Resources on East Asian Law in the United States

Abstract

The development of foreign law collections in the United States has been divided into three stages. The first stage started in the nineteenth century with the Library of Congress and the Harvard Law School Library taking the lead in a period of “haphazard growth.” “In 1845 it was said, and Professor Greenleaf1 reported, that the Harvard Law Library surpassed every other law library in the United States, and also that no other law library in England or on the Continent was its equal in scope.”2 At the Library of Congress, “the need for foreign legal research sources, especially in times of hostilities with other nations, intensified the Law Library’s acquisition efforts over the years to such an extent that certain collections in the Law Library exceed those of the countries of origin.”3 The early collections of foreign laws include historical laws and treatises from France, Spain, Russia, Great Britain, and other Commonwealth countries. The laws of Great Britain are the most extensive because of their significance in the 2 JEAIL 2008 East Asian Law in the U.S. 311