Research Guides: Open Access Resources for Law: Public International Law

Courts and Tribunals

African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights
Cornell University Law Library Donovan Nuremberg Trials Collection
Nuremberg trial transcripts and documents from the collection of General William J. Donovan
European Court of Human Rights
Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia
Inter-American Court of Human Rights
International Court of Justice
International Criminal Court
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
Iran-United States Claims Tribunal
Kosovo Specialist Chambers & Specialist Prosecutor's Office
Kosovo Specialist Chambers & Specialist Prosecutor's Office
The Kosovo Specialist Chambers and Specialist Prosecutor’s Office are part of the judicial system of Kosovo. The Chambers are attached to each level of the Kosovo court system. They were established by a Constitutional Amendment and a Law adopted by the Kosovo Assembly to conduct trials for allegations stemming from the 2011 Council of Europe report, which alleges serious violations of international law.
Nuremberg Trials Project - Harvard Law School Library
Nuremberg War Crimes Trial - Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Library
The Project currently provides access to most of the following materials for five of the United States Nuremberg Military Tribunals, NMT 1 (U.S.A. v. Karl Brandt et al.), NMT 2 (U.S.A. v. Erhard Milch), NMT3 (U.S.A. v. Josef Altstoetter et al.), NMT 4 (U.S.A. v. Pohl et al.), and NMT7 (U.S.A. v. Wilhelm List et al.).
Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone
Singapore War Crimes Trials Web Portal
Special Tribunal for Lebanon
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East
The International Military Tribunal for the Far East (IMTFE), informally known as the Tokyo War Crimes trial, lasted two and a half years, from April 29, 1946 to November 12, 1948. In contrast, the far better known Nuremberg Trial lasted less than a year. Established to try Japanese officials involved with perpetrating World War II, the IMTFE set a greater precedence for international law than Nuremberg yet is relatively under-studied in comparison.
United Nations War Crimes Commission
Available on ICC Legal Tools database. The public part of the archive of the UN War Crimes Commission, included case-related documents;
United Nations Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals
Contains Legacy website for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

International Human Rights

African Committee of Experts on the Rights and Welfare of the Child
African Court on Human and Peoples' Rights
Bayefsky.com
Includes a directory of human rights treaties organized by jurisdiction.
Child Rights International Network (CRIN)
Provides access to laws and standards significant for children's rights around the world, including summaries of court cases.
Cornell Women & Justice Collection
Provides access to international and regional instruments and case law from around the world relating to gender-based violence and gender justice.
Disability Rights Education & Defense Fund
A list of national legislation related to protecting the rights of people with disabilities.
FAO Gender and Land Rights Database
An online database specifically addressing women's rights to land ownership.
Georgetown University's O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law's Global Health and Human Rights Database
A free online database of health and human rights law.
Globalex - Transnational and Comparative Family Law: Harmonization and Implementation
The Global Health and Human Rights Database
The Global Health and Human Rights Database is a free online database of law from around the world relating to health and human rights. Developed by Lawyers Collective and the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University, in collaboration with a worldwide network of civil society partners, the database offers an interactive, searchable, and fully indexed website of case law, national constitutions and international instruments.
HUDOC - European Court of Human Rights Portal
HUDOC database of ECHR case law, opinions, legal summaries, press releases, but full text documents of monitoring bodies of the Council of Europe eg Torture Committee etc
Court Library catalogue can be used to search for secondary literature on the Court’s case law and Europen Convention on Human Rights based on specific articles and themes
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The catalogue contains over 60,000 records of references to the books and their chapters, and periodical articles. Coverage is mainly in the two official languages, but material in other 10 European languages can also be found.
It is an essential source for any scholar interested in human rights protection, seeking references to the literature on the European Convention protection system, as well as other systems such as the inter-American and African protection systems. It is rich in sources to the literature on the European Court’s case-law, and all aspects of the Convention, from its individual articles, its interpretation and application in the member States.
Official working languages English and French only some of the case law is in both languages
Launched case law translations with 31 non-official languages available
Human Trafficking Knowledge Portal
Inter-American Commission on Human Rights
The IACHR is a principal and autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (“OAS”) whose mission is to promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere.
Inter-American Court of Human Rights
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)'s databases on international humanitarian law
Provides links the three ICRC databases on international humanitarian law.
The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA)'s State-Sponsored Homophobia Report
An annual survey of anti-LGBT laws around the world.
Labour Exploitation Accountability Database
Provides access to national legal mechanisms for addressing human trafficking, forced labor, and slavery.
LandWise
An online database specifically addressing women's rights to land ownership.
Law Library of Congress - Children's Rights: International and National Laws and Practices
Legislation Online
Provides direct access to international norms and standards relating to specific human dimension issues (see list of topics on left-hand column) as well as to domestic legislation and other documents of relevance to these issues.
National Implementation of International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Database
OHCHR - Charter-based Body Database
OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights) maintained database including documents for the Human Rights Council, its predecessor and their subsidiaries and parent organs.
Organization of American States' Family and Child Law website
Prevent Genocide International's Domestic Laws and Penal Codes Database
Provides free access to national laws related to genocide prevention, organized by jurisdiction.
Reflaw (University of Michigan Law School)
Provides analysis of refugee law cases, legislation, and emerging issues from around the world.
The Sexual Rights Initiative's Sexual Rights Database
Includes national laws related to LGBT and other sexual rights.
UNESCO Database of National Cultural Heritage Laws
Includes includes legislation related to cultural immovable and movable heritage, cultural diversity, and other topics.
The Universal Human Rights Index (UHRI)
Facilitates access to human rights recommendations issued by three key pillars of the United Nations human rights protection system: the Treaty Bodies established under the international human rights treaties as well as the Special Procedures and the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) of the Human Rights Council.
University of Minnesota - Human Rights Library
Provides access to resources for researching country conditions.
UN OHCHR's Refworld database
Includes national laws related to the rights of refugees, asylum seekers, and stateless people.
UN Women - Global Database on Violence against Women
World Health Organization - MiNDbank
A database of resources covering mental health, substance abuse, disability, general health, human rights and development.

