outline research guides treaties un materials and ohchr international courts and tribunals ...

Outline Research Guides Treaties UN Materials and OHCHR International courts and tribunals Regional materials (including courts and

tribunals) Europe Africa The Americas

Country Reports Subject web sites

Research Guides ASIL

http://www.asil.org/resource/humrts1.htm

United Nations Documentation: Research Guide on Human Rights http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/spechr.ht

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United Nations: Useful URLs UN web site @ http://www.un.org/ Official Web Locator @ Index to web sites of UN

organisations - http://www.unsystem.org/ UN High Commissioner for Human Rights @

http://www.ohchr.org/ ASIL guide to UN research@

http://www.asil.org/resource/un1.htm UN Documentation: Research Guide @

http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/ UN Research Guide for Human Rights-

http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/spechr.htm

Finding UN Documents UN ODS - http://documents.un.org/ UNBisnet - http://unbisnet.un.org/ Treaty Bodies Database -

http://tb.ohchr.org/default.aspx

UN Human Rights Resources: Human Rights Bodies

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Charter Based bodies

Established by the UN charter Address broad human rights issues Unlimited audience Majority voting

Treaty Based bodies Established by a treaty Address issues covered by the treaty Audience is signatories of the treaty only Decisions based on consensus

Documents available on UN ODS, UnBisnet Documents produced by the Treaty Based bodies

are also available on the Treaty Bodies Database

UN Human Rights Bodies: Charter Based Bodies

Human Rights Council Special procedures (discuss and report on

human rights situations relating to particular countries or themes)

Commission on Human Rights No longer exists – predecessor of the Human

Rights Council Subcommission on the Promotion and

Protection of Human Rights Carries out studies on human rights issues and

make recommendations

Treaty Based 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) Documents produced by the Treaty Based Bodies

are available on the Treaty Bodies Database as well as UN ODS, Unbisnet

Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights

http://www.ohchr.org/ Countries – treaty status, special

procedures (country), reports by region Issues - Subject index to committees, special

Rapporteurs, treaties etc International Law – Treaties / instruments –

includes a subject index Human Rights Bodies – Detailed information

about / from the Charter and treaty bodies and access to the Treaty Bodies Database @ http://tb.ohchr.org/default.aspx

International Courts and Tribunals

Guides

Pict – Project on International Courts and Tribuals http://www.pict-pcti.org/ Explanation of the origins, history,

functions and procedures of the international and regional courts

International Courts and Tribunals online

Research Guide @ http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/specil.htm

Basic Court documents Courts website Sometimes Westlaw

Annual reports etc – Courts own Website Judgments, Decisions, Indictments

Courts own web site Westlaw Worldlii (usually Westlaw only)

ICJ: Research Guides and Reference Works

UN research guide includes a section on the ICJ http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/specil.htm#icj

International Court of Justice Yearbook Internat 725 c 858 j-k

Summaries of Judgments, Advisory Opinions and Orders of the International Court of Justice Internat 121a

Bibliography of the International Court of Justice Internat 400 c858

ICJ: In print (Reports of) Judgments, Advisory Opinions and

Orders – Int 121 French and English Annual index

Pleadings, Oral Arguments, Documents – Int 122 Documentation relating to each case (e.g. application,

written and oral proceedings, documents submitted to the court, selected correspondence etc)

Published after the end of the case in the original language

OSCOLA - cite the print series in preference to other series and online versions. If print is not available cite online version from the ICJ web site.

