UN Bodies
General Assembly Sixth Committee (Legal)
Current information on agenda items, summaries of work, and documents.
International Law Commission
Programme of work, activities, conventions, reports and information.
United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)
Modernization and harmonization of international trade law.
Thematic Issues
Codification and Progressive Development of International Law
Oceans and Law of the Sea
Treaties
The practice of the Secretary-General as Depositary and the registration and publication of treaties.
Internal Justice System at the UN
The Office of Administration of Justice coordinates the UN's internal justice system, and includes the
Registries of the UN Dispute Tribunal and UN Appeals Tribunal and the Office of Staff Legal Assistance.
Other Legal Areas
Other UN websites containing legal information.
International Courts and Tribunals
International Court of Justice (ICJ)
Secretary-General's Trust Fund .
International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY)
International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR)
Special Court for Sierra Leone
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
Special Tribunal for Lebanon
Tribunal established to try all those who are allegedly responsible for the attack of 14 February 2005 in
Beirut that killed the former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri and 22 others.
Legal Resources and Training

United Nations Treaty Collection (UNTC)
Treaties deposited with the Secretary-General and/or registered with the Secretariat.
Audiovisual Library of International Law (AVL)
International law historic archives, video lectures and research library.
Legal Technical Assistance
Information on technical assistance provided to States on legal matters.
Programme of Assistance
Fellowship programmes, regional courses and symposia, as well as dissemination of publications and information relating to international law.
Case Law on UNCITRAL Texts (CLOUT)
System for collecting and disseminating information on court decisions and arbitral awards relating to the
Conventions and Model Laws that have emanated from the work of the Commission on International Trade
Law (UNCITRAL).
Bibliography of recent writings related to the work of UNCITRAL
Includes comprehensive bibliography compiled by UNCITRAL from 1968 to present, as well as latest updates collected in the time span from the publication of the last Bibliography to date.
Databases
The United Nations and external organizations maintain a wide range of databases and resource centers that contain rule of law and/or closely related material in areas such as human rights, refugees, and peacemaking. See here for the vast list of databases. Below is a selection of those that might prove most helpful to historians:
Anti-Money Laundering International Database (AMLID), administered by the United Nations Office of
Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on behalf of several international organizations, is a compendium of jurisdictions' national anti-money laundering legislation and regulations.
CODICES is a constitutional case-law database created by the Venice Commission.
Constitutionmaking.org
is a joint project of the Comparative Constitutions Project and the United States
Institute for Peace (USIP) to create a large dataset on national constitutions.
Global Land Tool Network (GLTN) supplies information on land issues worldwide, such as Islamic land issues, gender and land tenure and taxation. Facilitated by the United Nations Human Settlements
Programme (UN-HABITAT), the GLTN aims to alleviate poverty and contribute to attaining the
Millennium Development Goals through land reform, improved land management and security of tenure.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) produces a number of databases related to rule of law.
ILOLEX is a trilingual database containing ILO Conventions and Recommendations, ratification information, comments of the Committee of Experts and the Committee on Freedom of Association, and related documents. NATLEX is a database of national labour, social security and related human rights legislation. APPLIS contains information on the ratification and application of international labour standards. The National Labour Law Profiles is an overview of the labour law in some ILO Member States.
Justice in Perspective was created by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. It details current and past transitional justice processes, including truth commissions, inquiries, traditional mechanisms, reparations, amnesty, prosecutions and litigation.

