Research Guides: International Criminal Law: United Nations

United Nations

The United Nations mandate on international law emanates from the Charter of the United Nations which, in its Preamble, sets the goal "to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be maintained." The UN Treaty Collection provides information on the status of over 500 major multilateral instruments deposited with the UN Secretary-General (including texts of reservations, declarations and objections).

The General Assembly's (GA) Sixth Committee deals with international legal matters. Assembly actions based on Sixth Committee recommendations, and relevant documents, can be searched in the Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly. The Sixth Committee submits a separate report to the plenary on every agenda item allocated to it. They synthesize the Committee's consideration of the items and transmit the final version of draft resolutions/decisions recommended for adoption. They are working documents of the plenary and issued under the symbol for the plenary. Since GA resolutions and decisions often are not printed until weeks after their adoption, the final draft as contained in the Committee report (sometimes orally amended immediately prior to adoption) may be the only source for the text of a recent resolution/decision. A complete listing of Sixth Committee reports since the 57th session is found in the UN-I-QUE database.

The full text of recent Working Documents (symbol A/C.6/[session]/-) are available through UNBISnet and the Official Document System of the United Nations.
Speeches made before the Sixth Committee are found in the Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly and can be searched by subject, speaker and country/organization. Speech citations may also be retrieved through the Index to Speeches of the UNBISnet database.
The full text of recent Summary Records of meetings (symbol A/C.6/[session]/SR.[meeting number]) are available through UNBISnet and the Official Document System of the United Nations.

The International Law Commission was established by GA Resolution 174 (II) of 21 November 1947 (available as part of GA Resolutions adopted during its second session); the annexed Statute defines the mandate of the Commission. Its primary objective is "promotion of the progressive development of international law and its codification." The Statute was amended several times; the updated text is available online. The Commission meets in one annual session in Geneva and reports to the General Assembly. The Analytical Guide to the Work of the International Law Commission, 1949-1997 describes the work of the ILC on legal issues falling within its mandate with references to the source materials.

The full text of Texts, Instruments and Final Reports are available on the Commission website.
The full text of all Working Documents (symbol A/CN.4/-) are available on the Commission website and recent documents are also available through UNBISnet and the Official Document System of the United Nations.
Reports submitted by special rapporteurs constitute a major category of working documents. A complete listing of these reports is found in the UN-I-QUE database and the reports for a given year are reprinted in the ILC Yearbook.
Provisional Summary Records of meetings (symbol A/CN.4/SR.[meeting number]) for a given year are reprinted in the ILC Yearbook.
Annual Commission reports to the GA are issued as Supplement #10 to the Official Records of the General Assembly. A complete list of these reports (1949+) is in the UN-I-QUE database. The annual report of a given year is reprinted in the ILC Yearbook. The full text of all annual reports are available through the Commission's website and recent reports are available from UNBISnet and the Official Document System of the United Nations.

The Yearbook of the International Law Commission reproduces, in volume I, records of meetings which took place in a given year; volume II contains the texts of major reports produced during the year (including the annual report to the General Assembly). A complete list of Yearbooks is found in the UN-I-QUE database. The full text of all ILC Yearbooks is available through the Commission's website and UNBISnet.

