Model UN Library Resources

The United Nations Law Collection includes multilateral and bilateral treaties, international court cases; the United Nations Treaty Series (U.N.T.S.), Multilateral Treaties deposited with the Secretary-General, the League of Nations Treaty Series (L.N.T.S.); International Court of Justice (ICJ) Reports of Judgments, Advisory Opinions and Orders; Reports of International Arbitral Awards (R.I.A.A.); ICJ, ILC, and UNCITRAL yearbooks; reports of proceedings of UN conferences; the Treaty Handbook.

The Court is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. It was established by the United Nations Charter, signed in 1945 at San Francisco, and began work in 1946 in the Peace Palace, The Hague. The Court, which is composed of 15 judges, has a dual role: in accordance with international law, settling legal disputes between States submitted to it by them and giving advisory opinions on legal matters referred to it by duly authorized United Nations organs and specialized agencies.

Most of the International Law Commission’s publications are digitized – its yearbooks, reports, and other documentation, from the very first session in 1949 to present. Some limited publication (“L”) documents are not available in electronic format. Searches for documents with the A/CN.4 UN document symbol in the ODS system indicate that the ODS system has not incorporated most of these documents, although they are available at the ILC’s website.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) produces an extensive range of publications on a variety of topics related to human rights, which provides information of interest to Governments, national institutions, civil society, the general public and the media. The goal of OHCHR's publications programme is to increase knowledge and raise awareness about human rights and fundamental freedoms and to publicize ways of promoting and protecting them worldwide. OHCHR publications also aim to encourage debate on human rights issues under discussion at the United Nations.

UNCTAD’s publications and statistics enables interested researchers access to the knowledge generated by the organization through its intergovernmental and expert meetings, as well as its analyses and research.

A promotional and educational tool for practitioners and the general public. It seeks to inform users about the UN’s work in the field of rule of law, and its efforts to coordinate and strengthen system-wide approaches in this field. It is the central UN rule of law web-based resource, serving as a gateway to the rest of the UN’s related sites, and making information more widely accessible about UN rule of law issues and activities, and the various tools, documents and materials on the subject. The website is also an avenue for users to access other web resources on or related to rule of law, developed by the UN or external organizations.