LibGuides: Researching Latin American Law: Databases

About

The Loyola Law Library and the Loyola Libraries system subscribe to a number of commercial databases that offer coverage of Latin America. These databases are listed below, and at right. Loyola users will need to submit their user IDs and passwords to gain access to these resources from off campus.

Newspapers

Newspapers may be extremely helpful when researching Latin American legal topics. Westlaw and LexisNexis both have good coverage of U.S., international, and foreign newspapers. See also the subscription Access World News and Factiva databases for full-text access to newspapers. A historical archive of English and Spanish-language newspapers published in Latin America is available through the World Newspaper Archive.

See also under "Blogs & Current Awareness" within the "Web Resources" tab for additional ideas on current awareness sources.

Dissertations & Theses

Dissertations & Theses (ProQuest)

Often overlooked by academic legal researchers, dissertations and theses contain exhaustive research and extensive bibliographies. The ProQuest Dissertations & Theses database currently includes citations to over two million dissertations and theses from 1861 forward, and full-text access to over one million of these citations. The database's coverage is global, with numerous law-related papers available to download in PDF format. Searches may be conducted in various fields, such as title, author, citation and abstract, and degree awarded.

For open-access dissertations and theses, see:

DART-Europe E-theses Portal

Open Access Theses and Dissertations

Portal de Tesis Latinoamericanas

Theses Canada

Subscription Databases (Law)

Most of the law-related databases listed below are available through the Law Library's website via the "Subscription Databases" link.

Bloomberg Law This link opens in a new window
Bloomberg Law is a full-service legal research service that provides access to U.S. federal and state primary law, Bloomberg BNA commentary and analysis, news, company information, dockets, and more. Current Law School students and faculty are assigned individual passwords which permit full access to the site's content year-round (including during the summer months) and for six months after graduation, with no academic use restrictions.

Criminal Justice Abstracts with Full Text (Ebsco)
This database offers abstracting of over 200 criminal justice publications, as well as the full texts. Some monographs are also included, and the coverage is international.
Foreign Law Guide: Current Sources of Codes and Basic Legislation in Jurisdictions of the World
This title has been a staple in the area of foreign legal research for more than a decade. Included are brief overviews of the legal systems of over 170 jurisdctions, as well as lists of each jurisdiction's codes, court reports, and other significant legal literature.

Global-Regulation.com This link opens in a new window
Global-Regulation.com is an index that allows you to search (in English) the full text of over 3.5 million statutes and regulations, including over one million translated laws. The site provides links to official, full-text sources, translated into English, from over 100 jurisdictions (including the United States). The internal search engine offers advanced search and analytics capabilities.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline contains scanned images of U.S. and some foreign law reviews and journals back to their inception. Hein's "World Constitutions Illustrated" database contains English translations of constitutions, as well as historical documents and texts, for many individual Latin American countries.

Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective: 1908 - 1981
Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective provides citations to articles from over 750 law journals, legal newspapers, and bar association journals, covering the years 1908 through 1981. Full text is not included, but once you have ascertained the citations for articles relevant to your research, you can search for the full text in another database, such as HeinOnline's Law Journal Library, or in print.

Investor-State LawGuide This link opens in a new window
Investor-State LawGuide, a resource for international investment law research, provides access to treaties, arbitration rules, decisions and awards, and other related documents. In addition to full-text search capability, Investor-State LawGuide's research tools include: the Subject Navigator; the Article Citator (which shows how specific legal instruments relevant to international investment law have been interpreted by tribunals); the Jurisprudence Citator (which shows how specific decisions have been treated by subsequent investment treaty tribunals); and Terms & Phrases searching (which enables you to look for the meaning of terms and phrases that have been defined in treaties and rules or by arbitration tribunals). Click on "Login” in the upper-right corner of the welcome screen to access the database.

