Foreign, Comparative, and International Law: International Law: Public

International agreements, whether they are called treaties, conventions, executive agreements, exchange of notes, understandings, protocols, or otherwise, constitute the bulk of contemporary public international law. Research problems relating to treaties may be grouped into three broad categories:

• Locating the text of the treaty.
• Determining whether a particular treaty is in force, for what parties, and with what reservations.
• Interpreting the text of the treaty.

Research Guides to Treaties

• The ASIL Guide to Public International Law includes an introduction to treaty research, how to determine the status of treaties, and other treaty-related issues.

• The site LLRX has two relevant research guides: one for researching treaties to which the U.S. is a party, and one for researching non-U.S. treaties.

Locating Treaties

• A "treaty series" is an officially published collection of treaties and other international agreements. 
• Find treaty series in the MLaw Catalog by conducting a keyword search for [country/organization] treaty series.

Some major treaty series in the MLaw collection are the following:

• United Nations Treaty Series
• League of Nations Treaty Series
• Organization of American States Treaty Series
• European Treaty Series
• European Conventions and Agreements
• Consolidated Treaty Series

Major International Tribunals:

• International Court of Justice
  • Main website: http://www.icj-cij.org/
  • Subject listing in MLaw Catalog: International Court of Justice.
• Court of Justice of the European Union
  • Main website: https://curia.europa.eu/jcms/jcms/j_6/
  • Subject listing in MLaw Catalog: Court of Justice of the European Union.
• European Court of Human Rights
  • Main website: https://www.echr.coe.int/
  • Case documents database: https://hudoc.echr.coe.int/eng
  • Subject listing in MLaw Catalog: European Court of Human Rights.

International Criminal Tribunals are established by the United Nations for the purpose of prosecuting war criminals. Five International Tribunals currently exist. Each Tribunal posts official documents on its respective website. Additionally, the MLaw Library collects material on each Tribunal for research purposes.

• the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
  • Main website: http://www.icty.org/
  • Subject listing in MLaw Catalog: International Tribunal for the Prosecution of Persons Responsible for Serious Violations of International Humanitarian Law Committed in the Territory of the Former Yugoslavia since 1991.
• the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
  • Main website: http://unictr.unmict.org/
  • Subject listing in MLaw Catalog: International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
• the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL)
  • Main website: http://www.rscsl.org/​
  • Subject listing in MLaw Catalog: Special Court for Sierra Leone.
• the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC)
  • Main website: https://www.eccc.gov.kh/en
  • Keyword search in MLaw Catalog: "Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia"
• the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (STL)
  • Main website: https://www.stl-tsl.org/en/
  • Keyword search in MLaw Catalog: "Special Tribunal for Lebanon"

International Law Reports is the only publication which is entirely devoted to the regular and systematic reporting of decisions of international courts and arbitrators, and judgments of national courts, all translated into English. Cases are presented from a vast variety of courts and countries, including the International Court of Justice, Obsolete Court, Arbitration, United Nations Human Rights Committee, Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.

International human rights research involves a complex web of treaties, case law, reports, and other materials produced by nations and intergovernmental organizations. Begin your research with treatises, books, journal articles, or other secondary sources to identify what organizations, laws, statistics, and other documentation is relevant to your research.

The MLaw Library has a variety of resources to conduct your human rights research.