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Chinese Law Research Guide: Books & Articles

Resources for researching Chinese law.

Searching for Books

If you can find a few good books covering your topic, it can make your research much easier:
 
  • Hastings has a good collection of books on Chinese law.
  • The Hastings collection contains both print books and e-Books.
  • Hastings students can also borrow books through inter-library loan.
To find books at Hastings use the Hastings Catalog.  
  • Do a quick search to find books at Hastings and articles available to Hastings students.
  • Use the advanced search feature for more complex title, author and subject searching.
  • AFTER you complete your search, LIMIT results to e-Books by selecting "Available Online"

Hastings Catalog

Browsing for Books

Books at Hastings are organized by call number.  Most of the Chinese Law books are on the 5th floor in the KNN & KNQ call number range. 

If you find a book that looks interesting and you are not on campus, locate the book in our library catalog, then click on the book title, and then scroll to the bottom of the screen to virtually browse the titles nearby on the shelf.  Of course, if you are on campus, browsing the shelves is a great way to find relevant books.

browse books

Inter-Library Loan: Books

For a wider selection of available books, search to see if other libraries have books you can borrow through Inter-Library Loan (ILL). If the book you want is not in the Hastings Library, or you would like to locate other books on your topic, use WorldCat, a database containing information about books from most of the libraries in the English-speaking world. Once you find a book, select "Request Item Through Interlibrary Loan" to borrow the book.

Google Books

Finding Articles

Hastings Subscribes to 1000's of Journals in Print and Online:

 

Articles in Lexis, Westlaw, HeinOnline, and other Subscription Databases:

Journal and law review articles can be one of the best places to find current research on your topic. 

  • Academic Search Complete – Searches social science news and articles
  • HeinOnline - Includes nearly every current & historical law review article in PDF.
  • JSTOR - Searches social science articles.
  • Legal Scholarship Network - Includes working papers and unpublished research articles.
  • Lexis - Includes a large collection of recent legal journal and law review articles. 
  • ProQuest Central - Searches social science news and articles.
  • Westlaw - Includes a large collection of recent legal journal and law review articles.

HeinOnline includes full-text journals such as:

Legal Scholarship Network includes e-journals such as:

Search Legal Periodical Indexes:

If you are having difficulty finding relevant articles, you can try searching a journal index. Index searches are only search the title or abstract of the article, (NOT a full-text search):

Advantages to Index Searching:

  • Legal periodical indexes allow you to search nearly all U.S. law review articles from 1918 to present. Therefore, searching these indexes allows you to search more journal articles than you can search in Lexis or Westlaw.
  • Good for historical research.
  • Index searching can help you eliminate many irrelevant articles from your full-text search results. But after you find the citation, you then need to find the full-text.

Disadvantages to Index Searching:

  • After you find the citation, you still need to find the full-text.
  • Your search is limited to title and abstract.

Once you find a citation to an article, search for the full-text in the Hastings Law Library's e-journal finder. You can also search for the journal title in the Library Catalog, Lexis, Westlaw, or HeinOnline.

San Francisco Public Library (SFPL):

If an article you have found is not in one of the online resources at Hastings, you may want to search the SFPL online databases or SFPL Periodical Finder.  Any resident of California may apply for a SFPL Library card to get online full-text access.

Bibliography of Academic Writings on Chinese Law:

The German Journal for Chinese Law ("Zeitschrift für Chinesisches Recht" [ZChinR]) publishes an annual Bibliography of Academic Writings in the Field of Chinese Law.  Each year it is included in volume 2 of the journal.  Below are the most recent available bibliographies:

Inter-Library Loan: Articles

WorldCat:

If you are unable to find the article you need using the above resources, you can search for articles using WorldCat.

  • Search for the article by title, author or keyword
  • Limit search results to "Articles" using the filter boxes on the left
  • Click on the article title
  • Then click the blue "Request Item" button in the middle of the page.

Google Scholar

Google Scholar is a quick way to find scholarly articles.

  • For full-text access click “settings”, click “Library Links” and then select Hastings and SFPL. “Save” your settings.
  • Note: You may need to find go to the Library's subscription databases or e-Journals pages to find the full-text of articles you locate on Google Scholar.