In progress; last updated Sept. 17, 2008
Below is a description of some of the resources for Chinese law research available at the law school (in most cases, through the law school library). It is not a complete list; its purpose is to bring to your attention valuable sources you might not otherwise know about. For Chinese law research in general, check out my page on research guides to Chinese law.
A good 3-volume looseleaf set with articles on dozens of subjects, mostly by practitioners. By and large up to date.
The author is a librarian at Washington University Law School in St. Louis, and this is a very helpful book.
The following two periodicals are very good for keeping up with the latest in Chinese law, at least as far as it's of interest to foreign lawyers and business people. Both are currently available on Lexis/Nexis and Westlaw.
Note: Many of these resources are accessible only from a GWU or GWU Law School IP address. In some cases a wireless connection is not good enough, and you must use Gelman Library's proxy server.
This is a good set of laws and regulations offered both in English and Chinese. The translations are generally good, although not infallible. Look for "CCH Internet Research Network - Business and Management" on the library's Internet Resources page or else go directly to the CCH site. You may access this site only through a computer connected directly to the law school network. A wireless connection to the network does not work.
The GWU Law Library now provides access to two legal databases maintained by Beijing University: ChinaLawInfo (in Chinese) and LawInfoChina (in English). Although the latter is not simply a translated version of the former -- the task is just too big -- both provide legislation, case reports, and secondary materials such as articles on various subjects. Both are available through a computer connected to the law school network (including via a wireless connection).
An excellent source for articles from virtually all periodicals in China on virtually all subjects. GWU's access is only to a subset, but it's the subset that's useful to us: law, economics, and social science generally. This database is searchable by author, journal name, title, keywords, and full text. It is, of course, in Chinese. You can download PDF files of articles you find. You must use a GWU computer or Gelman's proxy server to access this; go to the Slavic, East European, and Asian Studies Reading Room page and click on "China Academic Journals/Newsprs".
The China Documentation Center has a list of databases here. Note in particular the Policies and Laws Database. This is a subset of the Wanfang Database, which includes a number of other databases (including one of Chinese periodicals).
Several useful databases are accessible through the Gelman Library's Slavic, East European, and Asian Studies Reading Room page. You must use a GWU computer or Gelman's proxy server to access these. Among them are the following:
- Bibliography of Asian Studies: Very extensive, but always a few years out of date.
- China Data Online: Want to know the gross domestic product of Yunnan in 1985? Here's where to go. This contains the contents of all those yearbooks that China produces so copiously. Unfortunately, the data are entered manually and that means mistakes happen.
- Economist Intelligence Unit: They have quite an extensive set of publications on China, regularly updated.
- World News Connection: This is the successor to the Joint Publications Research Service and the Foreign Broadcast Information Service; it contains translations - typically quite good - of material appearing in the Chinese press. Occasionally it has translations of statutes. Hint: make "("Article 1" and "Article 2" and "Article 3")" part of your search string.