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Multinational and Foreign Treaties & International Agreements

You will learn which resources in the UCONN Law Library to use to find the text, verify the status, and research multinational treaties/international agreements to which the U.S. may or may not be party, as well as non-US treaties.

Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties

The 1969  and 1986 Vienna Conventions on the Law Treaties state the controlling law for international treaties.

To help you better understand the Vienna treaty conventions, see the following:

1986 treaty

1969 treaty

 

Treaty Research Guides and Indexes

Guides:

  • Treaties - (Peace Palace Library Research Guides - International Law).
  • Treaty Research  (U.N. Research Guides & Resources - U.N. Documentation: International Law -United Nations, Dag Hammerskjold Library) (Best source for U.N. treaty research.
  • Guide to Treaty Research by Simon Canick (updated to 2017 by Silke Sahl - Columbia University Law School Library) Covers treaties to which U.S. is and is not party; includes resources not held by the UCONN Law Library.
  • An Introduction to Sources for Treaty Research by Mark Engsberg and Mary Beth Chappell Lyles (updated to 2016 - NYU Hauser Global Law School Program GlobaLex - includes free and subscription resources that may not be held by the UCONN Law Library)
  • Treaties and Other International Agreements by Marci Hoffman (2003, updated 2013 by Caitlin Hunter -  UC Berkeley Law Library Research Guides) Covers treaties to which the U.S. is party as well as those to which it is not; includes resources not held by the UCONN Law Library.
  • Treaty Research Guide (revised to 2007, links revised to 2017 - Georgetown University Law Library) Covers treaties to which U.S. is and is not party; includes resources which the UCONN Law Library does not hold.
  • Researching Non-US Treaties and Agreements by Stefanie Weigman (2001 - LLRX) While many of the links do not work and materials have since be digitized, it tells you what to look for on the web, so is still useful.
  • How to Find Information on United States Treaties in the Library of Congress by Mary Kramer (1994, revised by Paul Baker) - Library of Congress - Researchers - Bibliographies and Guides (While geared to finding U.S. treaties and is dated, gives useful advice at the beginning for how to use LC subject headings in any catalog or index that uses them to find individual and collections of treaties to which the U.S. is not party.)

Indexes:

  • FLARE Index to Treaties (FIT) - Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London (A searchable database of basic information on over 2,000 of the most significant multilateral treaties and some bilateral treaties concluded between 1353 and the present, with details of where the full text of each treaty may be obtained in paper and, if available, electronic form on the internet.)
  • Rohn,World Treaty Index  2nd ed. (pub. 1983-1984 - Print - Call no.KZ173 R64 1983) (Covers 44,000 treaties between 1900-1980; good source for finding UN treaties to which the U.S. is not party; has treaty title, party and keyword access.)
  •  Bowman & Harris, Multilateral Treaties: Index and Current Status University of Nottingham Treaty Center (pub.1984-1995 - Print - Call no. KZ118 M85 1984)  (Good source for finding UN treaties up to 1995  Gives a lot of information, including status, about each treaty included.)
  • Treaty Series. United Nations. Cumulative Indexes. (Print - Call no.KZ172 T74) United Nations.  New York: United Nations, [1947?]- current. (Indexes to the United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS) which includes multinational and bilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary General.  UNTS Indexes electronically available on Hein Online.)

As is true of the UNTS (see preceding entry) most mulitnational and national treaty collections have indexes that can assist you in finding a particular treaty within that series. Some are part of the treaty text set, others are separate publications; the UCONN Law Library has  index volumes for all the treaty sets it holds, but has only a few of the separate publications in print.

Examples: