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Empirical Research: Foreign & International

This guide will provide resources for empirical legal research including information on data sets and statistical packages.

International

Data:

  • Monthly Bulletin of Statistics Online: produced by the United Nations, this publication presents current economic and social statistics for over 200 countries.  It contains 55 tables with over 100 indicators on topics such as industrial product prices, populaton, price indices, and employment.
  • OECD.StatExtracts: OECD portal to a selection of OECD databases that can be accessed without subscription.  Topics include the environment, health, industry and labor.
  • FAO Statistics Portal: statistics portal of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.  Databases exist on topics such as agriculture, water, fisheries and forestry.
  • International Courts Data: site provides access to datasets collected by scholars on institutions such as the ECJ, ECHR, ICJ and GATT/WTO, amongst others.

Books & Journals:

Multiple Jurisdictions

  • The National High Courts Database: includes information on decisions by the high courts of eleven countries, over an extended period of time.  Countries include Canada, India, and Australia, amonst others. 
  • Trafficking in Persons Report: an annual report produced by the Department of State.  Reports from 2001 to 2020 are available online.  It includes country narratives and relevant international conventions.
  • DHS STATcompiler: supported by USAID, with additional support from UNICEF and UNAIDS.  Allows users to look at data by area of the world or by indicators such as stigma, drug use and care and support.
  • IPUMS-I: publically available individual-level census data taken from samples of censuses from around the world since 1960.

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European Union

  • Eurostat: the statistical office of the European Union.  You can browse or search for a particular database or find statistics by theme.  Eurostat also has various statistical publications available for viewing.  Topics include industry, the environment, population and social conditions and transport.

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Asia

Books, Journals & Articles:

North America

Canada:

  • Open Data: a website produced by the Canadian Government, which includes data on topics such as agriculture, government, health, labor, science and transport. There is a search facility as well as the ability to browse by governmental department and by file format.