Conventions

Geneva Conventions of 1949 and Additional Protocols, and their Commentaries
Also includes historical treaties and documents.
United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea

International and Regional Organizations

Council of Europe
Contains the text of all Council of Europe treaties, their explanatory reports and others.
FOA - Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations
International Committee of the Red Cross
Includes the Geneva Conventions and commentaries and the International Review of the Red Cross.
International Labour Organization
International Law Commission
Database with full-text search capabilities of all International Law Commission documents, including reports, texts and commentaries, summary records, etc.
International Maritime Organization
As a specialized agency of the United Nations, IMO is the global standard-setting authority for the safety, security and environmental performance of international shipping.
World Intellectual Property Organization
WIPO is the global forum for intellectual property services, policy, information and cooperation.
World Trade Organization
Includes documents, data and resources tab.

Humanitarian Law

Centre for International Law Research and Policy (CILRAP)
The Centre has two main departments -- the Forum for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law (FICHL) and the Case Matrix Network (CMN) -- as well as the Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher (TOAEP). Each department has a broad range of activities and the publisher four publications series (the Publication Series, the Policy Brief Series, the Occasional Paper Series and the Law of the Future Series).
IHL Databases Search - ICRC
Contains 3 databases:
•Treaties, States parties, and Commentaries
•National Implementation of IHL
•Customary IHL
International Committee of the Red Cross
Includes the Geneva Conventions and commentaries and the International Review of the Red Cross.
International Crisis Group
The International Crisis Group is an independent organisation working to prevent wars and shape policies that will build a more peaceful world. You can sign up for email updates and newsletter.

International Arbitration

Reports of International Arbitral Awards
International arbitral and judicial awards are of considerable importance, for they are a "subsidiary means for the determination of the rules of law" as provided in Article 38 of the Statute of the International Court of Justice. They are also important from the point of view of the progressive development of international law, a task which Article 13 of the Charter places under the responsibility of the General Assembly of the United Nations.