International Court of Justice online - http://www.icj-cij.org

Basic Documents Cases

full text of judgments (contentious cases) /advisory opinions (advisory proceedings)

related documents (e.g. application, oral and written proceedings, orders, summaries, press releases)

Search engine is poor – not very good for subject searching

Background information – history, how the court works, judges etc

Text of judgments and advisory opinions and related documents

Statute of the Court, rules of procedure etc

Information about the courts jurisdiction

Choose appropriate option

Choose Judgments etc as appropriate

ICJ Online Westlaw

International (Directory)| All Westlaw Database | International/Worldwide | Multinational | Court and Tribunal Cases

Full text judgments and orders but NOT all related documents

Search engine allows subject searching Worldlii – http://www.worldlii.org

“International Decisions” > 26 international courts including ICJ

Full text judgments (from ICJ website) but NOT related documents

Search engine allows subject searching

For materials from beyond the UK/EU choose Westlaw International

International Courts and Tribunals

ICJ and other international courts and tribunals on Worldlii

Worldlii “International Decisions” database includes 26 international courts including:•ICJ•European Court of Human Rights•Inter-American Court of Human Rights Decisions 1981- (Selected) •Interights Commonwealth Human Rights Law 1992-2002 •Interights International Human Rights Law 1981-2001 •International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Decisions 2004- •International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia Decisions 1996- •United Nations Committee against Torture Decisions 1993-•United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination Decisions 1988- •United Nations Human Rights Committee Decisions 1977- (WorldLII)

Combine terms using:AND, OR, NOTNEAR – within 50 wordsw/n –term 1 within n terms of term 2Pre/n –term 1 must precede term 2 by n terms *truncation symbol

Search across groups of courts. “All Human Rights Courts & Tribunals” is useful

To find out when judgments were added to Worldlii for each court

To browse a court click on the link, to search a court tick the check box

International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia

UN research guide @ http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/specil.htm#ity

Basic documents, annual reports @http://www.un.org/icty/ Judgments in print (indictments, decisions, judgments) The Judicial Reports/ Recueils judiciaires Internat 580 I63cJudgments online (indictments, decisions, judgments) ITY web site @ http://www.un.org/icty/ Westlaw Worldlii (judgment only – not entirely up to date)Oscola citation Case name (Decision type) ICTY-year#-case# (date). Alternatively cite International Legal Materials or

International Human Rights Reports.

International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR) UN Research Guide @

http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/specil.htm#itr

ICTR website Basic documents Indictments, decisions, judgments Status of pending cases Annual reports etc

Westlaw (indictments, decisions, judgments)

Worldlii Oscola citation – same as ICTY

Other international courts… International Criminal Court

UN research guides @ http://www.un.org/Depts/dhl/resguide/specil.htm#icc

http://www.icc-cpi.int/ Special Court for Sierra Leone

http://www.sc-sl.org/ Commission for Reception, Truth and

Reconciliation in East Timor @ http://www.cavr-timorleste.org/

Cases before UN Treaty Committees

Worldlii Cases before Human Rights Committee,

Committee against Torture, Committee on Elimination of Racial Discrimination,

Netherlands Institute of Human Rights (http://www.law.uu.nl/english/sim/) Databases > Case Law Cases before Human Rights Committee,

Committee against Torture, Committees on…Elimination of Racial Discrimination, …Discrimination against women.

Indexed by subject, keyword, state, name etc

Cases before UN committees

Cases before ECHR

Cases before tribunals for Yugoslavia / Rwanda

Comments by treaty bodies in response to country reports

Browse by treaty article, subject, keyword, country etc

Regional: Europe

Europe Council of Europe –

http://www.coe.int European Convention on Human

Rights - http://conventions.coe.int European Court of Human Rights -

http://www.echr.coe.int/echr Judgments and decisions on Westlaw,

Justis, HUDOC, Worldlii

Directorate General of Human rights – publications, sub committees, news and current activities

Text of the convention, signatories, ratifications, reservations etc

Reports and other documents from the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights

European Court of Human Rights: Judgments

Official Reports Before 1 Nov 1998 known as Series A and numbered

consecutively e.g. Plattform ‘Ärtze für das Leben’ v Austria (App no 10126/82) (1988) Series A no 139

After 1 Nov 1998 - Renamed Reports of Judgments and Decisions (cited ECHR)e.g. Osman v UK (App no 23452/94) ECHR 1998-VIII 3124

Available in print at Internat 121 and online on Justis European Human Rights Reports (EHRR)

e.g. Young, James and Webster v UK (App no 7601/76) (1982) 4 EHRR 38

Available in print at Internat 150 E60 on Westlaw OSCOLA – Cite Official Reports or EHRR

