This guide is intended for students and researchers studying public law at the University of Oxford, although students and researchers from any field may find it useful.
Use this guide to find out about sources and commentary for constitutional, administrative, criminal and tax law, including ebooks, ejournals, and databases.
Below are some examples, which are also available online to holders of an Oxford SSO
Some commentary available online:
There are Law Bod guides for each of the top-level topics of public law, and general ones for introduction to English legal databases & electronic tools generally.
Suggested subject searches to use in SOLO to find more commentary:
Public law - Great Britain or Public Law - England
Civil rights - Great Britain or Civil rights - England
Public law - philosophy
Public law - history
In England, public law encompases constitutional law, administrative law, criminal law, and tax law.
The current collection of monographs for these areas of law in England & Wales is on Floor 2. Some of the Reading List titles will be in the Reserve Collection, please just ask the staff at the desk if you would like to read one of these.
The majority of titles are on open access shelves, in the section of bookcases with shelf marks (call numbers) beginning KM.
The top level of classification within KM is as follows:
KM 1 - KM 29 | General works (covering all or more than one aspect of public law) |
KM 31 - KM 141 | Constitutional & administrative law |
KM 171 - KM 199 | Citizenship |
KM 201 - KM 229 | Civil & human rights |
KM 231 - KM 259 | Government |
KM 300 - KM 307 | Administrative law |
KM 331 - KM 354 | Public finance |
KM 355 – KM 359 | Taxation |
KM 361 - KM 391 | Local government |
KM 400 – KM 416 | Military law (includes martial law) |
KM 500 – KM 565 | Criminal law |
KM 570 - KM 690 | Criminal procedure |
This section has works looking at public law in other common law jurisdictions. Books on the law of England & Wales/UK come first. When the third line of the shelf mark becomes capital letter + a number (as below), this is the indication that the focus of the book has moved to another jurisdiction - as:
A8 (Australia), C1 (Canada), I5 (Ireland), I7 (Isle of Man), G8 (Guernsey), J2 (Jersey), N4 (New Zealand), N8 Northern Ireland, S3 (Scotland), U4 (United States of America)
Public law - the journal with that title - is at Cw UK 300 P180 on Level 2, Holders of an Oxford SSO should note that Westlaw UK has full text articles from & including the 1986 volume of Public Law.