Introduction

The United Nations (UN) was established in 1945, after the collapse of its forerunner, the League of Nations. Its purpose is to safeguard international peace and security, to promote justice and international law, to protect human rights and to foster cooperation between sovereign states in tackling social and economic problems worldwide.  Participation is now almost universal, with 192 member states. 

The Library of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies (IALS) has a good collection of scholarly commentary on the work of the UN. It holds documentation produced by the UN only where it is of legal interest; larger collections of UN documentation can be found at UN depositories and on the UN website.

This research guide is structured by type of information source - treaties, cases, books and so on - rather than by subject.  For an introduction to researching the work of the UN in the areas of human rights, the environment, international law and peace and security, see the Special Topics section of the research guide produced by the United Nations Dag Hammarskjöld Library.

UN Institutions

The UN has six principal organs, as laid down in Article 7 of its founding Charter:

• The General Assembly: A deliberative, policy-making body, in which all member states are represented. It has six main committees, the Sixth Committee being the one which deals with legal issues. The International Law Commission is a subsidiary organ of the General Assembly.

• The Security Council: the UN institution primarily responsible for maintaining international peace and security; it has five permanent members, plus ten members elected for two-year terms.

• The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC):  manages the UN's economic and social development work and draws up policy in this area; has numerous subsidiary bodies, such as the Human Rights Commission, the Commission on Sustainable Development and the Commission on the Status of Women.

            

• The International Court of Justice: the UN's primary judicial body, sometimes known as the World Court; it issues rulings on disputes between states (who participate voluntarily) and gives advisory opinions to the UN and its specialised agencies; its structure, functions and procedures are set out in chapter XIV of the UN Charter, in the Court's Statute, in practice directions and in court rules; non-members of the UN may become parties to the ICJ, or may submit themselves to its jurisdiction  in specific cases.

• The Secretariat:  this is the UN's main administrative organ, staffed by public servants who carry out the day-to-day work of the UN; it is headed by the Secretary-General.

• The Trusteeship Council: set up after the Second World War to administer various territories and oversee their transition to self-government. Suspended its actitivities in 1994, when the last of the trust territories became independent.

 

The UN System

As well as the six central institutions of the UN, there are a large number of related bodies: specialised agencies, programmes, offices and funds. Together, the central institutions and other bodies constitute what is known as the United Nations System.

The specialised agencies are independent bodies such as the International Labour Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the International Monetary Fund, which are linked to the UN by cooperative agreements.  Other entities within the UN System include the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the United Nations Children's Fund  (UNICEF) and the UN Development Programme. 

The scope of this research guide is largely restricted to the core UN bodies.  However, IALS does hold some materials relating to institutions of the wider UN System, where they are of legal interest - see Library catalogue.

Further information about the UN System can be found on the UN website.

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The UN Charter and ICJ Statute

The Charter of the United Nations is the UN's founding document, signed at San Francisco on 26 June 1945.  It has since been amended several times (see Introductory Note to Charter on UN website).

The Statute of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) is annexed to the Charter and is deemed to be an integral part of it; so far the Statute has not been amended (see ICJ website).

The official original versions of the Charter and Statute were published in Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco, 1945, volume 15 (United Nations Information Organizations, New York 1945-55). They are reproduced in volume 1 of the Yearbook of the United Nations.

For amended versions of the Charter in print format, see Charter of the United Nations, statute and rules of court and other documents (International Court of Justice, The Hague 1989); or Blackstone's International Law Documents (9th edn, Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009).

All the above titles are available at IALS, except the Yearbook of the United Nations, which is available on the internet.

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Charter and Statute online

The Charter is on the UN website, as amended, with an introductory note.

The Statute of the International Court of Justice is on the ICJ website. 

The Charter and Statute are also on the subscription database HeinOnline, as follows:

• UN Law Collection, Documents of the United Nations Conference...(vol. 15) (original text)
• UN Law Collection, Handbook on the peaceful settlement of disputes between states (Charter as amended). 
• Treaties and Agreements Library (3 Bevans 1153, with the first two sets of amendments to the Charter, but not the third). 

HeinOnline is available to IALS Library's readers via the Electronic Law Library:

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Commentaries on the Charter and Statute

Several commentaries are held by the Library, including:

• Bardo Fassbender, The United Nations Charter as the constitution of the international community  (Brill, Leiden, 2009).