Labour Law

International Labour Organization - A to Z Databases and Resources
Includes legal databases such as:
- CISDOC - Laws and regulations, chemical safety data sheets, training material, articles on occupational accidents and diseases and their prevention
- EPLex - Employment protection legislation database 
- NATLEX - National labour, social security and related human rights legislation
- Triblex - Thematic analysis of the case law of the ILO Administrative Tribunal
- Working conditions laws database
United Nations Administrative Tribunal
Searchable database of the decisions of the United Nations Administrative Tribunal. Coverage: 1950-2009.
United Nations Appeals Tribunal
The United Nations Appeals Tribunal (UNAT) was established by the General Assembly in 2009, as part of the new UN internal justice system. It reviews appeals against judgments rendered by the UN Dispute Tribunal, the Dispute Tribunal of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), as well as appeals of decisions taken by the Standing Committee acting on behalf of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Board (UNJSPB), and by those organizations, agencies and entities that accepted UNAT’s jurisdiction. This page provides access to key documents and cases.

Food and Agriculture

FAO - Legal Office
As one of its major responsibilities, the Legal Office maintains several comprehensive legislative databases: FAOLEX, FISHLEX, WATERLEX, WATER TREATIES, PORTLEX and most recently has been instrumental in developing Right to Food Data, an informative baseline indicating the legal commitment of countries to the right to food and food security and nutrition. Links included. Also includes Treaties Tab.
FOALEX Database
FAOLEX is a comprehensive and up-to-date legislative and policy database, one of the world's largest electronic collection of national laws, regulations and policies on food, agriculture and natural resources management. Users of FAOLEX have direct access to the abstracts and indexing information about each text, as well as to the full text of the legislation and policies contained in the database.

United Nations

Audiovisual Library of International Law - United Nations
The research library contains links to other web-based resources providing international law-related materials. The library is divided into four components: resources relating to treaties; materials concerning the jurisprudence of international courts and tribunals; access to selected UN publications and repositories; and selected scholarly writings in international law.
Dag Hammarskjöld Library, United Nations, New York
Includes tab for Research the UN:
* UN Resources & Documents
* UN Digital Library
* Research Guides
* Index to Proceedings
* Voting Information
* Speeches
International Law Commission
Database with full-text search capabilities of all International Law Commission documents, including reports, texts and commentaries, summary records, etc.
Official Document System
ODS has full-text, born-digital UN documents published from 1993 onward, including documents of the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council and their subsidiaries, as well as administrative issuances and other documents.

The database also includes scanned documents published between 1946 and 1993, including all resolutions of the principal organs, all documents of the Security Council and the General Assembly Official Records. Documents are available in the official languages of the UN; some documents are also available in German.

ODS does not have the following types of materials: documents issued before 1993 that have not yet been digitized, press releases, sales publications, such as the Yearbook and the Treaty Series, and documents that do not have a UN symbol.
UN-I-QUE (UN Info Quest),
UN Info Quest (UN-I-QUE) provides citation to the symbols for documents throughout the history of the organization: each record within UN-I-QUE is historically comprehensive. UN-I-QUE does not provide citation to all documents, but to certain documents of a recurrent nature. As of 2014, the database is no longer updated.
United Nations Documents
UN Resources - Dag Hammarskjöld Library
Organized alphabetically, by organization, topic, library cataogues, repositories, statistics, terminology dabases. Includes
- Repertory of Practice of UN organs
- UN Disarmament Yearbook
- UN Juridical Yearbook
- Yearbook of the United Nations

International Law of the Sea

International Maritime Organization
As a specialized agency of the United Nations, IMO is the global standard-setting authority for the safety, security and environmental performance of international shipping.
International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea
Oceans and Law of the Sea United Nations

