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Introduction to International Law - Sources in the UM Law Library: United Nations

This guide to international legal research is designed primarily for students with little or no experience in doing research in international law.

Sources for the UN

The following materials describe the history of the U.N. and analyze its function and legal status.

  • Yearbook of the United Nations. 1966/67- (Also available online.) Describes the proceedings and activities of the organization for every twelve-month period and gives an account of the major aspects of the work of specialized agencies for each year. Membership lists of the United Nations and its agencies are included and references to official United Nations documents are given at the end of each chapter. There is a three-year lag between the year reviewed and the date of publication. It is the best place to begin research on a problem of international law handled by or relating to the United Nations.
  • United Nations Juridical Yearbook. 1963- (Also available online.) Includes selected texts of documents concerning the legal status of organizations within the United Nations system, as well as discussions of the legal activities of those organizations. The Yearbook also covers the judicial decisions by international and national tribunals. The last chapter is a legal bibliography of books and articles about the United Nations and other international organizations.
  • United Nations International Law Commission Yearbook. 1949- . Issued in two volumes annually since 1949, this publication contains the summary records of the International Law Commission in Vol. 1, and documents relating to the subjects discussed, including the report to the General Assembly, in Vol. 2.
  • UN Chronicle. Vol. 1, May 1964- monthly. (Also available online.) Each issue contains a complete record of the month, describing the proceedings, decisions and resolutions of the main organs and committees of the United Nations in political, economic, social, legal and administrative fields. The Notes-of-the-Month section includes announcements of international meetings, conventions and agreements, and a selective list of documents.

Locating UN Documents

United Nations documents and sales publications are issued in mimeographed, offset, or printed form. They are identified by series symbol, sales code, or Official Record designation.

The Law Library has the mimeographed documents and the Official Records of the United Nations on microfiche from 1946–present (Readex Microfiche Collection, MICRO-10 UN); for instructions on using this collection, see the handout entitled "United Nations Documents on Readex Microfiche," available at the Reference Desk.

An online index to the Readex Microfiche Collection, Access UN, exists through the Law Library’s Electronic Reference Collection. This Index includes Official Records, masthead documents, draft resolutions, meeting records, UN Sales Publications, and the UN Treaty Series citations. Also included is the full-text of several thousand UN documents.

PDF images of UN Official Documents may also be accessed via the web, and via the Law Library’s Electronic Reference Collection. The UN's ODS (Official Document System) database covers all new official documents (including UN Official Records) and many older documents. Eventually, ODS will contain all official documents from 1946 to the present.

United Nation treaties may also be accessed full-text online via the United Nations Treaty Collection. This online collection includes 10 categories of treaty-related data, including Status of Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General, Full-text treaties via the United Nations Treaty Series (1946 -), and Texts of Recently Deposited Multilateral Treaties.

The Law Library also has a paper copy of the Official Records from 1946–1980, as well as paper copies of a variety of United Nations sales publications. To locate paper Official Records and sales publications, check MLaw Catalog. The Hatcher Graduate Library, which is a United Nations Depository Library, has paper United Nations documents, including Official Records, from 1945-present, as well as the Readex Microfiche Collection. Check the Documents Center (320 Hatcher North) for specific holdings in paper. You should also check Mirlyn for documents and sales publications.

1. In using United Nations documents for research, proceed from the highest organ to the lowest subsidiary body, from the general to the specific, and from current to retrospective. The following steps may be helpful:

2. A general manual, such as Everyone's United Nations should be consulted for the background of a topic, and the time period the topic was considered.

3. Having determined the time period in step 1, the Yearbook of the United Nations of the relevant year(s) should be consulted for summaries of action on a question and for selected documentary references.

4.  For comprehensive documentary references, there are two approaches:

First:  if the topic was discussed by the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council or Trusteeship Council, the relevant Index to Proceedings should be consulted.

•  General Assembly. 1950-
•  Economic and Social Council. 1952-
•  Security Council. 1964-
•  Trusteeship Council. 1953-

Each index includes the following:
•  The list of officers of the session.
•  Information concerning the rules of procedure and the resolutions and decisions of the session.
•  Checklist and Agenda of the meetings.
•  Subject index listing, the documents and action taken on the question during the session.
•  Numerical list of documents, with information on their re-issuance, if any.

Second: if the time period is prior to 1997, and if the topic is more general, consult UNDOC, UNDEX, UNDI subject indexes:

• UNDOC: Current Index. Published monthly, 1979-1996.
• UNDEX: United National Documents Index. Covers documentation from 1974-1978.
• UNDI: United Nations Documents Index. Covers documentation from 1950-1973.

5. The documentary references obtained should be sifted to determine the organ (plus subsidiary organs) that has treated the substantive aspects of the topic, and the development and action taken should be followed through the periodic reports of these organs. The list of documents considered by an organ is often appended to its periodic reports; this list may be used to identify reports and papers on more specific aspects of a question.

6. Current developments may be followed in the latest issues in the UN Chronicle (supra) and in newspapers.

7. Citations to UN documents may be found via Access UN (supra), the online index to the Readex Microfiche Collection. Copies of microfiche documents may then be requested from the Circulation Desk on Level S-2. Access UN may be searched by a variety of parameters, including subject, agenda/session, title, author, document type, document number, etc.

8. Finally, various UN documents, such as some Security Council, General Assembly and Economic and Social Committee documents, may be found full-text on the web.

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