KluwerArbitration
According to the publisher, KluwerArbitration is the "world's leading online resource for international commercial arbitration research." The source provides access to an extensive collection of primary materials, as well as secondary resources, including the journals Arbitration International and the Journal of International Arbitration.
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LexisNexis
In LexisAdvance, go to the "International" tab, and then select individual countries. Various Mexican federal and state laws are included, for example.

LLMC-Digital This link opens in a new window
LLMC-Digital is an electronic product of the Law Library Microform Consortium (LLMC). The LLMC backfile contains the world's largest collection of government documents and legal literature in microform; LLMC-Digital is an ongoing attempt to convert those documents to an electronic form. Specialty sources within the collection include old federal administrative decisions, federal case law, some presidential papers, state publications, and foreign and international materials. LLMC-Digital is searchable by title, author, keyword, or citation
Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law This link opens in a new window
The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law provides a high level of analytic coverage of constitutional law topics in a comparative context. The encyclopedia articles, modeled on those in the Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law, address a range of topics, defining and covering the basis and foundations of state formation and constitutional law, as well as analyzing and explaining underlying legal concepts.
Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law This link opens in a new window
The Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law is one of the most authoritative resources in its field. Contributors to the Encyclopedia include scholars and practitioners from around the world, and articles are edited by a team from the prestigious Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law . Several articles address the topic of Latin American law in the global arena.
A video tutorial on using the Max Planck Encyclopedias of Public International Law is available at https://youtu.be/3JvVyxk32MQ.

Multinational Sources Compared: A Subject and Jurisdiction Index
Available through HeinOnline, the Index will point researchers to materials that are international in scope, but treat individual countries or jurisdictions within.
TradeLawGuide
This database allows users to search across PDF files of official awards, decisions and other WTO documents. TradeLawGuide also ‘notes up’ WTO decisions by tracking how subsequent WTO reports, awards and decisions have considered specific passages in WTO jurisprudence. The database features a citator that collects all jurisprudence under a treaty provision for the WTO system. TradeLawGuide also offers treaty interpretation and other tools. Click on “Subscriber Login” in the upper-right corner of the welcome screen to access the database.
Westlaw
For law school subscribers, in WestlawNext, go to "News" then "International" then "Latin America." There are also materials under "International Materials" then "All Other International Materials."
World Constitutions Illustrated (via HeinOnline)
Although this database focuses on links to the texts of foreign constitutions (many in English translation), the texts of monographs, relevant law review articles, and historical documents are also included.

Subscription Databases (Non-Law)

For a complete list of interdisciplinary databases with coverage of Latin America, see the Loyola Libraries research page for "Latin American Studies."

ABI/Inform Global
International in scope, ABI/Inform Global is a searchable database of business journals, online business news, and financial newspapers. The database currently covers over 3,000 publications, with more than 2,000 available in full text.
Academic Search Complete
This is a popular interdiscliplinary database that indexes over 8,000 publications--the majority of which are available in full text.
EconLit
EconLit is a database of journals, books, and working papers in the field of Economics. Coverage is international.
Hispanic American Periodicals Index (HAPI Online)
According to the database description, HAPI Online contains "authoritative, worldwide information about Central and South America, Mexico, Brazil, the Caribbean basin, the United States-Mexico border region, and Hispanics/Latinos in the United States." The database is primarily an index (over 500 publications are included), but links to full text are provided when available.
JSTOR
JSTOR is a popular interdisciplinary database with scanned images of academic journals. JSTOR includes a number of publications that specifically focus on topics related to Latin American Studies.
Passport GMID
Euromonitor International's Global Market Information Database provides global business intelligence on industries, countries, and consumers.
Project MUSE
Project Muse is an interdisciplinary database of over 200 full-text academic journals. The database includes publications that focus on topics related to Iberian Studies.
Women's Studies International
This interdisciplinary database covers major areas within the general topic of Women's Studies, including sociology, history, political science and economics, public policy, international relations, arts and humanities, business, and education. Over 2,000 periodicals are indexed, covering 1972 to present, although no full text is provided.
WorldWide Political Science Abstracts
This database offers citations, abstracts, and indexing of political science literature, and related fields. Coverage is international.