Treaties

An Introduction to Sources for Treaty Research by By Mark Engsberg and Mary Beth Chappell Lyles
Globalex
CIL Document Database
A database for ASEAN treaties produced by the Centre for International Law (CIL) National University of Singapore.
European Union Treaties and Agreements.database
European Council and Council of the European Union. The database is only available in English and French, and you can only search using these two languages.
FLARE Index to Treaties
Index to more than 2000 multilateral treaties, with links to the full text, where available.
Frequently-Cited Treaties & Other International Instruments
Most-cited treaties, frequently-cited treaties, legal citations for treaties. University of Minnesota Law School.
LawPORT Tutorial - Treaties and International Conventions
This tutorial covers the fundamentals of treaty research; finding treaties, checking status and party information, understanding treaty citations and tracing travaux preparatoires. It focuses on authoritative sources of treaties in print and online. The learning outcomes are based on the International Association of Law Libraries’ Guidelines for Public International Law Research Instruction. This tutorial was created by Lisa Davies, Access Librarian at IALS.
United Nations Treaty Series Online
UNTC - League of Nations Treaty Series
The UN Treaty Collection provides a database on treaties and international agreements registered or filed and recorded with and published by the League of Nations.
UNTC - Monthly Statement of Treaties and International Agreements
The Monthly Statement of Treaties and International Agreements database contains detailed record of treaties and related subsequent treaty actions which were registered or filed and recorded with the Secretariat in a given month.
UNTC - Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General
This database provides information on the status of over 500 major multilateral instruments deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations (including the texts of reservations, declarations and objections) and covers a range of subject matter such as Human Rights, Disarmament, Commodities, Refugees, the Environment and the Law of the Sea.
UNTC - Treaty Series Cumulative Index
The UN Treaty Collection (UNTC) maintains a collection of treaties and international agreements registered or filed and recorded with and published by the Secretariat since 1946. It includes the texts of treaties in their authentic language(s), along with some translations into English and French.
WorldLII - International Treaties Collection

International Criminal Law

Centre for International Law Research and Policy (CILRAP)
The Centre has two main departments -- the Forum for International Criminal and Humanitarian Law (FICHL) and the Case Matrix Network (CMN) -- as well as the Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher (TOAEP). Each department has a broad range of activities and the publisher four publications series (the Publication Series, the Policy Brief Series, the Occasional Paper Series and the Law of the Future Series). See also Lexsitus, CILRAP Film and CILRAP Podcast.
Gender Jurisprudence Collections - American University Washington College of Law
The Gender Jurisprudence Collections is a database containing judgments, decisions, orders, and other relevant documents issued by either: 1) international, hybrid or domestic criminal tribunals or 2) human rights bodies.
ICC - Legal Tools Database
ICC Documents
ICC Preparatory Works and Statute Amendments
International Legal Instruments
Other International Law Decisions and Documents
Human Rights Law Decisions and Documents
International(ised) Criminal Jurisdictions (Basic Documents)
International(ised) Criminal Decisions
National Jurisdictions
Publications
United Nations War Crimes Commission
International(ised) Fact-Finding Mandates
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The International Criminal Court Legal Tools database equips users with legal information, digests, reference tools and an application to work more effectively with core international crimes cases (involving war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide).
International Crimes Database (ICD)
The International Crimes Database (ICD) website, hosted and maintained by the T.M.C. Asser Instituut in The Hague and supported by the Dutch Ministry of Security and Justice and the International Centre for Counter-Terrorism – The Hague, offers a comprehensive database on international crimes adjudicated by national, as well as international and internationalized courts.
In addition to case law on international crimes, the website incorporates general background information about international crimes, scholarly as well as news articles, working papers (ICD Briefs) and relevant links to other useful databases/websites on this topic. It is not our aim to be exclusive
International Criminal Court Resource Library
Judicial Records and Archives Database (JRAD)
JRAD provides access to all MICT (Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals) public judicial records, as well as to the public archive records of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR.).
Mechanism for International Criminal Tribunals Case Law Database
The MICT (Mechanism for International Tribunals) Case Law Database (CLD) provides access to extracts of key judgements and decisions of the ICTR, ICTY, and MICT Appeals Chambers. The full text of the corresponding appeal judgements and decisions are also available.
War Crimes Prosecution Watch Archives
PILPG a global pro bono law firm.
Singapore War Crime Trials
The Singapore War Crimes Trials Web Portal (the SGWCT Web Portal) aims to provide the public with one-stop access to the Singapore Trials and to serve as a platform for discussions on accountability, justice, and the rule of law. It features comprehensive case summaries of these war crimes trials and links to relevant archival materials hosted by other websites.

Human Trafficking

UNODC Human Trafficking Knowledge Portal
UNODC (UN Office on Drugs and Crime) has 3 databases: Case Law Database, Legislation Database and Bibliographic Database.

Open Access Resources for Law: Public International Law

General

Courts and Tribunals

International Human Rights

Conventions

International and Regional Organizations

Humanitarian Law

International Arbitration

Labour Law

Food and Agriculture

United Nations

International Law of the Sea

Treaties

International Criminal Law

Human Trafficking