Public International Law

•Treaties and other international agreements• Custom• General principles of law• Judicial decisions and teachings of qualified publicists

Sources of Public Int’l Law:

Key Texts in International Law

• Brownlie, Principles of Public International Law

• Oppenheim, International Law

• Shaw, International Law

Remember you can do author/title

searches in GAVEL

Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Lawhttp://www.mpepil.com/ with older editions in print in Law Library

Resources:

• Bluebook lists official and unofficial cites• depends on whether U.S. is a party and number of parties• use treaty indexes and databases to get citations• databases: TIARA, UN Treaties, Westlaw & Lexis• Web resources: Tufts, ENTRI, EISIL, Hein Online, etc.

Source: Treaties

http://www.asil.org/resource/treaty1.htm

http://www.law.uga.edu/library/research/guides/treaties.html

name

datecitations

CheckBluebook forRules re eachelement

Treaties in Forceonline at http://www.state.gov/s/l/treaty/tif/index.htm

or via Hein Online or LLMC Digital

http://www.state.gov/s/l/treaty/index.htm

important resources for recent & pending treaties

http://www.state.gov/s/l/treaty/pending/

Hein Online Treaties and Agreements library

Treaties & International Agreements Online especially good for treaties where U.S. is party

Convention on wetlands

linked from Research Resources page

currently not available off-campus

Treaties and Int’l Agreements Online

http://treaties.un.org

free

Use this to determine when adopted or concluded, who has signed and/or ratified and when, who has denounced, when it entered into force, any declarations or reservations, and more

citation 189 UNTS 137

Click book icon to jump to full text

EISIL it!

EISIL seeks most authoritative and stable online source

The EISIL record provides useful info:citation, link to online sources, description, etc.

Hein Online: not just law reviews!

Many international law resources, including treaties

Linked from Law Library’s Research Resources

Contains official pubs, unofficial pubs, indexes, related docs

Collection of bilateral and multilateral treaties from 1648-1919

http://fletcher.tufts.edu/multilaterals.html

Categories reflect early emphasis on env’t but now includes more

http://sedac.ciesin.columbia.edu/entri/index.jsp

Travaux Préparatoires

• the preparatory work (or "legislative history") of a treaty

• often used for the purpose of interpreting the treaty

• Check GAVEL: keyword search the name of the treaty and (travaux or preparatory or congress or history or negotiations or negotiating history), etc.

• Treaty documents collected by an international organization

• international conference web sites • Yearbooks of international law

sources for travaux préparatoires

GlobaLex has a good guide to finding travaux préparatoires

National Treaty Law and Practice series

Title search in GAVEL

Volumes for additional countries forthcoming

Frequently-cited Treaties and Other International Instruments

but you have access through UGA

http://library.law.umn.edu/researchguides/most-cited.html

Source: Custom

Resources: your objective is to find evidence of state practice

• records of state’s foreign relations• domestic court decisions• domestic legislation• resolutions, declarations of int orgs

Where do I find these types of evidence?

• documents on foreign or int’l relations• digests, e.g. Digest of United States Practice in International Law• repertories of practice• yearbooks• International Legal Materials• Web - State Department and corollaries in other countries

Digests of Int’l Law

digest and international law

(foreign and documents and canada) and (relations or diploma? or repertory)

Sample search in GIL at Main Library

foreign documents canada

relations diploma? repertory

Sources of State Practice in Int’l LawKZ64 .S67 (basement)

references to:•treaty collections •sources of diplomatic documentation•other materials that shed light on customary state practice in international law, including yearbooks and digests•relevant web sites

Currently covers 15 jurisdictions with plans to add more.

Oxford Reports on International Law

Avalon Project at Yalehttp://avalon.law.yale.edu/default.asp

"Documents in Law, History & Diplomacy"

• digitized

• doesn't provide citations

• does provide hyperlinks to referenced docs

U.S. State Dept. Office of the Historian"Foreign Relations of the United States" database

http://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments

• 30+ historians

• declassifying documents

• compiling documentary history of

foreign relations in the U.S.

• currently 480+ volumes and growing

Don’t forget: ILM is a good resource for many different kinds of docs, including treaties and domestic legislation & case law

Bluebooking International Agreements

• Rule 21.4 & the abbreviation tables• can be time-consuming• lots of details: name, parties, date, source• may need to look several places to get all of the information• pay attention to all citation elements