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Perspectives
International 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 6 min

Open access to international business law

Anyone working closely with international business law, in practice or research, knows the friction of legal research: it is often time-consuming and expensive.

Fortunately, more and more high-quality literature and resources are now freely accessible.

To make use of that, I have started compiling a collection of openly available sources on international business law. This overview is a first stop for research and is open to anyone interested. Further sources will be added over time. I am glad to receive suggestions for additional open-access materials.

Training

Commercial Awareness Program by World Commerce & Contracting

Case-law collections

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

Harmonization of international trade law in practice requires that the laws concerned are interpreted in a uniform manner. Many UNCITRAL texts contain the principle that in interpreting the texts concerned, judges and arbitrators should consider the international origin of the law and the need to promote uniformity in its application. In order to support consistency in decisions and awards on its texts, UNCITRAL established a system in 1988 to collect and disseminate information on court decisions and arbitral awards relating to UNCITRAL texts: the Case Law on UNCITRAL Texts, known as CLOUT (source: https://uncitral.un.org/en/case_law).

IPRspr

The case-law collection "Die deutsche Rechtsprechung auf dem Gebiete des Internationalen Privatrechts (IPRspr)", published by the Max Planck Institute for Comparative and International Private Law, is available as an open-access online database. The database can be searched by many parameters and currently contains around 6,500 decisions (source: press release of 20 September 2024).

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

The Monthly Case-law Digest is a compilation of the résumés of the decisions of the Court of Justice and the General Court, which, concerning the issues of law involved, merit particular attention. These compilations use a system of thematic classification of the decisions to facilitate the identification of the case law in the area concerned.

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.

Studies

Judicial Network of the EU

Access to documents, notes, and studies of a scientific, analytical, or educational nature drawn up and selected by the Court of Justice of the European Union and by the member courts of the RJUE to enhance mutual knowledge of national laws.

Journals

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

Founded in 1927. Areas of specific interest are comparative law and foreign law, the conflict of laws, the law of international transactions, and the unification of law, including the law of the European Union (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, Heidelberg. Its English name is the Heidelberg Journal of International Law (HJIL). The journal is a forum for the discussion of fundamental and current problems of international law, EU law, comparative law, and occasionally topics of public law in EU member states and beyond. It aims to reflect geographic, substantive, and methodological diversity in these fields. The journal is bilingual (German and English) (source: https://doi.org/10.17104/0044-2348).

Contracting Excellence Journal

The journal provided by World Commerce & Contracting (formerly IACCM) features articles and insights from the WorldCC team and their membership of over 70,000 members from 180 countries worldwide.

KAS African Law Study Library

KAS African Law Study Library is an open access journal which publishes articles written by young scholars from the African continent. The journal deals with practical aspects important for the development of the Rule of Law in an African context (source: https://doi.org/10.5771/2363-6262).

International Journal of Digital Law and Governance

International Journal of Digital Law and Governance (IJDLG) is a fully peer-reviewed forum for theoretical and applied research in digital law and governance. The journal is international in scope, aiming to cover topics relating to digital law and governance throughout the world (source: https://www.degruyter.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., founded in 1998 and published online since 2014. It is a forum for the different and diverse forms of law, whether multinational, state, informal, or traditional, that apply on the African continent, with particular attention to current legal developments. Recht in Afrika appears semi-annually online and contains contributions in German, English, and French (source: https://doi.org/10.5771/2363-6270).

VRÜ Verfassung und Recht in Übersee

"Verfassung und Recht in Übersee" (VRÜ) analyses developments in public law in states and regions outside Europe and North America, as well as the legal structures of their regional and international integration. The journal appears quarterly and contains contributions in English and, in exceptional cases, in German, Spanish, and French (source: https://doi.org/10.5771/0506-7286).

ZEuS Zeitschrift für Europarechtliche Studien

Zeitschrift für europarechtliche Studien takes a broad approach: the contributions address current and fundamental problems of European integration, EU law, and international law. Contributions are published 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

Reference: Poleacov, P. (2025). Open access to international business law. INN.LAW. https://inn.law/en/perspectives/open-access/