Law databases
The Diana M. Priestly Law Library has access to more than 100 law related research databases. For an exhaustive list of our databases please see our complete A-Z list.
For a selective list of legal research databases please use the accordion box below. Database descriptions are not exhaustive of the contents contained in each database.
Canadian law
| Database | Description |
| CanLII |
An authoritative and free source of Canadian cases, statutes and regulations, as well as other documents. |
| BestCase | A comprehensive resource to Canada Law Books law reports and summary series. Includes dominion law reports, criminal cases, labour arbitration and civil decisions. |
| BC Laws (King's Printer BC) | Provides free access to current and historical BC statutes, regulations, bills (first and third reading), orders-in-council, and BC Gazette. Also includes Tables of Legislative Changes and Regulation Bulletins and Indexes. |
| Quickscribe |
Access up-to-date and historical BC and Federal legislation, Bills, Orders-In-Council, etc. The legislative content is fully searchable and printable. Detailed and timely notifications of amendments to legislation you specify are available. See also: Quickscribe training session recording (2024) |
| JusticeLaws (Canada Department of Justice) | Provides free access to the Official Consolidated and Annual Statutes and Regulations of Canada, the Table of Public Statutes and Responsible Ministers, and the Consolidated Index of Statutory Instruments with side-by-side bilingual PDF versions. |
| Canada Gazette |
The official newspaper of the Government of Canada since 1841. Online coverage from 1998, with pdf versions "official" since 2002. Part I - Notices and Proposed Regulations |
| LEGISinfo | A tool for finding information on legislation currently before Parliament. |
| Canadian Tax Library (IntelliConnect) (WoltersKluwer) |
Is a comprehensive database of documents related to Canadian tax law. Includes commentary, case law, legislation and tax treaties, Interpretation Bulletins, Information Circulars and Technical News. |
| Historical Debates of the Parliament of Canada |
The Historical Debates of the Parliament of Canada portal provides access to historical debates of the Senate and House of Commons, in both official languages. Includes the journals of the Senate and House of Commons. |
| LLMC Digital | LLMC Digital includes historical government and legal materials from Canada, US and the UK including case law reports, legislation, texts and treatises. |
| HeinOnline | In addition to journal articles, HeinOnline provides access to Acts of Parliament of Canada (Annual Statutes 1792-2014), Revised Statutes of Canada (1886, 1903, 1924, 1952, 1970, and 1985) and the Supreme Court Reports. |
| vLex Canada | Robust and rapidly expanding collection of Canadian case law and legislation. Provides access to over 200,000 case summaries, as well as to leading legal news, commentaries, and blogs. |
United Kingdom law
| Database | Description |
| BAILII | A comprehensive and free source for UK and Irish case law and legislation, law commission reports, international treaties, and EU case law. |
| English Reports 1220-1867 (HeinOnline) | The English Reports reprints 265 'nominate' reporters that published cases between 1220 and 1865. |
| ICLR Online (Law Reports) | ICLR is the authorised publisher of the official series of The Law Reports for the Superior and Appellate Courts of England and Wales. The Incorporated Council of Law Reporting’s ICLR Online database contains all the case reports published by the ICLR since 1865. |
| vLex|Justis | vLex|Justis (formerly JustisOne) contains one of the largest collections of UK case law. JustisOne also includes the Times Law Reports, legislation from England dating back to Magna Carta and selective coverage of case law from Canada and the Caribbean. vLex|Justis includes the Irwin Law ebook collection. |
| Legislation.gov.uk | A free and authoritative source statutes and statutory instruments for the UK, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Database contains all statutes and statutory instruments from 1988 and most statutes from 1267. |
| House of Commons Parliamentary Papers | Provides access to British Parliamentary history up to the present including all sessional papers issued by the House of Commons. Includes all sessional papers issued by the House of Commons including Bills, Reports of Royal Commissions, Reports of Select Committees, Accounts and Papers, and Command Papers. |
| LLMC Digital |
LLMC Digital includes historical government and legal materials from Canada, US and the UK including case law reports, legislation, texts and treatises. |
| Making of Modern Law | Provides full-text access to over 21,000 titles from the 19th and early 20th century on British and American law. |
United States law
| Database | Description |
| Caselaw Access Project (CAP) | The Caselaw Access Project is an initiative of Harvard Law Library to make all official, book-published court decisions from the US freely available online. Coverage runs from 1658-2018. |