• A Zimmerman, C Tomuschat and K Oellers-Frahm (eds), The Statute of the International Court of Justice : a commentary ( Oxford University Press, Oxford 2006)

• Bruno Simma (ed), The Charter of the United Nations: a commentary ( 2nd edn Oxford University Press, Oxford 2002)

See catalogue for other titles.

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Treaties

Under article 102 of the UN Charter, all treaties in which UN member states participate, both bilateral and multilateral, have to be registered with the Secretary-General, who must then publish them. The purpose of this requirement is to avoid secret diplomacy.

The Secretary-General also has a separate treaty function, as depositary for more than 500 multilateral treaties. These are either treaties of worldwide interest, or treaties drawn up under the aegis of UN regional commissions and open to their entire membership. Detailed information about the depositary function can be found in Summary of practice of the Secretary-General as depositary of multilateral treaties (United Nations, New York 1994), available at IALS Library; 1999 reissue on UN Treaty Collection website).   

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The United Nations Treaty Series and League of Nations Treaty Series

Treaties registered with the Secretary-General under article 102 are published in the United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS), in the original language, with translations into English and French if necessary. However, the Regulations on the application of article 102 provide that the Secretariat may decide not to publish certain types of treaty in full (A/RES/97(I), as amended by A/RES/364(IV), A/RES/482(V) and A/RES/33/141). 

Treaties registered with the League of Nations were published in the League of Nations Treaty Series (LNTS).

IALS has the United Nations Treaty Series from volume 1 (1946) to volume 2174 (2002), after which our print subscription was cancelled.  It is held in offsite storage, from where it can be retrieved within 72 hours. The whole series is available on the UN Treaty Collection website and in HeinOnline's UN Law Collection (see IALS Electronic Law Library).

The entire League of Nations Treaty Series (1920-1946) is held in offsite storage, from where it can be retrieved within 72 hours.  It is also on the UN Treaty Collection website and HeinOnline.

There is a substantial time-lag before a new treaty appears in the UNTS, so other sources often have to be used. Multilaterals for which the UN is the depositary should be available in the UN Treaty Collection under Texts of Recently Deposited Multilateral Treaties.  For further information about tracing treaties, see Research tools, below, or refer to the IALS Library research guide, Public International Law.

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The United Nations Treaty Collection

The UN Treaty Collection website provides a free database of treaty texts, with status information.  The Collection comprises the following titles:

• United Nations Treaty Series - all registered treaties in pdf format, with status information

• League of Nations Treaty Series - all registered treaties in pdf format, with status information

• Texts of Recently Deposited Multilateral Treaties: contains deposited treaties which have not yet appeared in the UNTS (click on "Additional Databases", then "Titles and recent texts")

• Depositary Notifications (CNs) by the Secretary-General (2001 onwards): notices relating to deposited treaties; issued to advertise the opening of treaties for signature, ratifications, withdrawals and other matters

• Status of Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General: annually-updated; gives details of signatures, ratifications and so on for the 500 or so treaties for which the Secretary-General is the depositary (not for all registered treaties); click on the book icon for links to the full text as published in the UNTS.

• Certified True Copies (CTCs) of Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General: the Secretary-General is required to send certified copies of each deposited treaty to all the parties (see ch. 4 of Summary of practice) and these documents are being added to the UN Treaty Collection for reference purposes; however, this section of the website is under development

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Research tools

The UN produces a number of treaty indexes and other reference sources, in print and online.  There are also several non-UN treaty indexes.  Most of these sources give status information (date in force and so on) as well as citations to printed sources.

• UNTS and LNTS indexes: the LNTS has a cumulative index; the UNTS has an index for every fifty volumes, but they are not cumulative and only cover a few years each, so it is easier to trace a treaty in the UNTS by searching the UN Treaty Collection website or HeinOnline's UN Law Collection.

• Multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-General (formerly Multilateral treaties in respect of which the Secretary-General performs depositary functions): annual official directory of status information, covering the deposited multilaterals only.  Includes the full text of reservations and declarations (but not the treaties themselves) and gives UNTS citations. Current edition on UN Treaty Collection website under the title Status of Treaties (MTDSG); also in HeinOnline's UN Law Collection. Printed edition in IALS 1967 - 2006.

