Oxford LibGuides: Obligations law: Legislation & cases

Online sources of English legislation

Please see below a list of the more common online sources of UK Legislation. It is important to know if you are looking for amended or unamended legislation.There are a number of subscription databases that have amended legislation and they also include other information (such as annotations) which may be useful.

LexisLibrary
This resource requires you to log in with your Oxford SSO again at the homepage.

Alternative names: LNB ; Lexis Nexis Butterworths Lexis Library

Lexis Nexis Butterworths (LNB) includes primary and secondary legal materials from the UK, EU, USA and many other jurisdictions.
It has particularly good collections of UK cases and in particular includes The Law Reports and The All England Law Reports, as well as many specialist series of reports. It is also a good source of UK legislation as it includes all UK Acts and Statutory Instruments as they currently stand.
LNB is also an excellent source of US primary legal materials and includes a huge amount of legal commentary from the UK and the US.
Lexis content formerly provided via the Lexis Nexis Professional interface is now available via LNB which replaces Professional.
Westlaw Edge UK
Alternative name: West Law UK ; Westlaw UK

Westlaw is provided through a generous donation by Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP
Westlaw is a large database of UK, US and international legal materials including cases, legislation and journal articles.
Coverage:
•UK statutes, statutory instruments and law reports
•England and Wales law reports
•US federal and state legislation and law reports
•Australian federal and state legislation and law reports
•Canadian federal and state legislation and law reports
•Hong Kong SAR law reports and laws
•European Union legislation and law reports
•UK and US law journals and texts
•Common Law Library and over 200 books published by Sweet & Maxwell (Thomson Reuters)
Because of licencing restrictions this database is not available to "Walk-in" users of the library.

Legislation.Gov
Official site Use the drop down menu TYPE to limit search to public general acts or statutory instruments or browse by year etc. Excellent for original, historic version (text of act as originally promulgated) and Explanatory Notes for more recent legislation. Pay attention to the current status which is given for each act. More has further details of coverage

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All primary legislation from 1988
All secondary legislation from 1987, including UK Statutory Instruments, Scottish Statutory Instruments and Northern Ireland Statutory Rules. In addition we hold a selection of secondary legislation from 1948-1986, and selected pre-1948 Statutory Rules and Orders
Legislation originating from the EU as set out in Schedule 5 to the European Union (Withdrawal) Act 2018 (c. 16) along with corrigenda (correction slips for EU legislation) and EU Directives published up to the end of the EU Exit Implementation Period at 11:00 p.m. on 31 December 2020 ("IP completion day").
Most types of primary legislation (e.g. Acts, Measures, N.I. Orders in Council) are held in 'revised' form, as well as selected secondary legislation, and legislation originating from the EU:

Public General Acts of the United Kingdom Parliament (1801 to date)
Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain (1707 – 1800)
Acts of the English Parliament (1267 – 1706)
Acts of the Old Scottish Parliament (1424 – 1707)
Acts of the Scottish Parliament (1999 to date)
Acts of Senedd Cyrmu (2020 to date)
Acts of the National Assembly for Wales (2012 to 2020)
Measures of the National Assembly for Wales (2008 – 2011)
Acts of the Irish Parliament (1495 – 1800)
Acts of the Parliament of Northern Ireland (1921 – 1972)
Measures of the Northern Ireland Assembly (1974)
Orders in Council made under the Northern Ireland Acts (1972 to date) (effectively the primary legislation for Northern Ireland under direct rule, though in the form of Statutory Instruments)
Acts of the Northern Ireland Assembly (2000 – 2002 and 2007 to date)
Church of England Measures (1920 to date)
UK Statutory Instruments (2018 to date)
Scottish Statutory Instruments (2018 to date)
Welsh Statutory Instruments (2018 to date)
Statutory Rules of Northern Ireland (2018 to date)
European Regulations (1958 to 31 December 2020)
European Decisions (1953 to 31 December 2020)
European Directives (1959 to 31 December 2020)

Print resources

The practitioner's classics Halsbury's Statutes at KZ 2 & Current Law Statutes Annotated at KZ 5 --which have updating services to try to keep up to date with subsequent amendments

Some publishers produce subject collections of legislation to help the time poor student! But remember you may have to check in case there has been more recent legislative activity (new acts, or amendments or repeals of existing legislation) since the date of publication of the volumes...