ECHR: Transcripts Court Transcripts

Court web site – HUDOC - http://www.echr.coe.int/echr

Worldlii Netherlands Institute

•Full text searching use the following connectors: AND•OR •NOT•WITHIN N OF *TRUNCATION•? SINGLE CHARACTER

Reports of Judgments and Decisions (ECHR) on Justis

Transcript

Official reports – old style series A

Official reports – new style

EHRR on Westlaw UK section of Westlaw includes ECHR

judgments European Court of Human Rights

Reports (includes all court judgments and selected commission decisions)

Case Analysis information including summary, legislation considered, judicial history, commentary

Choose “Advanced Search” for more options

Searches full text of all judgments

Searches party names

Searches for cases by legislation considered.

Searches for cases which have considered an earlier case

Full text of the case

Related information including:•List of reports of the case•Summary of the issues•Legislation considered in the judgment•Earlier cases considered in the judgment•Later cases which have considered this judgment•Commentary on the judgment

Summary and abstract

Lists of reports of the judgment

The Westlaw cases analysis document includes related information

Later cases which have cited this case

Legislation considered during the case

To search for cases citing a particular article of the European Convention. Note this will return cases before the ECHR and the UK domestic courts

ECHR web site http://www.echr.coe.int/ Basic Documents and texts of the

court Database of transcripts of judgments

and commission decisions To go direct to the transcripts

database http://cmiskp.echr.coe.int/

Transcripts database

European Convention on Human Rights and additional protocols

History, organization, composition, procedures etc

To search decisions of the European Commission (ceased 1999) open up decisions box. Note not all commission decisions are available.

Use … to browse a thesaurus of terms

Make sure the “from” field is not filled in when you open up the database

HUDOC - Transcripts

Some judgments are only available on one language

Full text

Incomplete Information about the case including articles cited, related cases, key dates, conclusion

Summary Links to related cases and press release (incomplete)

Inter American Court of Human Rights

Court Web site - http://www.corteidh.or.cr Background information Judgments (normally appear on Spanish language

version first) Does not include related documents

University of Minnesota Human Rights Library - Basic Document relating to the Inter American Court of Human Rights http://www1.umn.edu/humanrts/iachr/iachr.html Court procedures and rules Judgments, opinions and decisions plus related

documents Judgment are also available on Worldlii

Statute of the court, rules of procedure, composition, history etc

•Browse judgments chronologically or by country•Text in word / pdf

Annual reports – includes cases

Search for judgment by keywords or by country/date range

Database coverage of International and Regional Courts

& Tribunals Westlaw and Lexis

International Court of Justice European Court of Human Rights International Criminal Tribunal for

Rwanda International Criminal Tribunal for the

Former Yugoslavia European Court of Human Rights

Database coverage of International and Regional Courts

& TribunalsWorldlii – 26 international courts and tribunals including:

Interights International Human Rights Law 1981-2001 International Court of Justice International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda Decisions 2004- International Criminal Tribunal for Former Yugoslavia

Decisions 1996- UN Committee against Torture Decisions 1993- UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Decisions 1988- UN Human Rights Committee Decisions 1977-

European Court of Human Rights Inter-American Court of Human Rights Decisions 1981 Interights Commonwealth Human Rights Law 1992-2002

Database coverage of International Courts & Tribunals

Interights Charity that promotes human

rights through the law http://www.interights.org/ 2,000 summaries of significant

human rights decisions from the Commonwealth and beyond

Case law database

Summaries of some HR issues, bibliographies etc

Europe Council of Europe – http://

www.coe.int European Convention on Human

Rights - http://conventions.coe.int European Court of Human Rights -

http://www.echr.coe.int/echr Judgments and decisions on Westlaw,

Justis, HUDOC, Worldlii

Directorate General of Human rights – publications, sub committees, news and current activities

Text of the convention, signatories, ratifications, reservations etc

Reports and other documents from the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights