Prepared by , Foreign & International Law Librarian
United States Sources
--T.I.A.S. and U.S.T. are official U.S. sources. However, they run many years behind. For recent agreements it is necessary to use one of the sources noted below.
--The State Department is making an attempt to publish T.I.A.S. online. The URL is www.state.gov/s/l/treaty/tias/. This effort has not progressed beyond 1997.
--Note that both T.I.A.S. and U.S.T. are now available on HeinOnline in the Treaties and Agreements Library.
--Recent unpublished international agreements of the U.S. receive a number from the State Department, e.g. 06-257. This microfiche service publishes photo duplicates of the original document.
--USTREATIES
--U.S. Treaties on Lexis
Both Westlaw & LEXIS have large databases of U.S. international agreements, including recent unpublished agreements.
--Senate Treaty Documents are also available on the Web at www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/cdocuments/index.html
--International agreements submitted for the advice & consent of the Senate to the Foreign Relations Committee in a Message from the President become Senate Treaty Documents.
Non-United States Sources
--U.N.T.S. covers the period 1946-present
--L.N.T.S. covers the period 1920-1946
--This fee-based site operated by the UN has full-text image files of both U.N.T.S.& L.N.T.S., plus other useful content.
--Consol. T.S. covers the period 1648-1919.
--I.L.M. is also available on Westlaw (ILM) and Lexis.
--I.L.M. is an excellent source for recent international agreements of significance not easily found elsewhere.
--C.E.T.S. is the treaty series of the Council of Europe & now contains 200 agreements.
--Also available at the website of the Council of Europe, www.conventions.coe.int
Historical Sources
--Until 1949 U.S. international agreements were published in Stat.
--T.S. & E.A.S. are the predecessors of T.I.A.S. & U.S.T.
--Bevans is a useful 13 volume collection and is citable according to the Bluebook.
--Published annually by the State Dept., this is the recommended starting place for status information on U.S. international agreements.
--This commercial publication can be used to supplement Treaties in Force.
--The "Treaties" tab in the Senate volume tracks agreements pending in the Senate. Information on the status of agreements submitted to the Senate is also available online at the Senate's website, www.senate.gov/pagelayout/legislative/d_three_sections_with_teasers/treaties.htm
--This covers about 290 agreements, some very important, for which the U.N. Secretary-General acts as the depositary. Also publishes reservations, declarations and understandings.
A continuously updated version is available online at the United Nations Treaty Collection, http://untreaty.un.org.
--This is a listing of about 1000 agreements. Still useful, although the status information is no longer current.
--This covers both bilateral & multilateral agreements, but it goes only to 1980.
General Collections
Agreements Sponsored by International Organizations
For up-to-date ratification and other status information, the websites sponsored by international organizations and treaty sercretariats listed here are excellent.
Treaty Secretariats
Researchers can start with the convenient list maintained by Mary Rumsey (University of Minnesota Law Library): Frequently-Cited Treaties and Other International Instruments.
A useful trick is to search on the name of the agreement in the law review databases of Westlaw or Lexis. There will considerable variation, but it is usually not difficult to pick out the most accurate citation.
If it is necessary to construct a citation from scratch, the researcher will need to refer to the rule in either The Bluebook (18th ed. 2005) or the ALWD Citation Manual (2d ed. 2003). In the former, it is Rule 21.4; in the latter, Rule 21.
As to Rule 21 in the ALWD Citation Manual, it must be said that it is incomplete, inadequate, and inaccurate. A single example will have to suffice: In chart 21.1 accompanying the rule (found only on the web, not in the book), U.N.T.S. is given last in a list of 17 authorized sources, and, to compound matters, it is described as "unofficial"! In short, international agreements should not be cited according to the ALWD Citation Manual until the rule is revised and improved.
Rule 21.4 of The Bluebook has several sub-rules. The critical one is 21.4.5 on citation sources. Condensing sub-rule 21.4.5 to its essentials produces the following:
- When the U.S. is a party, cite one source in the following order of preference: U.S.T. or Stat., T.I.A.S., T.S. or E.A.S., Senate Treaty Documents or Senate Executive Documents. (Some additional possibilites are given, but they are not good.)
- When the U.S. is not a party, cite one source published by an international organization. If not therein, cite the official source of one party, e.g., Austl. T.S.
- When an agreement does not appear in one of the foregoing sources, cite to I.L.M., if therein. If not, cite to another "unofficial" source, which may include the websites of governments or intergovernmental organizations.
Finally, table T.4 on p. 334 gives the titles, abbreviations, and dates of coverage of 16 authorized citation sources.