Introduction
This guide is intended for those interested in the law and legal system of France. It contains sources and commentary for French law such as ebooks, journals and databases. There is also a focus on open access and broader content such as multimedia, blogs and podcasts.
Key databases
- Dalloz Digital Library (Dalloz Bibliotheque) This link opens in a new window
The Digital library comprises more than 3,500 ebooks and textbooks on French Law, including all Codes Dalloz, Dalloz action, Glossaries, Précis, and a wide range of university textbooks and revision works that support both teaching and research.
Specific password required for off-campus access, for details go to our passwords page.
Additional Login info: Click on "Connexion" to be fully logged in and see the list of our subscribed titles under "Ma bibliotheque". Please note: 1 concurrent user access. If unable to access, please try again later.
- Westlaw International Materials This link opens in a new windowThis includes legislation, case law and journals for US and Commonwealth countries. To access International Materials, go to Westlaw UK, select 'International' from the Region drop-down menu located on the top left of the page. US Materials can be found under 'Relate Legal' on right hand side of page.
NB. The previous version of Westlaw UK was discontinued from August 2019. For Westlaw E-Books, select 'Books' from the drop-down menu located on the top left of the page
- HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
HeinOnline is Hein’s premier online research product with more than 100 million pages of legal history available in an online, fully-searchable, image-based format. HeinOnline provides comprehensive coverage of more than 1,800 law and law-related periodicals. In addition to its vast collection of law journals, HeinOnline also contains the Congressional Record Bound volumes in entirety, complete coverage of the U.S. Reports back to 1754, famous world trials dating back to the early 1700′s, legal classics from the 16th to the 20th centuries, the United Nations and League of Nations Treaty Series, all United States Treaties, the Federal Register from inception in 1936, the CFR from inception in 1938, and much more.
- Nexis UK (LexisNexis) - new platform This link opens in a new window
This database focuses on news information, together with comprehensive UK company information and detailed financial reports. Newspaper coverage is widespread and contains both English language and other international sources. UK national and regional newspapers are also available.
Books
Please note: currently, titles held on Dalloz Bibliotheque do not appear in LibrarySearch.
French Legal System by
This edition provides a topical and highly readable introduction in English to the French legal system, covering all of the key aspects in an accessible manner.
ISBN: 9781405811613Publication Date: 2006-09-01
French Law by
The second edition of French Law: A Comparative Approach provides an authoritative, comprehensive, and up to date account of the French legal system and its internal workings. It sets out the institutional frameworks, substantive law, and methodologies that underpin the system, and provides expert insight into the civil law way of thinking and an explanation of how law is made and enforced in France. It offers detailed case studies of how French law is shaped in practice in key areas, including commentary on landmark cases that have shaped modern French law. Illuminating and insightful comparisons to other legal jurisdictions are made throughout, helping readers appreciate the distinguishing features and unique nature of the French legal landscape.
ISBN: 9780198790891Publication Date: 2018-05-01
Principles of French Law by
Principles of French Law offers a comprehensive introduction to French law and the French legal system in terms which a common lawyer can understand. The authors give an explanation of the institutions, rules and techniques that characterize the major branches of French law. The chapters provide the reader with a clear sense of the questions that French lawyers see as important and how they would answer them.In the ten years since the publication of the first edition, French law has changed in significant ways. European Union law and the European Convention on Human Rights have had a significant impact especially on procedural law and family law. There has been a new Commercial Code, major legislation on divorce, succession and criminal law, as well as significant developments in the Constitution. In addition, there have been very considerable developments in the case-law and a much discussed proposal for reform of major areas of the law of obligations.The chapters present not only the rules of law, but, where appropriate, the principles and values underlying the system. Considerable use is made of juristic literature and of examples from French case law.The book is designed for students studying French law at both undergraduate and postgraduate level, and as preliminary reading for students about to study in France. It will also serve as an initial point of reference for scholars embarking on a study of French law.
ISBN: 0199541396Publication Date: 2008-06-02
These are just a few suggestions. To search across our collections, please use LibrarySearch.
Contemporary French Administrative Law by
Despite the growing scholarly interest in comparative public law, there remain relatively few works on the subject. Contemporary French Administrative Law aims to redress that imbalance, offering English-language readers an authoritative introduction to the key features of French administrative law and its institutions. The French legal system is among the most well-developed and influential in the world, and, as procedures continually adapt to European and international influences, it has never been more worthy of research, study and interrogation. This book employs a wide range of recent, illustrative cases to demonstrate how French administrative law works both in theory and in practice. Using a systematic approach and covering everything from judicial review to public contracts, this is a highly valuable text for any student or researcher with an interest in French law. The book is also available as Open Access.
ISBN: 9781009057127Publication Date: 2022-02-24
French Criminal Law by
This book provides a clear and accessible account and analysis of French criminal law in English, the first to have been written. French criminal law has been highly influential in the development of criminal law in civil law countries around the world, and a knowledge of French criminal law has become increasingly important in view of the internationalisation and Europeanisation of criminal law. The book provides a historical introduction to the development of French criminal law, and a chapter on French criminal procedure to provide the context for an understanding of substantive criminal law. Subsequent chapters cover the general principles of French criminal law, analysing actus reus, mens rea, parties to crime, inchoate offences and general defences. The major offences are then considered chapter by chapter, and an Appendix provides in both French and English the key provisions of the French Criminal Code.