• Statement of Treaties and International Agreements Registered or Filed and Recorded with the Secretariat:  Monthly official list of treaties registered by member states. Gives title, date of conclusion, date and method of entry into force; annexes cover ratifications, accessions and other treaty actions.  Has annual cumulative indexes in each December issue, up to and including December 1997 only. On UN Treaty Collection website from May 1998 (under Monthly Statement); on HeinOnline from 1983 onwards; printed version in IALS 1978-July 2009.

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• FLARE Index to Treaties: free web database covering 1,500 of the most significant multilateral treaties from 1856 to the present. Gives LNTS, UNTS and other citations.  Has links to full text on the web, where available.

• Christian L Wiktor, Multilateral treaty calendar : 1648-1995 (Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague c1998). Gives UNTS, LNTS and other citations and provides status information. In IALS.

• Peter H Rohn, World treaty index. (2nd edn ABC-Clio Information Services, Santa Barbara, Calif. 1983-84). Five-volume work covering both bilaterals and multilaterals, 1900-1980. Gives UNTS, LNTS and other citations, plus status information. Printed edition in IALS. There is also a web version, which is more up-to-date, but it is still under development and can be difficult to use.

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Cases and other judicial documents

This section deals with materials produced by the Permanent Court of International Justice, the International Court of Justice and the international criminal tribunals for Rwanda and the Former Yugoslavia.  It does not cover the International Criminal Court (ICC), nor the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), both of which are independent bodies; nor does it cover the Special Court for Sierra Leone, a joint undertaking by the UN and the government of Sierra Leone. For an introduction to the ICC or ITLOS, refer to the Dag Hammarskjöld Library's research guide; to find out about the Special Court for Sierra Leone, see its website.

 

 

International Court of Justice

The International Court of Justice publishes its decisions in Reports of judgments, advisory opinions and orders; related documentation appears in Pleadings, oral arguments, documents. Both series are held at IALS. All ICJ decisions are also on the ICJ website, together with press releases detailing the filing of new cases and other developments; they are on Lexis Library (International Court of Justice Decisions Combined, 1947 -) and Westlaw (database code INT-ICJ; 1947 -) as well.

The ICJ's Statute, rules, practice directions and related materials are published in the irregular series Acts and documents concerning the organization of the Court (in IALS). They are also available on the Basic Documents page of the ICJ website. 

Information about the composition, organisation, jurisdiction and rules of the Court can be found in its Yearbook (Sijthoff, 1947 - ; in IALS in print and also via HeinOnline.).

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Digests of ICJ cases can be found at IALS in the following compilations:

• International Court of Justice, Yearbook (Sijthoff, Leiden 1947- ).  Each volume contains digests of the decisions issued during the year covered.

• Max Planck Institut für Ausländisches Öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, World Court Digest (Springer, Berlin 1986 - ). Formerly Fontes Juris Gentium (see below).  Arranged by subject. Also available on the internet; at the time of writing, both the print and internet versions cover cases up to 2000 only, but future volumes are planned.

• Max Planck Institut für Ausländisches Öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht, Digest of the Decisions of the International Court of Justice (Fontes Juris Gentium series Heyman, Berlin 1961; Springer, Berlin 1978, 1989).  In three volumes, covering cases from the period 1947-1985.

• Summaries of judgments, advisory opinions and orders of the International Court of Justice,1948-1991 (United Nations, New York 1992). Chronological collection, with no subject index. IALS only has the first volume (1948-1991).  All four volumes (1948-2007) are available on the UN website and in the Hein Online UN Law Collection; the UN website also provides a searchable database of unpublished summaries from 2008 onwards.

                                                                                                                                      

 

Permanent Court of International Justice

The Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ) was the forerunner of the ICJ, active from 1922 to 1946. It published its documentation in the series Publications of the Permanent Court of International Justice (all held at IALS), as follows:

• Series A, collection of judgments

• Series B, collection of advisory opinions

• Series A/B, judgments, orders & advisory opinions (merger of Series A and B)

• Series C, pleadings, oral statements and documents

The Library also has Series D, Acts and documents concerning the organisation of the court; Series E, annual report...; and Series F, General index of the publications of the Court.

All PCIJ decisions are on the ICJ website and on HeinOnline (Foreign and International Law Resources Database).