Maritime Space: Maritime Zones and Maritime Delimitation provides comprehensive information on all treaties and aspects of maritime justice, legislation, and disputes.
Peacekeeping Resources Hub of the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) holds policy documents, training for peacekeepers, and advice for future operations.
Refworld , developed by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), contains policy documents on refugees and documents on international and national legal frameworks for the issue.
Rule of Law Assistance Directory , provided by the International Development Law Organization (IDLO), lists development assistance activities in global legal and institutional reform in its two databases: "Rule of
Law Projects and Initiatives" and "National Justice Strategies".
Rule of Law in Armed Conflicts Project provides a global database on armed conflict and international law to support the use of international law in conflicts over disputed territory.
United Nations Audiovisual Library of International Law , created and maintained by the Codification
Division of the Office of Legal Affairs, provides multimedia material on law. The Audiovisual Library contains the Historic Archives with materials on significant laws and measures adopted by the UN and affiliated agencies since 1945; the Lecture Series offers lectures by leading international lawyers and scholars on almost every aspect of international law; and the Research Library supplies acts as an online law library linking to treaties, jurisprudence, publications and documents, scholarly writings and research guides.
United Nations Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration Resource Centre provides documents on disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration (DDR), including UN Integrated DDR Standards.
United Nations International Research and Training Institute for the Advancement of Women ’s (UN-
INSTRAW) database on peace and security contains a Global Directory of Gender, Peace and Security
Research Institutions.
UN Peacemaker , developed by the Department of Political Affairs (DPA), supports mediation online and holds a large database of modern peace agreements.
UN System Pathfinder provides a bibliography of works on general issues of international law.
United Nations Treaty Collection is a database with information on the status of over 500 major multilateral instruments deposited with the Secretary-General. It also holds treaties and international agreements registered or filed and recorded with and published by the UN Secretariat since 1946.
World Intellectual Property Organization is the United Nations agency dedicated to the use of intellectual property ( patents , copyright , trademarks , designs , etc.) as a means of stimulating innovation and creativity.
WJP Rule of Law Index ® is a quantitative measure designed by the World Justice Project to offer a picture of how far countries adhere to the rule of law.
The WIPO Journal: Analysis and Debate of Intellectual Property Issues. Available here .
United Nations Law Reports (New York: Walker and Co., 1966 -).

United Nations Law Collection (Buffalo, NY: W.S. Hein). This database, started in 2008, provides reproductions of major United Nations legal publications, including treaties, international agreements, and
International Court of Justice reports.
United Nations Juridical Yearbook (New York: United Nations, 1962-). Also issued in French and Russian.
Yearbook of the International Law Commission (New York: United Nations, 1949-).
Yearbook, United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (New York: United Nations, 1968-
2004).
The First Twenty-Five Years of the World Intellectual Property Organisation from 1967 to 1992
(International Bureau of Intellectual Property, 1992).
Lauren Benton, A Search for Sovereignty: Law and Geography in European Empires, 1400-1900
(Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
James Boyle, “A Manifesto on WIPO and the Future of Intellectual Property,” Duke Law & Technology
Review (2004), p. 9.
Debora Halbert, “The World Intellectual Property Organization: Past, Present and Future,” Journal of the
Copyright Society of the USA 54.2-3 (Winter-Spring 2007), pp. 253-284.
Christopher C. Joyner (ed.), The United Nations and International Law (Cambridge, UK; New York;
Melbourne: Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge, 1997).
George J. Lankevich (ed.), United Nations War Crimes Commission (New York: Garland Pub., 1990).
Christopher May, The World Intellectual Property Organization: Resurgence and the Development Agenda
(2007).
Christopher May and Susan Sell, Intellectual Property Rights: A Critical History (Boulder: Lynne Rienner
Publishers, 2005).
Sally Engle Merry, Human Rights & Gender Violence: Translating International Law into Local Justice
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006).
James Morrell, The Law of the Sea: An Historical Analysis of the 1982 Treaty and its Rejection by the
United States (Jefferson NC: McFarland, 1992).
Tawia Modibo Ocran, The Crisis of Peacekeeping in Yugoslavia: History and International Law Aspects of
United Nations Peacekeeping Operations in Croatia, 1991-1996 (Den Bosch: Book World Publications,
2002).
Valerie Oosterveld, “Prosecution of Gender-Based Crimes in International Law,” in Gender, Conflict, and
Peacekeeping , ed. Dyan Mazurana, Angela Raven-Roberts, and Jane Parpart (Lanham, MD: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2005).

Victor Prescott, “Contributions of the United Nations to Solving Boundary and Territorial Disputes, 1945-
1995,” Political Geography 15.3/4 (March/April 1996), pp. 286-318.
William Schabas, “International War Crimes Tribunals and the United States,” Diplomatic History 35.5
(November 2011), pp. 769-786.
Rosenne Shabtai, “Geography in International Maritime Boundary-Making,” Political Geography 15.3/4
(March/April 1996), pp. 319-334.
Neil Weinstock Netanel, The Development Agenda: Global Intellectual Property and Developing
Countries (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2009).
John Pace, “The Development of Human Rights Law in the United Nations, Its Control and Monitoring
Machinery,” International Social Science Journal 50.158 (December 1998), pp. 499-511.