The law library has numerous foreign and international law databases to help you find the law of other countries, international law documents such as treaties, and secondary sources for background and citations.
Foreign Law Guide describes legal systems and resources for other countries and includes citations and some links to major foreign statutes by topic. Includes English language translations where available. Includes recommended secondary sources.
Oxford Constitutions of the World: Constitutions of other countries in English and original versions, including historical constitutions, plus introductory notes.
vLex Justis includes primary and secondary legal materials, including official gazettes, codes, court judgments, and newspapers, from Latin America, and many European countries. It has its own translation feature, allowing searching in English, and retrieving results with parallel text (original and translation).
ICLR: Official caselaw reports from England and Wales.
Oxford Reports on International Law includes caselaw on public international law from international and domestic courts.
Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law is a secondary source on international law on the Oxford Law platform. It includes detailed articles on topics in international law, with citations to primary resources and related secondary material.
ICRC Geneva Conventions of 1949 with Additional Protocols and Commentaries: Includes the Geneva Conventions, commentaries, full-text of reservations, implementation data, and tables of parties to treaties.
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) International Humanitarian Law Treaties and Documents: Find treaties and documents by topic, date or country. Text of the 1949 Geneva conventions and protocols with member state information, as well as other treaties and agreements related to international humanitarian law.
Hein Online United Nations Treaty Search. Includes the UN Treaty Series and League of Nations Treaty Series. Find treaties by citation, or search by countries, popular names, date, text, subject areas. Links from the treaty document entries (through Scholar Check) to law review articles in Hein citing the treaty.
Hein Online United States Treaties and Agreements. Includes US. Treaties and Other International Agreements (UST), Treaties and Other International Acts Series (TIAS), International Legal Materials (ILM), and Senate Treaty Documents. Search by treaty number or citation, country, date, related treaty, subject, or keyword.
UN Treaties Collection: Text and status of United Nations treaties. Includes the UNTS, recently deposited treaties, and status of treaties. Multilateral and bilateral treaties are deposited with the UN Secretary-General, including but not limited to UN treaties. Search for treaties in the UN Treaty Series database, or use Status of Multilateral Treaties to find UN multilateral treaties by category including human rights, refugees, and penal matters.
International Court of Justice (Reports of Judgments also found in Westlaw, Lexis, and Hein Online): Judgments and court documents on disputes between sovereign states. The court's website includes pending cases, oral and written proceedings, orders, and summaries of judgments and orders.
The website of the International Criminal Court includes decisions of the court, investigations by the court, and rules and regulations of procedure in the Official Journal. The court's Legal Tools Database has ICC documents and legal instruments, decisions of international criminal courts and tribunals and national courts on international criminal law and human rights, and national implementing legislation. Situations and Cases lists cases before the court with documents for each case.
Oxford Reports on International Law: Modules include International Law in Domestic Courts, International Criminal Law, and International Human Rights Law, with filters by subject and state party. The long subject list for browsing includes topics like use of force; war, peace, & neutrality; and settlement of disputes; you can also browse by state party. The Oxford Law Citator provides citations to documents, case details, and related citing cases and documents. Emory will lose access to Oxford Reports on International Law on December 31, 2025.
International Crimes Database: Background and news on international courts and tribunals. Browse cases by name or broad categories (genocide, terrorism), or search by terms and categories to find cases from national courts and international tribunals.
International Residual Mechanism for Criminal Tribunals : Ad hoc and other criminal tribunals as special courts established to prosecute cases arising under international criminal law for genocide, international humanitarian law, and war crimes. Include the International Criminal Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda.
UN International Law Commission: Treaties and Analytical guide with reports and documents.
UN Audiovisual Library of International Law: Preparatory documents by treaty. Find UN treaties by subject, with procedural history and documents.
Repertoire of Practice of the Security Council: Activities of the Security Council, arranged by year and by Chapter and Article of the UN Charter. Chapter VII is on Actions with Respect to Threats to the Peace, Breaches of the Peace, and Acts of Aggression. More recent Security Council actions are summarized in Highlights of Security Council Practice.
Security Council Resolutions: Resolutions arranged by year and number, with topic headings, usually states and regions with armed conflicts.
The Security Council Report, an unofficial publication on the Security Council, has news, forecasts, chronologies of events, and key documents on Security Council actions arranged by country and region or by theme, including Authorisations to Use Force.
UN General Assembly Sixth Committee: The Sixth Committee is the primary forum for the consideration of legal questions in the General Assembly. Their website includes compilations of General Assembly resolutions on the recommendation of the Sixth Committee and reports related to international law.
UN Official Documents System Search: Search for full-text of United Nations Resolutions and Documents. Search by fields including document symbol, title, date, subject, and full-text.
Hein Online United Nations Law Collection: Includes treaties, ICJ judgments and opinions, International Law Commission publications, commentaries on the UN Charter, and Resolutions and Decisions of the General Assembly.
For historical research on the United Nations, the journal International Organization (available on JSTOR) published regular summaries in the 1940s-1960s of the activities of the Security Council, other UN bodies and other international organizations (including NATO), drawn from and summarizing official documents, as well as articles with analysis of the UN and the Security Council.
International Humanitarian Law concerns rules as to the means and methods of warfare, duties towards prisoners and civilians, and customary rules and general principles for military practice, obligations of non-state groups, and norms not addressed by or unclear from treaties.
How Does Law Protect in War?: Online reference casebook published by the ICRC, with introductions to the themes of international humanitarian law, practice case studies by topic, region, and document type, IHL courses, and an online annotated dictionary with links to documents and cases related to IHL terms.
Rules of war (in a nutshell): Short video on the rules of war.
Geneva Conventions, Protocols, and Commentaries
ICRC Law & Policy: Topics, Debates, and Disarmament: ICRC topic pages, with ICRC statements, news, articles from the International Review of the Red Cross, posts from the Humanitarian Law and Policy Blog, and other publications.
International Humanitarian Law National Implementation database: National caselaw and laws and regulations implementing the treaties.
ICRC Customary International Humanitarian Law: Analysis of the customary rules of international humanitarian law. Customary practice rules by chapter, rule, or country, with treaty articles, national military manuals, and summaries of state practice from legislation, caselaw, and official statements.
ICRC Library's International Humanitarian Law Bibliography: Compiles references in new publications by topic (types of conflicts, multilnational forces, conduct of hostilities) and includes links to full-text articles and reports. Note that it's not cumulative; check all recent issues for new publications on your topic.
RULAC: Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts: Geneva Academy Database with explanations of law on the use of force with classifications and information on particular armed conflicts, including past conflicts.
UNHCR Refworld: Treaties and legal instruments and documents from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Includes caselaw and jurisprudence, country reports, NGO reports, and translated laws related to immigration and refugees (under legal instruments). Browse by country or keyword, use the A to Z index of topics, or use the caselaw search.
UN High Commissioner for Refugees: UNHCR Reports, information on emergency situations, and data reports on refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers.
UNOCHA: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs: News by country or region, including humanitarian access, displacement, and development. Find publications, reports, speeches, and citations to General Assembly and Security Council documents.
Forced Migration Current Awareness Blog: Links to other blogs, reports, and journal articles on refugees, arranged by thematic and regional focus.
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