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Research Tips and Observations
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 February 2019
One of the spectacular and liberating features of the Internet in general and the United Nations web site in particular is that if a treaty you are researching was drafted in connection with a conference relating to human rights, the environment, development, or a major topic in criminal or commercial law, entire web pages based on the treaty and its history are now in place. The process of drafting and finalizing the texts of major conventions and treaties sponsored by bodies within the United Nations system is unusually well-documented. The conference process and other drafting procedures have always made researching UN treaties rather more systematic than is the case with many inter-governmental organizations.
1 While the researcher can sometimes choose to which librarian a question may be ad‘dressed, that is, generalist or specialist, the obverse is not always true: the sitting-duck librarian may not choose the depth or difficulty of any individual question put to him or her.Google Scholar
2 Pratter, Jonathan, “À la recherche des Travaux Préparatories: A structured Approach to Researching the Drafting History of International Agreements,” American Association of Law Libraries (AALL) Workshop, Gateway to Treaty Research in the Digital Age. AALL Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, July 15, 2000, available at http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/staff/presentations/jpratter/sld001.htm.Google Scholar
3 Oppenheim's International Law [Oppenheim, Lassa (1858–1919], Sir Robert Jennings and Sir Arthur Watts, eds. 9th ed. Harlow, Essex: Longman, 1992 at 1277.Google Scholar
4 1155 U.N.T.S. 331.Google Scholar
5 Art. 31(4), Art. 32. See Bernhardt, R. “Interpretation in International Law,” 7 Encyclopedia of Public International Law at 321–323.Google Scholar
6 E.g., the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, as summarized in “International Decision: The Right to Information on Consular Assistance in the Framework of the Guarantees of the Due Process of Law.” Advisory Opinion OC-16/99. A.J.I.L. 94 (2000): 555, 558.Google Scholar
7 R. v. Bow Street Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrate and others, ex parte Pinochet Ugarte (Amnesty International and others intervening) (No 3) [2000] 1 AC 147, [1999] 2 All ER 97, [1999] 2 WLR 827. The treaties under discussion were the European Convention on Extradition 1957 (the Extradition Convention), Paris, 13 December 1957; TS 97 (1991); Cmnd 1762; and the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment 1984 (the Torture Convention), 10 December 1984; U.N. Res. 39/46, Doc A/39/51, 1465 U.N.T.S. 85 (1987).Google Scholar
8 See, e.g., Rehof, Lars Adam, Guide to the travaux préparatoires of the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against Women (Dordrecht; Boston: M. Nijhoff Publishers, 1993); Council of Europe, Collected edition of the “travaux préparatoires” of the European Convention on Human Rights (The Hague; Boston: M. Nijhoff: 1975–1985; Hague Conference on Private International Law, Actes et documents de la … session: (La Haye: Bureau permanent de la Conference, 1893-) with volumes from the permanent bureau per se from 1961 on. These are just a few of the more important examples of collected travaux.Google Scholar
9 United Nations, Yearbook of the United Nations, 1946/47- (New York: United Nations, Dept. of Public Information, 1947-).Google Scholar
10 This is meant in the moderately deconstructionist sense of art and literature critic Susan Sontag's work of the same name. Otherwise I should be accused of undermining the rationale behind treaty travaux in the first place! Experience and text are in a kind of reflexive relationship. See generally Susan Sontag, Against interpretation, and other essays, (New York Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966).Google Scholar
11 See Morris, Jerry, “Globe-trotting; need directions? your car can give them,” The Boston Globe, July 22, 2001, Travel section, p. K2; and Stephen Drucker, “Hot Wheels That Are Adult Toys,” The New York Times, July 22, 2001, Section 5; Page 11; Column 1; Travel Desk.Google Scholar
