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United Nations Research

Where to find U.N. Treaties?

The United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS) is available in print at Woodruff Library.

UN Treaties Collection: Text and status of United Nations treaties. Includes the UNTS, recently deposited treaties, certified true copies, 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 find by popular name. Results include pdfs of treaties in the UNTS.

Status of Multilateral Treaties: Includes tables of parties, reservations, plus links to pdfs of UNTS; find treaties by category or use the searchable index. The UN Treaty Collection also has Monthly Status of Treaties with  treaty actions filed each month and the League of Nations Treaty Series (1920-1945).

Hein Online's United Nations Law Collection: Includes the UN Treaty Series, UNCITRAL Conventions, UN Yearbooks, International Agreements by Popular Name. Find treaties by citation, or search by countries, popular names, date, text, subject areas. 

UN Audiovisual Library of International Law: Research Library: Links to treaty collections of the United Nations, member states, and other entities. Historic archives with major treaties by topic, with introductory articles, procedural history with document links, and treaty texts.

UN Universal Human Rights Instruments: Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. Treaty text with resolutions, declarations, and other documents.

UN Human Rights Interactive Dashboard: Status of ratification of 18 international human rights treaties by country or by treaty.

UN International Law Commission: Treaties on international law and diplomatic relations

United Nations organization chart: Some treaties can be found on the websites of monitoring UN bodies and agencies. Many treaties are on the websites of UNESCO, UNHCR,  and OHCHR.

University of Minnesota's Frequently-Cited Treaties: By topic, includes major United Nations treaties, with citation format and links to EISIL and Hein Online.

UN Yearbooks include text of major and founding treaties:

  • UN Legal Publications includes the International Law Commission, Juridical, and UNCITRAL Yearbooks, plus other reports and Repertoires of Practice
  • Hein Online's UN Law Collection includes the ICJ, Commission on International Trade Law, Disarmament, Juridical, ILC, and Human Rights Yearbooks

UN Treaty Handbook: Explains the events and terminology of the UN treaty process