Common Problems with Finding Foreign Sources
Posted by administrator on October 27, 2008
Link didn’t work – Use Google’s cached version of the page or the Way Back Machine’s archive and from there try to assemble a better search that will get you a current version. For example, maybe when you look at the archived version you will see who was responsible for creating the old page. With that information you can go to that entity’s current page and figure out whether it has an up-to-date version of the law.
Archive http://www.archive.org/web/web.php
Translation – Initially, you might spot check with an electronic translator (examples: Babelfish & Google Translator) just to be sure you have a general understanding of the information. Then, when you have selected the documents to be translated, hire a professional company or individual.
Peace Corps foreign language lessons
http://www.peacecorps.gov/wws/multimedia/language/
State Department’s foreign language courses
http://www.fsi-language-courses.com/
IP Translators list
http://www.ipmenu.com/iptranslation.htm
General commercial legal translation service
http://www.languagealliance.com/legal-translation/
Unfamiliar with System or vocabulary – Read through the entry in one of the sources that describe various countries’ legal systems: Martindale (scroll down to “jurisdiction”, Foreign Law Guide, individually written research guide. Note that if none of these solve your information needs, you might at least get contact information from them. Certainly if you find a research guide for your jurisdiction, you will have the author’s name and e-mail address.
Source was inefficient – (examples: courts in date or docket order, index to foreign legal periodicals in chronological order). Look for subscription database or do secondary research to get leads to segments of primary material. In re the periodical index, sometimes you have to be patient, but a work-around might be to find treatises.
If any of my links ask you for a user name and password, log-in to https://sslvpn.pitt.edu with your Pitt user name and password and look for the source in the University’s database list. If you still can’t get in, you will have to access it from a computer inside the law school building.