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Digests of PCIJ case law can be found in the following titles, all held at IALS:

• Ernst Schmitz and others (eds), Digest of the decisions of the Permanent Court of International Justice, 1922-1940 (Max Planck Institut für Ausländisches Öffentliches Recht und Völkerrecht's Fontes Juris Gentium series Heymann, Berlin 1931-1964)

• Manley O. Hudson (ed), World court reports: a collection of the judgments, orders and opinions of the Permanent court of international justice (Carnegie endowment for international peace, Washington 1934-43)

• Edvard Hambro (ed), The case law of the International Court : a repertoire of the judgments, advisory opinions and orders of the Permanent Court of International Justice and of the International Court of Justice (Sijthoff, Leiden 1952-1976). Includes a bibliography and case index.

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The International Criminal Tribunals for the Former Yugoslavia and Rwanda

The International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) publishes its decisions in the series Judicial reports, (Kluwer Law International, c1999- ), which is held at IALS. There is a time-lag of several years before new cases appear in this series (the website has newer decisions - see below).

The websites of the Rwanda and Former Yugoslavia tribunals provide their respective decisions, constitutional documents, practice directions, rules and other materials.

IALS has many of the Rwanda Tribunal's decisions, together with constitutional documents,rules, and a large number of other documents, on two CD-ROMs, Basic documents and case law (1995-2006), compiled by the Tribunal's Legal Library.

Selected decisions from both tribunals can be found in two titles held at IALS:

• Annotated leading cases of International Criminal Tribunals. André Klip and Göran Sluiter (ed.s). Intersentia, 1999 - .  IALS has volumes 1-18, covering 1993-2004 only;  later volumes have been published.

• Genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity : topical digests of the case law of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda and the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia. Human Rights Watch, 2004.    Also available free on the HRW website, together with a 2006 version for the Former Yugoslavia and a 2010 version for Rwanda.

The ICTY's shortlived Yearbook published reports on the work of the Tribunal, biographies of its officials, indictments, speeches, lists of documents produced by the Tribunal and other information. IALS has it from 1995 to 1998; it ceased publication with the 1999 volume.

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Research tools

Bimal N Patel, The World Court reference guide : judgments, advisory opinions and orders of the Permanent Court of International Justice and the International Court of Justice (1922-2000) (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 2002).  This is a detailed one-volume compilation of procedural and legal information about all ICJ and PCIJ decisions in the period covered. It has indexes by article number of the League of Nations Covenant, the PCIJ and ICJ Statutes and rules and the UN Charter. It also has basic subject indexes and indexes of treaties and arbitral awards cited.  (Held at IALS.)

The ICJ website has lists of contentious cases, advisory proceedings and pending cases, as well as a complete list of past cases (contentious and advisory).

The full-text databases of ICJ cases on Lexis Library (International Court of Justice Decisions Combined, 1947 -) and Westlaw (database code INT-ICJ; 1947 -) can be used for a variety of research purposes: cases on a given topic, cases mentioning a particular treaty and so on.  Both are available at IALS via the Electronic Law Library.

Bibliographies and indexes available at IALS include:

• Bibliography of the International Court of Justice (The Court, The Hague 1947- ).  IALS has issues 1 to 49 of the Bibliography (covering the period 1946 to 1995).
  
• Publications of the Permanent Court of International Justice. Series F, General index of the publications of the Court, series A, B and C  (A.W. Sijthoff, Leiden 1927-1938)

• Bibliographical list of official and unofficial publications concerning the Permanent Court of International Justice. (The Court, The Hague 1926-1946)

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International Arbitral Awards

Since 1948, the UN has produced Reports of international arbitral awards (cited as RIAA), a collection of decisions made in international arbitration cases. Originally it was confined to arbitration between states, but later the policy was extended to include arbitration between international organisations and states; commercial arbitration is excluded, however. The reports are in either English or French, with summaries in both languages. Awards made prior to the foundation of the UN are included in the series. Forthcoming volumes will extend retrospective coverage back to the late eighteenth century.

IALS has the printed edition of RIAA from volume 1 (1948) to volume 20 (1994) and subscribes to the entire series on the HeinOnline database.  The whole series is also on the UN website.

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Voting records

The voting records of the General Assembly and the Security Council are available on the internet from 1946 onwards, via UNBISnet, a  free resource produced by the UN's Dag Hammarskjöld Library.

The voting records of the General Assembly are cumulated in the UN title Resolutions and decisions adopted by the General Assembly (formerly Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly), from the 1st session onwards. (In IALS.)

