Finding UN materials for International Human Rights Law

Finding UN Materials [email_address]

Outline

Finding UN Docs and Publications:

Official Document System of the UN

UNBisnet and Un-i-que

UN Treaty Bodies Databases

UN press releases, news and current awareness

Research guides

ASIL guide@ http://www.asil.org/resource/un1.htm

Duke Law School UN guide @ http://www.law.duke.edu/lib/researchguides/un.html

UN Documentation: Research Guide @ http:// www.un.org / Depts/dhl/resguide /

Explains different document types / document numbers etc

Finding UN Document and Publications

Documents and publications

UN publications (“Sales publications”)

“ Sales publications” intended for public consumption (e.g. the UN Yearbook)

Press releases

UN Documents – created by UN bodies primarily for internal use

Working documents (a.k.a. parliamentary / sessional /masthead / mimeodocuments)

Official records – resolutions, decisions, annual reports etc.

More about Sales Publications

Most are NOT available online . You will find them in print in the Official Papers Reading Room

Online

use UNBISNET

the web site of the parent body

More about UN Documents

Online – full text often available (from 1993 or from 1945 for resolutions)

Official document system of the UN

UNBisnet

Web site of parent organisation

In print

Official papers reading room

UN documents are NOT catalogued on OLIS

To find them you need the document number - Use databases to find the document number or ask for help in Official Papers

Sales and Document numbers

Sales publications :

Letter - language of the publication;

Two arabic numerals - year of publication

Roman numeral (+letter) - subject of the publication or the issuing body (see www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/symbol1.htm )

Arabic number - sequential number

E.g. E.07.III.A.9

UN document nos :

Letter donating parent organ

Letter (+ number) donating subsidiary organ

Letters indicating type of document (e.g resolution, report)

Sequential number

suffix indicating revisions/additions etc

E.g. A/RES/3379 e.g. E/CN.4/2000/62

Key online tools - Databases

Full text UN Documents and resolutions (not sales publications)

UNBisNet

Bibliographic details for UN documents, resolutions, sales publications with links to full text where available

Voting records

Speeches database

UN Treaty Bodies Database

http://documents.un.org/

UN documents and official records (NOT treaties, sales publications or press releases)

Resolutions 1946- (via Advanced Search only)

UN Documents 1993- (but older documents are added all the time)

Daily Journals from New York, Geneva and Vienna

Accessing items by document number is easy

Researching by subject is difficult

Tutorial @ http://www.informs.intute.ac.uk/informs_perl/jump.pl?271-3167

Search by document number or for words in the full text. Does not search resolutions UN documents and resolutions. Search by document number, dates/sessions, using thesaurus or full text Alternative search engine for searching full text

1. Select a database to search. Note post 1993 resolutions are included in “UN Documents”. “Symbol” - UN Document number. Right truncation - finds documents which start with the number entered (e.g. the document plus additions/corrections indicated with suffixes). Left truncation – allows you to omit the first part of the number (useful if you are looking for a resolution and don’t know if its General Assembly (A) or Security Council (S)) Select subject from thesaurus. To jump to the correct part of the alphabet type a few letters in the search box and then click lexicon (e.g. wom to find subject headings which start women

Full text search:

Choose from “Type of full text search”

Enter terms in “Full text search box”. Boolean connectors:

AND, SENTENCE OR, AND NOT

* to truncate (e.g. child*)

? Wildcard (e.d. wom?n)

Use brackets to group operators

e.g. (hiv or aids) SENTENCE antiretroviral AND "human rights"

Advanced Search Screen

Full text – scanned image of printed text

Choose from “Type of full text search”

Enter terms in “Full text search box”. connectors:

AND, SENTENCE OR, AND NOT

* to truncate (e.g. child*)

? Wildcard (e.d. wom?n)

Use brackets to group operators

e.g. (hiv or aids) SENTENCE antiretroviral AND "human rights"

UNBisNet

http:// unbisnet.un.org /

Catalogue of the Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the UN Library in Geneva

Bibliographic records for UN documents and sales publications 1979-

Link to full text where available

Older items being added gradually

Links to full text r esolutions 1946-

Voting records for adopted resolutions

Security council 1946-

General assembly 1983-

Citations to speeches 1983-

Search by keyword or browse for UN Documents, Resolutions, Sales Publications plus outside publications about the UN Search by keyword or browse voting records Search by keyword or browse index to speeches

Choose search field. Note: When searching by document symbol/sales number omit punctuation and slashes Choose search type Use AND, OR, NOT to combine search terms from more than one field Keyword Search

When searching by document number remove punctuation e.g. searching for A/HRC/8/L.17

Full text

Use drop down to limit your search to particular document types (e.g. UN Docs only, Resolutions only etc) Sort options Click on title for full bibliographic details Full text E-mail results Brief results screen

Links to full text if available Clickable list of “Subject headings” – can be useful for searching for similar documents. If you click on the link you will be taken to (nearly) the correct part of the alphabetical list of subject headings. From here click on the link to view documents for each subject Finds all documents from the particular body/ committee for the session. Clicking on the link will take you to the correct part of the numerical list of document numbers E-mail to yourself option Full results screen

Un-i-que

http://lib-unique.un.org/lib/unique.nsf

Useful for finding document numbers when you have a document title which is hard to find.

Particularly useful for series (e.g. annual and irregular reports) - these are listed chronologically.

Results are brief but include document number –

UN Treaty Bodies Database

http:// www.unhchr.ch/tbs/doc.nsf

Documents from UN Treaty Bodies…

Committee against Torture (CAT)

Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (CESCR)

Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW)

Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD)

Committee on Migrant Workers (CMW)

Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC)

Human Rights Committee (CCPR)

Browse by Country, Treaty, document type or latest entry The Treaty Bodies Database Browsing by Treaty. Click on the > to see documents from each committee

Still not found it…