U.S. Virgin Islands

• The Revised Organic Act of the Virgin Islands of 1954, which serves as its constitution
• Laws made by the Legislature of the Virgin Islands, and federal law
• American common law, and decisions of the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands

• The Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands, the highest local court
• The Superior Court of the Virgin Islands, the main trial court
• The District Court of the Virgin Islands, a federal court, with appeals to the Third Circuit

A law degree, usually from the United States, a bar exam and admission by the Supreme Court of the Virgin Islands.

• It was the Danish West Indies until 1917, when the United States bought it.
• It has two court systems, local and federal.
• People born there are United States citizens, but the territory has no vote in presidential elections.

United States, Puerto Rico, British Virgin Islands, Guam, Denmark

The University of Ottawa’s JuriGlobe database lists U.S. Virgin 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.