Voting records of the General Assembly (1946 to 1985/86) and of the Security Council (1946 to 1978/79) are available in Djonovich, United Nations resolutions. Series 1, Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly and Series 2, Resolutions and decisions of the Security Council (Oceana, Dobbs Ferry, NY and 1972-88 and 1988-92). In IALS.

Further information about voting records can be found in Dag Hammarskjöld Library's research guide.

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UN documentation

IALS holds UN official documents of legal interest. Each UN document is identified by a "document symbol" consisting of letters and numbers, for example A/S-19/29. The Dag Hammarskjöld Library's research guide has an explanation of these symbols. 

Until 1985, the official records of each principal UN body were bound together as a set, for example Official Records of the General Assembly, 1946-1984 (cited as GAOR) and Official Records of the Security Council, 1946-1984 (cited as SCOR).  IALS does not have these sets, but it does have some of their constituent parts. For UN materials which are not held at IALS, use the internet (see below), or refer to a UN depository library. 

The following are key UN documents and publications which are held at IALS:

• Documents of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, San Francisco, 1945. New York : United Nations Information Organizations, 1945-55.   Also in HeinOnline's UN Law Collection.

• International Court of Justice, Pleadings, oral arguments, documents, 1948 -

• International Court of Justice, Reports of judgments, advisory opinions and orders, 1947/48 - . Also on HeinOnline.

• International Court of Justice, Yearbook, 1946/47 - ; contains case summaries, court rules and other information about the work of the Court. Also on HeinOnline.

• International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, Yearbook, 1995-1998 (ceased publication after 1999 volume)

• Report of the International Court of Justice, 1968/1969 -1986/1987 (later issues on ICJ website)

 

• Reports of International Arbitral Awards, print 1948-1994, whole series on HeinOnline and UN website. 

• Resolutions adopted by the General Assembly, 1946-1975; continued 1976 onwards by Resolutions and decisions adopted by the General Assembly (IALS set incomplete, but  all GA resolutions are available via the ODS website).

 

• UN Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL). Report on the work of its session[s], no.1 (1968) –  . All on UNCITRAL website as well.

 

• United Nations Juridical Yearbook, 1963 - ; publishes legal documentation concerning the United Nations and UN System, such as legal opinions issued by the Secretariat. Whole series also on HeinOnline and UN website.

 

• United Nations Treaty Series, print 1946/7 - 2002 (in offsite store); whole series on HeinOnline and UNTC website.

• Yearbook of the International Law Commission, 1949 -   ; whole series on HeinOnline and UN website.  Long time-lag in publication (8 years at time of writing).

 

Check the IALS Library Catalogue for other UN titles. To trace obscure materials for which you do not have a full reference, use the indexes and research tools mentioned below. 

The Journal of the United Nations is not available at IALS, but it is on the internet from 1993 onwards, via the UN Official Document System (select Useful Search Links). It includes the latest treaty signatures and ratifications, notices of forthcoming meetings of the General Assembly, Security Council and other bodies and summaries of recent meetings.

The Yearbook of the United Nations is not available at IALS either, but the whole series (1946 - ) is on the internet. It gives a detailed description of UN activities and includes significant resolutions of the General Assembly, Security Council and Economic and Social Council.

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UN documentation on the internet

Titles classed by the UN as "publications" are not generally available on the internet, but their bibliographic details can be looked up on the UN Publications website, or on UNBISnet. A substantial number of titles classed as "documents", on the other hand, are available on the internet in full.  See above for links to specific key titles (yearbooks, etc.); for other documents, see below:

• Resolutions and other key documents of the General Assembly, the Security Council and the Economic and Social Council can be found via the Quick links section of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library's research guide.  Many resolutions are also reproduced in the Yearbook of the UN.

• The UN Official Document System (ODS) is a full-text database of UN documents, including resolutions, the verbatim records of the General Assembly and many other types of document. It goes back to 1993 for most sort of document, but includes resolutions back to 1946; other pre-1993 documents are being added. It does not cover the UN Treaty Series. The Dag Hammarskjöld Library's research guide gives an overview of the database. To search the ODS by key words from the title of a given document, choose Advanced Search.

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Indexes and research tools

UN Official Document System (ODS): a full-text database of UN documents from 1993 onwards (1946 onwards for resolutions); see above for further details.

