The Library: Law: International Law

Your Academic Librarians

Karen Fisher, Catherine Parkin, Maria Simões & Jennie Winterburn

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Finding Treaties

UN Treaty Collection website is a great starting point. It includes:

•The United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS, 1946 - )

•Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary General (MTDS)

•League of Nations, Treaty Series (LNTS, 1920 -1946)

Westlaw International Materials contains International Legal Materials (ASIL, 1962 - ) containing introductory notes to important new multilateral treaties.

HeinOnline holds ILM from 1962 to pre-current volume. Conduct an advanced search for 'International Legal Materials' as a publication title

WorldLII is a free legal information research database covering case law, legislation and other materials from 48 jurisdictions in 20 countries.

The New York University School of Law produces a collection of legal research guides covering foreign and international law.

International law

Lexis Library This link opens in a new window
Large legal database containing UK, EU and international case law, legislation (up-to-date, amended versions), legal journals, commentary texts, current awareness, and news. Very good range of practitioner texts in the Commentary section including Butterworths Company Law Handbook and Butterworths Family Law Service. Includes All England Law Reports, Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents, and Halsbury's Laws.
- To access PSL Calculators please use the Edge browser.
- Please visit the Lexis help pages for Lexis support.
- Logging in - please see this guidance for further details on logging in to Lexis.
- Accessibility statement for Lexis Library.
Westlaw International This link opens in a new window
Westlaw International is a vast global legal research library built on some of the world's best legal, news and business information.
- Please visit the Westlaw help pages for Westlaw International support.
- Logging in - please see this guidance for further details on accessing Westlaw.
- Accessibility statement for Westlaw International.
HeinOnline This link opens in a new window
Key legal history research tool. More than 100 million pages of legal history available in an online, fully-searchable, image-based format. Includes:
- archive content of more than 2000 law and law-related periodicals
- the Congressional Record Bound volumes
- complete coverage of the U.S. Reports back to 1754
- world trials dating back to the early 1700s
- legal classics from the 16th to the 20th centuries
- the United Nations and League of Nations Treaty Series
- all United States Treaties
- the Federal Register from inception in 1936
- the CFR from inception in 1938
- Accessibility statement for HeinOnline.

International Criminal Court (ICC) Legal Tools the ICC Legal Tools project website provides free and immediate access to a wealth of information on international criminal law and justice. The project holds the potential to be the leading information provider in the area of international criminal law.

EISIL electronic Information System for International Law. Developed by the American Society of International Law (ASIL).

World LII the World Legal Information Institute (WorldLII) is a free, independent and non-profit global legal research facility. Over 270 databases from 48 jurisdictions in 20 countries are included in the initial release of WorldLII.

Australia

Australasian Legal Information Institute includes full text of some cases from various Australian courts and Australian legislation.

Canada

Access to Justice Network canadian justice and legal information and services.

South Africa

Wits Law School the School of Law from the University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, SA. Provides information about the Constitutional Court of SA (including an archive of all decisions of the court) and South African legal materials and links.

USA

FindLaw offers various features for the lawyer and non-lawyer (does have an American bias). FindLaw index is quite extensive, visitors can search FindLaw as well as search the full text of law reviews online. The new LawCrawler searches the contents of legal sites on the Internet and can be limited by country.

Google Scholar click on the "Legal opinions and journals" radio button. This enables people to find and read full text legal opinions from U.S. federal and state district, appellate and supreme courts using Google Scholar. You can find these opinions by searching for cases or by topics or other queries.

US Supreme Court Decisions

International law - OSCOLA

OSCOLA 2006: citing international law section: The 4th ed of OSCOLA does not cover International Law, so check this guide.

See also page 28 onwards on the Lincoln University guide to OSCOLA.

Finding UN Documents

United Nations Digital Library is best for searching by subject. Includes UN documents, voting data, speeches and maps.

ODS Search is best for searching by document symbol (e.g. S/2010/240). It includes Official Documents of the UN, beginning in 1993. Older UN documents are added to the system on a daily basis.