Databases Law
Search our selected discipline-specific reference and full text databases for journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings and much more.
BGE - decisions of the Swiss Supreme Court
Official collection of decisions of the Swiss Supreme Court.
The database is freely accessible. A subscription to the expert search also exists for ZHAW staff and students (login with SWITCH edu-ID). It is limited to one user at a time - please be sure to log out.
BGE (German, French and Italian)
BGE - Expert search (with ZHAW-Login) (German, French and Italian)
Codexplo
Codexplo allows you to search for articles in the major commentaries on the Swiss Civil Code and Swiss Code of Obligations: the Basel Commentary, Bern Commentary, Zurich Commentary and Romandie Commentary.
With the help of the database, you can find out which volumes comment on a particular article. The search results are sorted according to the commentaries and the date of publication (newest first) and are linked to the legislative article you are looking for.
The search interface is only available in French for the time being.
legalis.ch
Database on Swiss law.
Subscriptions exist for the journals, private law, civil procedure law, commercial law, criminal law, tax law and constitutional law modules. It includes the latest Basel Commentaries. Full-text versions of the following journals are available: ius.focus, Praxis (Pra), Steuerentscheid (StE), SZZP and PSPC.
legalis.ch (German, French)
LexFind
The database contains all Swiss legislation at both the federal and cantonal levels. The data is freely accessible, is updated daily and is thus as current as the information provided on the cantonal and federal websites.
LexFind (German, French, Italian)
Instructions (German, French, Italian)
Further information (German, French, Italian)
NCJRS - National Criminal Justice Reference Service Abstracts
The database is issued by the information centre for research, policy and practices in the areas of criminal and juvenile criminal justice as well as juvenile delinquency and the battle against drugs. It includes abstracts of both US and international publications. The database does not contain legal claims, views or positions.
Nexis Uni
Press, company and financial information as well as information on people from the worlds of business, politics and current affairs as well as economic analyses, country reports and legal information. Several thousand current journals, magazines and newspapers are contained in full-text versions, including the Tages-Anzeiger, the Handelszeitung, Le Monde und The Washington Post.
The database does not include company dossiers.
Title list of Swiss sources in Nexis(XLS 18,4 KB)
Social assistance (Sozialhilferecht)
The Sozialhilferecht database is integrated in the Weblaw legal portal. Weblaw includes bibliographic information on Swiss legal literature, including the Swiss Conference for Social Assistance (SKOS) guidelines.
Sozialhilferecht (German, French)
Weblaw (German, French)
Swisslex
Provides access to the decisions of the Swiss Supreme Court, the Swiss Federal Administrative Court and Swiss Federal Criminal Court as well as the decisions of various cantonal courts. It also includes 50 legal journals as well as commentaries, monographs, commemorative publications and dissertations.
Note on use: Access only for ZHAW staff and students. You must also complete the free registration process. Swisslex sets a monthly query limit for student users, which you can view in the client profile area after logging in.
Swisslex (German, French)
Video tutorials (German, French)
Title list (German, French)
Weblaw
Contains bibliographic information on Swiss legal literature. It includes various legal journals with an archive, the Lawsearch engine and the social assistance (Sozialhilferecht) database.
Lawsearch provides a comprehensive collection of information with selected documents on legislation, case law and literature. Sources from the federal government, cantons, municipalities, publishing houses and foreign databases are taken into account.
Note on use: In order to use all services (app, push, e-books in the shop, etc.), you require an individual password. The registration process can be completed directly on the Weblaw sites.
Weblaw (German, French)