Northern Mariana Islands

• The Constitution of the Commonwealth, and the Covenant with the United States
• Laws made by the Commonwealth Legislature, and federal law that applies
• American common law, and decisions of the Commonwealth Supreme Court

• The Commonwealth Supreme Court, the highest local court
• The Commonwealth Superior Court, the main trial court
• The federal District Court for the Northern Mariana Islands

A law degree, usually from the United States, and admission by the Commonwealth Supreme Court.

• Only people of Northern Marianas descent may own long-term interests in land.
• It has both local and federal courts, as in Guam.
• People born there are United States citizens.

Guam, United States, Palau, Micronesia, Philippines

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists Northern Mariana Islands as: Common law. It names the systems in order of importance.

The map colours a country by the first-named system, and shows both civil-law and common-law countries as “mixed”. It is a simplification, and real systems are rarely pure.

Antigua and Barbuda, Australia, Bahamas, Barbados, Belize, Canada, Cook Islands, Dominica, Fiji, Ghana, Grenada, India, Ireland, Jamaica.

• JuriGlobe: world legal systems (University of Ottawa)

Sources last reviewed: October 2026.