Understand world legal systems with JuriGlobe
March 8, 2010
Growing up during the tail end of the Cold War, I heard the phrase “Be happy you don’t live in the U.S.S.R because…” many times in relation to things I felt were unfair. As a child you don’t really have an appreciation for the ways legal systems and governments work outside of the United States. Until I got to middle school I didn’t know what a parliament was outside of a brand of cigarettes.
To get a better sense of how the rest of the world works, the website JuriGlobe is an excellent resource you can point students to or reference yourself when they ask those gotcha questions in class like “Is Turkmenistan’s legal system based on a Common Law or Civilist model?”
Provided by the good folks at the University of Ottawa in Canada, the website has a great deal of information about the governmental and legal structures of every country in the world. You can get this information in a table or on a map. In addition to legal and governmental structures, JuriGlobe has a wealth of information on linguistics and international trade as well. There is certainly enough information here to have students complete a research project on a foreign country, and like I said before, it’s a great resource to keep in your digital back pocket in case of an international stumper. Oh, and just because I know your dying to know, Turkmenistan is based on a Civilist model.
Related stuff:
Argue landmark Supreme Court cases in Argument Wars
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- Tags: civics, social studies