| HeinOnline | In addition to journal articles, HeinOnline contains several collections providing access to current and historical federal and state legislation, case law, treaties and other international agreements. |
| Indigenous Peoples of the Americas: History, Culture and Law (HeinOnline) | American Indian law has evolved into a complex web of treaties, federal statutes and regulations, federal case law, tribal codes, constitutions, and jurisprudence. This collection was created to consolidate a wealth of information available on American Indian Law, and also to share the influence that Native Americans and their cultures have had on modern society. |
| LLMC Digital | LLMC Digital includes historical government and legal materials from Canada, US and the UK including case law reports, legislation, texts and treatises. |
| Making of Modern Law | Provides full-text access to over 21,000 titles from the 19th and early 20th century on British and American law. |
Other foreign law
| Database | Description |
| Australian Federal Register of Legislation | A free and authoritative source for Australian Commonwealth legislative instruments and compilations of legislative instruments. Site contains full text and details of individual laws as well as other ancillary documents and information. |
| GlobaLex | Published by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU School of Law. GlobaLex provides guides to international, foreign, and comparative law research written by scholars well known in their respective fields. |
| Index Islamicus | Indexes literature on Islam, the Middle East and the Muslim world. |
| Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (HeinOnline) | Provides access to all forms of foreign (non-Anglo-American) law. This includes Islamic, socialist, public, private, international and transnational law. |
| Max Planck Encyclopedia of Comparative Constitutional Law (Oxford) | Contains analytical articles offering a global overview of constitutional law topics in a comparative context. Developed with constitutional lawyers, academics, and students in mind, the encyclopedia provides seamless navigation between encyclopedia articles, linking to commentaries and instruments from the Oxford Constitutions of the World, and through reference pages on the Oxford Law Citator. |
| Oxford Constitutions of the World | Contains fully-translated English-language versions of all the world's constitutions (both national and sub-national), accompanied by individual commentaries, supplementary materials, including foundation documents, historical constitutions, and amendment Acts/laws. |
| World Constitutions Illustrated (HeinOnline) | Includes the current constitution for all countries in the original language with English translations as well as constitutional histories for several countries. Database includes constitutional periodicals, classic books and other works related to constitutional law. |
| WorldLII |
WorldLII is a free legal research tool containing case law, legislation, law reform reports, and law journals from over 120 jurisdictions. |
International law
| Database | Description |
| Annotated Leading Cases of International Criminal Tribunals | This database is the full text equivalent of the print series, Annotated Leading Cases of International Tribunals, and offers commentary by distinguished experts in the field of international criminal law. |
| EUR-LEX | Provides free access to the authentic (as of July 2013) Official Journal of the European Union. EUR-LEX contains EU treaties,legislation, legislation summaries, prepatory acts, case law, international agreements, and other documents of public interest. Available in all 24 official EU languages. |
| Global Artibration Review (GAR) | GAR provides news and research on international arbitration from around the world. GAR includes current and archived issues of the Global Arbitration Review journal, daily news briefings on recent disputes, and insight and analysis for practitioners organized by topic. |
| GlobaLex | Published by the Hauser Global Law School Program at NYU School of Law. GlobaLex provides guides to international, foreign, and comparative law research written by scholars well known in their respective fields. |
| Investment Arbitration Reporter (IA Reporter) | A database tracking international investment arbitrations between foreign investors and their host states, as well as some international commercial arbitrations and public international law disputes. The site investigates and reports on public and non-public claims; and provides case law research tools and datasets. |
| Investment Treaty Arbitration (ITA) | ITA website provides access to all full text, publicly available investment treaty awards, decisions and orders, information relating to investment treaties and investment treaty arbitration, and links to further resources available on other websites. |
| Investor-State Law Guide | Collection of tools for researching international investment treaty law. The scope of ISLG's document collection includes all publicly available decisions and awards. |
| KluwerArbitration | Full-text documents in international commercial arbitration. Includes conventions, legislation, rules, case law, and commentary. |
| Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law |
A fully updated version of the Encyclopedia of Public International Law. |
| Tax Analysts | Tax Notes Internationa, Worldside Tax Daily, and Worldwide Tax Treaties. For the initial sign-in, you need to be within the university's IP range, or connected by VPN. Sign-in instructions |
| TradeLawGuide | Access to annotated versions of the six primary WTO agreements, and 64 additional WTO agreements and instruments. Any WTO jurisprudence on specific articles in the agreements is linked. |
| Transnational Dispute Management (TDM) | TDM focuses on recent developments in the area of arbitration and dispute management. It is a combination of newsletter, review-journal, internet service and primary materials database which goes across disciplines - law, psychology-psychoanalysis, international business management, economics, arbitration, WTO, international investment law, and across various areas of dispute management. |
| UN Official Document System | ODS covers all types of official United Nations documentation including access to resolutions of the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council from 1946 onwards. |
| UN Treaty Collection | Includes the UN Treaty Series (1946-), the League of Nations Treaty Series (1920-1944) and the current status of the Multilateral Treaties. |
Articles and books (Canadian, foreign and international law)
| Database | Description |
| HeinOnline | HeinOnline’s Law Journal Library provides full-text access to Canadian, US and other foreign and international law journals. Coverage is generally from the first issue published. For some journals there is a 1 year delay in accessing the full-text of current year's volume. |
| LegalTrac | Provides indexing and considerable full text coverage for US and Canadian titles including major law reviews, legal newspapers, bar association journals and international legal journals. |
| Index to Legal Periodicals & Books Full Text | Comprehensive index to key English language legal literature. Includes coverage of scholarly articles, books, book reviews and jurisdictional surveys. Database also provides access to a considerable number of full text articles. |
| AGIS Plus Text | Comprehensively indexes and abstracts articles from over 100 Australian, New Zealand and Pacific law journals. Selectively indexes and abstracts articles from major law journals from United States, Canada and the United Kingdom. Full text coverage begins from 1999-. |
| Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals (HeinOnline) | Provides access to all forms of foreign (non-Anglo-American) law. This includes Islamic, socialist, public, private, international and transnational law. |
| Index to Legal Periodicals Retrospective 1908-1981 | Retrospective index of citations from over 750 legal periodicals published between 1908 and 1981. Covers law reviews, journals, annual surveys of laws and scholarly materials, and more from Canada, the US, Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand. |
| JSTOR | An archive of important US scholarly journals. Displays journal articles as they were originally designed and published. |
| Irwin Law Collection | This searchable collection of e-books on the VLex platform encompasses all "Essentials of Canadian Law" titles. |
| ElgarOnline | Edward Elgar Publishing's ebook collection covers a wide array of legal topics including international and comparative law, law and economics, intellectual property, trade, information and technology, antitrust, environmental law, and corporate and financial law. |
| Hart Law Books : Bloomsbury Professional | Browse or search ebooks from one of the leading publishers of law scholarship. |
Accessible by law students and faculty only
| Database | Description |
| WestLaw Edge Canada | Primary and secondary Canadian materials including cases, legislation, commentary, journals, news, The Canadian Encyclopedic Digest, and the Index to Canadian Legal Literature (ICLL). |
| Practical Law Canada | Practical Law Canada contains a wide range of up-to-date resources for legal practitioners including practice notes, checklists, precedents, toolkits, and current awareness tools. Sign in using your Westlaw Edge username and password. |
| Lexis+ Canada |
LexisNexis new online integrated platform for researching Canadian law. Includes court and tribunal cases, legislation, commentary, journals, Index to Canadian Legal Literature (ICLL), news, and practical guidance all in one interface. |
| Law360 |
Law360 provides Canadian legal news, analysis and current awareness on a daily basis. Access restricted to law students and faculty. Please contact lawref@uvic.ca for access. |
| Continuing Legal Education Society of BC | CLE BC database contains practice manuals such as the BC Family Practice manual and the Conveyancing Deskbook and professional development course materials. Please contact lawref@uvic.ca for access. |
| CTF Plus / Canadian Tax Foundation | Full text access to: Canadian Tax Journal, Canadian Tax Highlights , Tax for the Owner Manager, The Arnold Report, Canadian Tax Focus, and the Open Forum Blog. |