ISBN: 1903240301Publication Date: 2001-05-01
Juries and the Transformation of Criminal Justice in France in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries by
James Donovan takes a comprehensive approach to the history of the jury in modern France by investigating the legal, political, sociocultural, and intellectual aspects of jury trial from the Revolution through the twentieth century. He demonstrates that these juries, through their decisions, helped shape reform of the nation's criminal justice system. From their introduction in 1791 as an expression of the sovereignty of the people through the early 1900s, argues Donovan, juries often acted against the wishes of the political and judicial authorities, despite repeated governmental attempts to manipulate their composition. High acquittal rates for both political and nonpolitical crimes were in part due to juror resistance to the harsh and rigid punishments imposed by the Napoleonic Penal Code, Donovan explains. In response, legislators gradually enacted laws to lower penalties for certain crimes and to give jurors legal means to offer nuanced verdicts and to ameliorate punishments. Faced with persistently high acquittal rates, however, governments eventually took powers away from juries by withdrawing many cases from their purview and ultimately destroying the panels' independence in 1941.
ISBN: 1469622181Publication Date: 2014-12-01
The New French Law of Contract by
After being almost untouched for over 200 years, the contract law section of the French Civil Code was overhauled in 2016 and 2018. The New French Law of Contract describes, explains and analyses the new general principles of contract law in the reformed Code in a concise and stimulating way. The areas covered include contract formation, validity, the interpretation and supplementation of terms, the regulation of unfair terms, privity of contract, change of circumstances, breach of contract and remedies. The book examines the ways in which the new articles affirm or depart from the provisions of the 1804 Code and pre-reform case law, giving special attention to changes that have proved to be controversial and the debates that surround them. It also considers the various influences that have shaped the reforms, in particular those from international contract law instruments such as the Principle of European Contract Law and the UNIDROIT Principles. Written from the standpoint of a common lawyer, the book is designed to help readers from a common law background to navigate the innovations in the reforms and the new French law of contract that emerges. It is essential reading for students, researchers, practitioners, law-makers and judges with an interest in comparative law.
ISBN: 9780198810872Publication Date: 2022-12-19
Revolution and the Making of the Contemporary Legal Profession by
The revolutions of France, the United States, and England each inspired dreams of creating legal institutions that did not depend on specialist intermediaries, and, in different ways, provoked attacks on the existing rules and government of the legal profession more widespread and severe than at any other time in their history. These dreams came to naught and, sooner or later, the professions recovered, but their revolutionary experiences nevertheless had a lasting impact on their subsequent organization, and help to explain why three previously convergent professions should diverge as their societies industrialised. The social upheaval of industrialization may also help to explain many of their peculiarities down to the present day: why, for instance, French advocates imposed such strict ethical obligations on themselves, from which they were only released by the state in 1992, why American lawyers should be the first to be at ease in the market, but faced intractable problems of professional self-government, why two professions should emerge in England, both with a high degree of self-government, and both long indifferent to law schools and to the market for legal services. Since lawyers were the first occupation to organize as a profession, this insightful comparative inquiry then asks what their experience might tell us about other organized occupations in these three societies, and the difference between their educational institutions, their division of labour, their civil societies and lesser forms of government, and about the ways they have been stratified and formed classes.
ISBN: 9780199282982Publication Date: 2006-05-11
- Dictionnaire Juridique: 2e édition
Plus de 6 000 définitions relevant du droit privé et du droit public, accompagnées de références jurisprudentielles et bibliographiques. Ces définitions recouvrent les domaines du droit civil, droit pénal, droit commercial, droit du travail, procédure civile, procédure pénale, droit constitutionnel, droit administratif, procédure administrative, droit international... Les termes importants comprennent, en plus de la définition principale, une explication complémentaire qui inclut des exemples, des références de jurisprudence, de doctrine, permettant ainsi d'avoir une vision complète du terme défini. Essentielle pour maîtriser parfaitement le langage juridique, cette édition est à jour des termes les plus récents et reprend également les locutions latines.Cette 2e édition du Dictionnaire juridique est un outil absolument indispensable pour l'étudiant(e) de droit ou d'AES et le professionnel du droit.À PROPOS DE L'ÉDITEURLarcier Group, composé des marques d'édition juridique prestigieuses que sont Larcier, Bruylant, Promoculture-Larcier, propose des solutions documentaires adaptées aux besoins spécifiques de tous les professionnels du droit belge, luxembourgeois et français (avocats, magistrats, notaires, juristes d'entreprise,...).Fournisseur historique et privilégié de toutes les sources du droit, son offre éditoriale est composée, notamment, de la base de données juridique la plus complète de Belgique (Strada lex), de plus de 300 nouvelles monographies par an, plus de 70 revues juridiques, plusieurs collections de Codes, de logiciels de calculs et d'un riche catalogue de formations. Larcier Group est l'éditeur numéro 1 dans le segment juridique en Belgique. À côté de ce segment juridique, Larcier Group s'adresse également aux professions économiques et aux professions RH en Belgique avec sa marque Larcier Business et son offre éditoriale principalement numérique.
Websites
- Conseil ConstitutionnnelOfficial website of the Conseil Constitutionnnel.
- Conseil d'EtatOfficial website of the Conseil d'Etat. Summaries of important decisions, with a selection available in English.
- Cour de CassationOfficial website of the Cour de Cassation.
- Droit.orgFrench institute of legal information.
- Germain's French Law GuideGuide to the French legal system sources of French law written by Claire Germain, former law librarian and Professor of Law at Cornell University.
- LégifranceOfficial French site offering comprehensive access to legislation and case law.
- WorldLII: FranceThe World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) is a free, independent and non-profit global legal research facility.