United Nations Research Guide

For more information on locating treaties, see the Treaty Research guide.

ONLINE SOURCES

• United Nations Treaty Collection - this free website contains pdfs of over 50,000 United Nations treaties, both multilateral and bilateral. The treaties are provided in their official languages, with translations to French and English when necessary. You can also find the most current status table for multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-General and recently deposited treaties that have not yet been published in the print UNTS.
• Analytical Guide to the Work of the International Law Commission
  In print, it is only through 1996. This is a good outline of what the UN has done and a handy set of quick links for travaux of UN treaties down to the document level. It can cancel out the need to do searches in either ODS or AccessUN.
• Universal Human Rights Index
  This integrates the Treaty Bodies database with the periodic reporting as well as shadow reports and other Human Rights documents.
  
• Lexis - to access any foreign and international materials on Lexis, you must sign into Lexis Advance, click on the Research tab at the top left of the page, and select Lexis.com. You cannot access Int'l & Foreign materials from Lexis Advance. Once you get to the classic platform, you can use the following pathway to access treaties: Legal > Area of Law - By Topic > International Law > Treaties & International Agreements > U.S. Treaties on Lexis
• Westlaw [USTREATIES database]
• Collections of multilateral treaties are accessible full-text through the Internet (this is a sampling of what is available, there are probably many other sites):
  • Database of International Labour Standards (ILOLEX): from the International Labour Organization, provides the full text of International Labour Conventions from 1919 - present. Free trade agreements can also be found through the International Labour Organization website.
  • Multilaterals Project: A project of the Fletcher School at Tufts University, the Multilaterals Project provided full text of international conventions covering a variety of topics including biodiversity, diplomatic relations, human rights and rules of warfare.This database included many historical treaties pre-dating the United Nations. It is no longer being updated but still contains useful information for past treaties and conventions.
    
  • UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
  • World Intellectual Property Organization: includes full text the 24 treaties administered by WIPO on intellectual property topics

PRINT SOURCES

• United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS) INTL KZ172 .T74
  Contains both bilateral and multilateral treaties in the language of the original treaty as well as English and French if needed. Keep in mind that this is an extremely slow publication.
• United Nations Cumulative Treaty Index INTL REF KZ171 .U512 1999
  A 15 volume index that is much more detailed than the UNTS official index.
• Multilateral Treaties : Index and Current Status INTL REF KZ118 .M8 1984
• Rohn, World Treaty Index INTL REF KZ173 .R63 1983
  Covers from 1900-1980.
• Treaties in Force INTL REF KZ235 .U58
  Also available HeinOnline 1929- current (Georgetown Only) and LLMC-Digital 1955-1993(Georgetown Only) and the U.S. State Department current
• Wiktor, Multilateral Treaty Calendar = Répertoire des traités multilatéraux, 1648-1995 INTL REF KZ118 .W55 199
• READEX United Nations documents and publications, [microform]INTL MEDIA KZ4935 .U6 Micro * NOTE*: This set is now located in the John Wolff International and Comparative Law Library in International Media , 4th Floor, Rm 4011