Getting Started with ILR—International Legal Research

ILR can be a daunting prospect for anyone but especially for those new to research in the area. Give these tried-and-true strategies a try when getting started.

Find a Guide.  

As mentioned in the Legal Eagle Blog before, you’ll never go astray by starting your research with a guide. Legal Research or Law Guides are a handy reference to primary and secondary sources specific to an area of law. You should expect most ILR guides to focus on showing users how to find treaties and other international agreements, which are primary sources in international law. You may also see references to foreign domestic legal sources in guides dedicated to private international law as they involve disputes among individuals or business entities from differing nation-states rather than disputes among the nation-states themselves. The Library of Congress (LOC) has popular ILR Guides as does Globalex (NYU Law). However, your RWU Librarians are partial to the guides we create for our students including, but not limited to, International & Foreign Research, Private International Research, and International Business Transactions. 

Consult Secondary Sources.

While it’s always good practice to consult secondary sources at the start of a research project, it could be critical in ILR as international law and organizations tend to use highly specialized terminology and acronyms. Locating and reviewing secondary sources on your topic can provide you with valuable context and the definition of key terms and acronyms. ILR will also require you to search for unfamiliar sources such as treaties and foreign domestic law. Your search for those primary sources will be much easier if you find relevant citations to them in secondary sources first. As you are no doubt already aware, you have many options available to you when it comes to searching for secondary sources.  Westlaw Precision and Lexis+ will both allow you to search for secondary sources under the International Law Practice Area. HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library also offers a comprehensive collection of International & Non-U.S. Law Journals.  

Locate Treaties.

After you consult some good guides and secondary sources, your next task may likely include locating the treaties related to your research. The research guides you consulted may have pointed out many resources that you can reliably use to find treaties. However, for your purposes as an RWU Law student, the treaty sources you need should be available to you through RWU’s HeinOnline subscription. Their U.S. Treaties and Agreements database includes all treaties and international agreements the U.S. has been a party to from the inception of the country to the present. The collection includes a Library Guide of its own with additional information about the collection, textual search tips, and a helpful training video. Looking for other bilateral or multilateral treaties? Then, try the HeinOnline World Treaty Library, which is the most expansive collection of all the treaties of the world spanning from 1648 to the present. And it too includes a helpful library guide. 

Apply the 10-minute Rule.

If you get stuck on a research task for more than ten minutes, please reach out to your law librarians. We’re here to help you! Drop by or contact us for immediate reference assistance Monday through Friday 8am to 5pm. The library also provides individualized research consultations for students to help develop research strategies based on individual needs. To schedule a research consultation with a law librarian, contact us via Ask a Librarian, or by email at LawLibraryHelp@rwu.edu.  

ILR can be challenging but manageable if you follow these tips and ask for assistance when you need it.