UNBISnet: an online index to UN documents and publications going back to 1979 (earlier for some important document types). It includes voting records. There are links to a large number of full-text documents. Produced by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the Library of the UN's Geneva Office.

UN-I-QUE: a database of answers to frequently-asked questions about UN documentation, with links to full-text sources where available. Produced by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library.

Dag Hammarskjöld Library, United Nations document series symbols, 1946-1996 (United Nations, New York 1998): a printed index to UN documents by document symbol, subject, corporate author and series title. In IALS.

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Books

IALS has a good collection of treatises on the work of the UN and its agencies, as well as numerous commentaries on UN conventions. The Library also holds a very large number of treatises on international law generally, which are beyond the scope of this guide.

Introductory texts

• Sven Gareis, The United Nations : an introduction (Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke, Hampshire c2005)

• Benedetto Conforti and Carlo Focarelli, The law and practice of the United Nations (4th rev ed, Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2010)

• M J Peterson, The UN General Assembly (Routledge, London 2006)

• Edward C Luck, UN Security Council : practice and promise (Routledge, London 2006)

• Mohamed Sameh M Amr, The role of the International Court of Justice as the principal judicial organ of the United Nations (Kluwer Law International, The Hague 2003)

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Selection of other texts

• Paola Gaeta (ed.), The UN Genocide Convention : a commentary (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2009)
  

• Gregory H Fox, Humanitarian occupation (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2008)

• Nigel Cantwell, Article 20 : children deprived of their family environment (series: A commentary on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, Martinus Nijhoff, Leiden 2008; IALS has whole series)
  
• Thomas G Weiss and Sam Daws (eds), The Oxford handbook on the United Nations (Oxford University Press, Oxford 2007)
  
• Ian Hurd, After anarchy : legitimacy and power at the United Nations Security Council (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ 2007)

• Bruno Zeller, CISG and unification of international trade law (Routledge-Cavendish, New York, NY 2007)

• Lise Morjé Howard, UN peacekeeping in civil wars (Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007)

Many other relevant titles may be found on the Library Catalogue.

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Periodicals

Among the very numerous international law periodicals held at IALS, the following are of particular relevance for UN research:

• Annual Review of United Nations Affairs, Oxford University Press, 1949 -

• Max Planck Yearbook of United Nations Law, Brill, 1997 -

See the Library Catalogue for other periodical titles, including e-journals.

For guidance on tracing articles about a particular subject, see IALS Library's web guide, Finding Journal Articles.

 

Bibliographies

IALS has several printed bibliographies relating to the United Nations:

• United Nations Juridical Yearbook, United Nations, 1962 -   (also on HeinOnline and UN website). Part Four is a legal bibliography of the UN and related international organisations.

• Peter I Hajnal, Directory of United Nations documentary and archival sources (United Nations,  New York 1992)

• Guide to the archives of international organizations. 1: The United Nations system (Unesco, Paris 1984)
  
• Peter I Hajnal, Guide to United Nations organization, documentation & publishing for students, researchers, librarians (Oceana Publications, Dobbs Ferry, NY 1978)
  

Key websites

 

General Assembly: includes information and documents from 53rd session (1998/99) onwards

International Court of Justice: provides all ICJ and PCIJ decisions, together with related documents

Official Document System (ODS) of the United Nations:  vast full-text database of UN documentation

Security Council: provides resolutions, reports, details of meetings and other information

UN home page: has links to the main policy areas, news, documents and other key information

UN International law pages:  these cover the work of the International Law Commission, UNCITRAL, the ICJ and other legal institutions

UN Treaty Collection: databases of treaties and related information

Research guides

Relevant research guides available on the internet include the following:

• United Nations documentation: research guide, by the UN's own Dag Hammarskjöld Library

• Researching the United Nations: Finding the Organization's Internal Resource Trails, by Linda Tashbook, Foreign International Comparative Law Librarian at the University of Pittsburgh's Barco Law Library, on New York University's Globalex website.

• Researching League of Nations Documents, by Gabriela Femenia, on New York University's Globalex website.

• A guide to United Nations research, by the Jacob Burns Library, George Washington University Law School

• International Law Commission research guide, on the Commission's own website.

• Selected U.N. Resources and Research Tools: Overview and Search Tips for Legal Research, a comparison table of UN resources by Wiltrud Harms, Reference Specialist for United Nations and Human Rights Law at the University of California at Berkeley, on New York University's Globalex website.

 

 

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