United Nations Resources and Links

Analytical Guide to the Work of the International Law Commission
The Analytical Guide to the Work of the International Law Commission is designed to assist the researcher interested in the work of the Commission.
Dag Hammarskjöld
This research guide is dedicated to Dag Hammarskjöld, the Second Secretary-General of the United Nations from April 1953 until September 1961 when he met his death in a plane accident while on a peace mission in the Congo.
more...less...
A part of the United Nations Research Guides and Resouces.
General Assembly Documents
Includes resolutions, meeting records, UN Journal and other GA documents.
General Assembly of the United Nations
"The General Assembly is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the United Nations. Comprising all 193 Members of the United Nations, it provides a unique forum for multilateral discussion of the full spectrum of international issues covered by the Charter. The Assembly meets in regular session intensively from September to December each year, and thereafter as required."
ILC Annual Reports
At the end of each session, the Commission adopts a report to the General Assembly, covering the work of the session, on the basis of a draft prepared by the General Rapporteur with the assistance of the Special Rapporteurs concerned and the Secretariat.
International Court of Justice
Documentation, cases (pending, binding and advisory), basic documents, and more.
International Law Commission
The International Law Commission was established by the General Assembly, in 1947, to undertake the mandate of the Assembly, under article 13 (1) (a) of the Charter of the United Nations to "initiate studies and make recommendations for the purpose of ... encouraging the progressive development of international law and its codification".
Main Committees of the UN
Each Member State may be represented by one person on each Main Committee and on any other committee that may be established upon which all Member States have the right to be represented.
Main Organs of the UN
The main organs of the UN are the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, the Trusteeship Council, the International Court of Justice, and the UN Secretariat. All were established in 1945 when the UN was founded.
Sixth Committee of the UN (Legal)
The Sixth Committee is the primary forum for the consideration of legal questions in the General Assembly. All of the United Nations Member States are entitled to representation on the Sixth Committee as one of the main committees of the General Assembly.
UN-I-QUE: United Nations Info Quest
UN-I-QUE focuses upon documents and publications of a recurrent nature: annual/sessional reports of committees/commissions; annual publications; reports periodically/irregularly issued; reports of major conferences; statements in the General Debate; etc. Information within each record is presented in reverse chronological order to facilitate identification of the most recent data.
UN Digital Library
United Nations documents and publications from the UN Dag Hammarskjöld Library and the Library of the UN Office at Geneva.
UN Charter
"The Charter of the United Nations was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and came into force on 24 October 1945. The Statute of the International Court of Justice is an integral part of the Charter."
UN Databases
Official Documents and Bibliographic Databases (ODS, UNBISnet, UN-I-QUE, UNISPAL, ECLAC); Treaties, Declarations and Legislative Sources; UN Action against Terrorism; UN members; UN Mandates; Terminology; Multimedia; Civil Society; Climate Change; Human Rights Issues; Humanitarian Issues; Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs); Statistical Data; Conferences and Events; Partnerships; Archives.
UN Documentation: Research Guides
UN International Law Research Guide providing overview and links to Courts and Tribunals, ICJ, Int'l Tribunal for the Law of the Sea, ICTY, ICTR, ICC, United Nations Administration of Justice, Legal Documents, Treaties, Principal Legal Bodies of the United Nations, Sixth Committee of the General Assembly, Int'l Law Commission, and UN Commission on Int'l Trade Law.
UN Documentation Research Guide
The UN Documentation Research Guide presents an overview of selected UN documents, publications, databases and websites. It provides details on the patterns of documentation of the active principal UN organs. It presents documentation of the organs and subsidiary bodies involved in areas of interest to many researchers.
UN Documents
Official Document System is the UN's Official Document System. You can search for UN documents by keywords, then narrow your search.
United Nations
A gateway to the UN, its information, news, resources, laws, and other resources.
United Nations and the Rule of Law
The Rule of Law Coordination and Resource Group is chaired by the Deputy Secretary-General and has the overall leadership role for the rule of law in the work of the United Nations.
UN Resources
Alphabetical and topical lists of United Nations databases and reference works.
UN Security Council Resolutions
Organized by date in reverse chronological order.
Coverage 1946-.
UN Treaty Collection
The Secretary-General of the United Nations is the depositary of more than 560 multilateral treaties which cover a broad range of subject matters such as human rights, disarmament and protection of the environment.
Yearbook of the International Law Commission
Includes he principal documents (namely, studies, reports, principal draft resolutions and amendments presented to the Commission) relating to the first seven sessions, in their original languages, and the summary records of these sessions, initially in English; and the principal documents and summary records relating to the subsequent sessions, in English, French and Spanish.