For help with primary sources for other jurisdictions

Case law: online resources for common law countries
by Elizabeth Wells Last Updated May 12, 2022 15609 views this year
Legislation
by Elizabeth Wells Last Updated May 12, 2022 1302 views this year

Bodleian Law Library guides to jurisdictions
The Law Bod's guides to both online and print resources for national constitutions, legislation, and case law as well as commentary on the legal systems and their law in books and journals

Sources of English case law

Those court cases which are considered legally important are published in law report series.

The Law Bod has a pretty comprehensive holding of these volumes in their printed form, but subscription databases mean that holders of an Oxford SSO can access them online

LexisLibrary
This resource requires you to log in with your Oxford SSO again at the homepage.

Alternative names: LNB ; Lexis Nexis Butterworths Lexis Library

Lexis Nexis Butterworths (LNB) includes primary and secondary legal materials from the UK, EU, USA and many other jurisdictions.
It has particularly good collections of UK cases and in particular includes The Law Reports and The All England Law Reports, as well as many specialist series of reports. It is also a good source of UK legislation as it includes all UK Acts and Statutory Instruments as they currently stand.
LNB is also an excellent source of US primary legal materials and includes a huge amount of legal commentary from the UK and the US.
Lexis content formerly provided via the Lexis Nexis Professional interface is now available via LNB which replaces Professional.
Westlaw Edge UK
Alternative name: West Law UK ; Westlaw UK

Westlaw is provided through a generous donation by Weil Gotshal & Manges LLP
Westlaw is a large database of UK, US and international legal materials including cases, legislation and journal articles.
Coverage:
•UK statutes, statutory instruments and law reports
•England and Wales law reports
•US federal and state legislation and law reports
•Australian federal and state legislation and law reports
•Canadian federal and state legislation and law reports
•Hong Kong SAR law reports and laws
•European Union legislation and law reports
•UK and US law journals and texts
•Common Law Library and over 200 books published by Sweet & Maxwell (Thomson Reuters)
Because of licencing restrictions this database is not available to "Walk-in" users of the library.
BAILII
OA source of transcripts (not reports) of decisions/judgments of UK and Irish courts and tribunals

Alternative names: British and Irish Legal Information Institute ; British & Irish Legal Information Institute

Free access to British and Irish judgments. General coverage starts mid 1990s, though earlier key judgments are also included. Bailii also includes a subject arrangement of judgments. The judgments are transcripts and do not include arguments of counsel or headnotes. For a wider selection of Law Reports please see Justis, Lexis or Westlaw.

Find case law (The National Archives)
Official Open Access. From April 2022, the National Archives (TNA, UK) is hosting a searchable database of court judgments from the England and Wales High Court, the Court of Appeal, the Supreme Court and tribunal decisions from the Upper Tribunals.
It only contains judgments and decisions that have been handed down and made public. This does not include settlements made outside of court.

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The initial collection of judgments and decisions will total 50 000 dating back to 2003 for court judgements and 2015 for Tribunal decisions.
Contract cases
Free resource. Through the OpenLaw Project BAILII sought with the assistance of law lecturers, to identify cases from the past and to make these freely and openly available on the internet to support legal education.
Note This list was created on the 17th of October 2006 so don't rely on it for the current state of contract law.
Slade's case
Free resource. CommonLII's scans of the English Reports. Scroll down or use ctrl + F to find by name or citation
Carlill v Carbolic Smoke Ball Co
Free resource. Overview on Australian Contract Law website. For full report see [1893] 1 QB 256.
Tort cases
Free resource. "Through the OpenLaw Project BAILII seeks, with the assistance of law lecturers, to identify cases from the past and to make these freely and openly available on the internet to support legal education.
This list was created on the 17th of October 2006 and therefore may not include recent cases (BAILII does not have resources of its own with which to keep this list updated). "
The Snail and the Ginger Beer
ICLR Annual Lectures, given by Matthew Chapman, Barrister in 2010: