There are numerous free websites that can assist in locating Chilean primary law, as well as secondary information on Chilean legal topics. Links to available English-language translations of Chilean law are listed below at right.
The following websites are available in Spanish only.
A small sample of websites related to the regime and prosecution of Augusto Pinochet is listed below.
SSRN is an electronic repository for international social sciences scholarship that includes the Legal Scholarship Network (LSN). Thousands of downloadable abstracts, working papers, and published papers are available without charge. Users need to go through a free registration process in order to create an account.
The following versions of the 1980 Chilean constitution are available on the WWW. Note that the subscription database "World Constitutions Illustrated" in HeinOnline, contains an English-language translation of the constitution as codified by Supreme Decree No. 100 of September 17, 2005, as amended to Law no. 21,096 of June 5, 2018.
On October 25, 2020, Chileans overwhelmingly voted in favor of drafting a new constitution. On May 15 and 16, 2021, Chileans again went to the polls to elect 155 representatives to the Constitutional Convention.
For a description of the various types of Chilean legal instruments, see the article, "Essentials of the Chilean Legal System" (2019), posted on GlobaLex. Texts of bills, laws, and regulations, are easily searchable on the Library of the Chilean National Congress' website (see below). Many subject-specific laws and regulations are also posted on the related government department or ministry's website.
Some Chilean government and NGO/IGO websites post Englis-language translations of Chilean legal materials. Note that the translations may not be official or reflect the most current versions.
Sites listed in English are in English or have an English-language site option.
The Due Process of Law Foundation has published several digests on Latin American national case jurisprudence:
The 2013 Digest on Indigenous People's Rights compiles and analyzes high court decisions related to indigenous rights in nine Latin American countries. The countries covered are Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Panama, and Peru. In Spanish only.
The 2015 Digest on the Rights of Victims is available in English.
Two digest volumes on International Crimes (2010 and 2013) are also available in English.
The National Law Center for Inter-American Free Trade, which is affiliated with the James E. Rogers College of Law at the University of Arizona, maintains the NatLaw World Database. This database contains laws, regulations, case law, and secondary source materials related to trade and investment for countries in the Americas. Most of the materials are in Spanish, although many English translations are available. Access to the majority of the database's content is by subscription, although some free materials are available.
The first PowerPoint accompanied a talk on Chilean legal research given at the American Association of Law Libraries Annual Meeting in Seattle on July 16, 2013. The speaker was Sergio Stone, Robert Crown Law Library, Stanford University. (Posted with permission.)
The second set of PowerPoint slides was prepared for the LUC Law School course, "Comparative Law Seminar: Legal Systems in the Americas."
