and arguments for Anglo-American trials).

Like these other MoML modules, the new FCIL collection can be accessed via our Legal Databases and Links page, although it's located under the "Foreign & International Law Resources" column. It will also be added to the library's research guides on Foreign & Comparative Law and International Law. For questions about using the database or researching FCIL materials, be sure to Ask a Librarian.