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Perspectives

ReferenceInternational Business Law

Open access to international business law

A curated, freely accessible collection of literature, case law, and resources on international business law. Continuously updated, suggestions welcome.

Peter Poleacov (updated )8 min

The interior of a modern white library across several galleries, open bookshelves all around

Anyone who works closely with international business law, in practice or research, knows that legal research often takes a lot of time and money.

Fortunately, more and more good literature and resources are now freely available.

That is why I have started collecting freely available sources on international business law. This overview is a first stop for research and open to everyone. I keep adding sources and welcome suggestions for more open-access material.

Training

Commercial Awareness Program by World Commerce & Contracting

Statutes and official sources

Case-law collections

United Nations Commission On International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) – Case Law on UNCITRAL Texts (CLOUT)

Since 1988, UNCITRAL has collected court decisions and arbitral awards on the conventions and model laws it has prepared, such as the CISG. It publishes abstracts of them in the CLOUT database (Case Law on UNCITRAL Texts). The collection is meant to help interpret these rules uniformly worldwide (source: https://uncitral.un.org/en/case_law).

IPRspr

The Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law publishes the case-law collection “Die deutsche Rechtsprechung auf dem Gebiete des Internationalen Privatrechts (IPRspr)”. It is freely available as an online database. The database can be searched by many criteria and contained around 6,500 decisions in September 2024 (source: press release of 20 September 2024).

Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) / European General Court (EGC)

Monthly Case-law Digest Each month, a selection of legally significant decisions of the Court of Justice and the General Court, each summarized briefly. The decisions are sorted by topic, so the case law in a given area is easy to find. Available in English and French.

Case-law Fact Sheets Clear and concise analyses of key legal subjects, available in all official EU languages.

Legal Monitoring Updates on recent legal developments and notable court rulings, including follow-ups to preliminary rulings.

Further freely accessible collections

Studies

Research notes of the Court of Justice of the EU

The Court of Justice or the General Court asks for these comparative studies in pending cases. Each note shows how several legal systems deal with the question and ends with a comparative overview. The notes are written in French. The overview is translated into English before it is published.

Journals

Rabels Zeitschrift für ausländisches und internationales Privatrecht / The Rabel Journal of Comparative and International Private Law

Founded in 1927. The journal focuses on comparative and foreign law, the conflict of laws, the law of international transactions, and the unification of law, including EU law (source: https://www.jstor.org/journal/rabezeitauslinte).

Zeitschrift für ausländisches öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht / Heidelberg Journal of International Law

The ZaöRV has appeared since 1929 under the direction of the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law in Heidelberg. Its English name is the Heidelberg Journal of International Law (HJIL). It covers fundamental and current questions of international law, EU law, and comparative law. Occasionally it also deals with public law in EU member states and beyond. It seeks a broad range of regions, topics, and methods. The journal publishes in German and English (source: https://doi.org/10.17104/0044-2348).

Contracting Excellence Journal

World Commerce & Contracting (formerly IACCM) is the international association for commercial and contract management. It publishes this journal. The articles deal with contract drafting, negotiation, the contract lifecycle, and AI in contracting.

KAS African Law Study Library

This open-access journal publishes articles by young scholars from Africa. It deals with practical questions that matter for the development of the rule of law in Africa (source: https://doi.org/10.5771/2363-6262).

International Journal of Digital Law and Governance

This fully peer-reviewed journal publishes theoretical and applied research in digital law and governance. It aims to cover topics from all over the world (source: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/journal/key/ijdlg/html).

RiA Recht in Afrika / Law in Africa / Droit en Afrique

Recht in Afrika is the journal of the Gesellschaft für afrikanisches Recht e.V. It was founded in 1998 and has appeared online since 2014. It covers the many forms of law that apply on the African continent, whether multinational, state, informal, or traditional. It pays particular attention to current legal developments. Contributions appear in German, English, and French (source: https://doi.org/10.5771/2363-6270). The latest issue is 2/2023, published in 2024.

VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee

The VRÜ analyzes developments in public law in states and regions outside Europe and North America. This includes the legal structures of their regional and international integration. The journal appears quarterly, mostly in English and, in exceptional cases, in German, Spanish, and French (source: https://doi.org/10.5771/0506-7286).

ZEuS Zeitschrift für Europarechtliche Studien

The ZEuS takes a broad approach. Its contributions address current and fundamental questions of European integration, EU law, and international law. They appear in English, French, and German (source: https://doi.org/10.5771/1435-439X).

Zeitschrift für Chinesisches Recht (ZChinR)

The quarterly ZChinR traces back to 1994 and has carried its current name since 2004. It is the only continuous German-language publication on Chinese law (source: https://www.zchinr.org/index.php/zchinr).

Books

  1. Ostendorf, Auslegung und Wirksamkeit von Freizeichnungsklauseln im unternehmerischen Geschäftsverkehr im deutschen, Schweizer und englischen Recht (2025), available at https://doi.org/10.1628/rabelsz-2025-0015

  2. Basedow, Uniform Law. Legal Responses to Globalisation, finalised for publication by J. Gries (2024), available at https://doi.org/10.1628/978-3-16-164129-9

  3. Fleischer, Rechtsformneuschöpfungen im in- und ausländischen Gesellschaftsrecht (2024), available at https://doi.org/10.1628/978-3-16-163899-2

  4. Kiefner, Besitz als relatives Eigentum? Geschichte und Dogmatik des Besitzschutzes als Relativschutz im common law und im civil law (2024), available at https://doi.org/10.1628/978-3-16-163873-2

  5. Maier-Lohmann, Property in Goods and the CISG (2024), available at https://cisg-online.org/files/commentFiles/Maier-Lohmann_Property-in-Goods-and-the-CISG.pdf

Commentaries

  1. Onlinekommentar, the first non-profit platform for open-access commentaries in Switzerland, available at https://onlinekommentar.ch

Further journals

Publishers

Overviews

Databases

Disciplinary repositories

Search tools

  • openjur.de – full-text search of German case law

  • BASE – search engine for open-access publications

  • DOAJ – directory of open-access journals

Legislative monitoring

Global trade

Registers and company data

Reference: Poleacov, P. (2026). Open access to international business law. INN.LAW. https://inn.law/en/perspectives/open-access/