Most UN committees (Human Rights Committee, Committee on the Rights of the Child, etc.) issue decisions, recommendations, views, annual reports, and other documents to the General Assembly or ECOSOC. Not every committee issues all of these kinds of documents. Most of the documents listed below can be located by using the indexes to UN documents. For more detailed information about the types of documents issued by these bodies, see United Nations Documentation: Research Guide on Human Rights.
Use the following tools to locate the UN document number and date of the document. See the Berkeley Law Research Guide on the United Nations for help with locating documents.
- AccessUN (1945-present) (UCB only)
A good index for locating U.N. documents by keyword, author, title or U.N. symbol. Contains some full-text documents.
- United Nations Digital Library.
Includes UN documents, voting data, speeches, maps, and open access publications. Not all documents are available full-text.
- Official Document System (ODS).
A fully searchable database, ODS covers all types of official United Nations documentation, beginning in 1993. Older UN documents are, however, added to the system on a daily basis. ODS also provides access to the resolutions of the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council and the Trusteeship Council from 1946 onwards.
- The United Nations Human Rights Treaties (bayefsky.com). Provides easy access to documents from the major treaty bodies of the UN. Access is by state, category, or subject. However, some of the content is no longer current. The jurisprudence information is supposed to be updated, but you should always check against other databases and resources.
- Universal Human Rights Index of UN Documents, access to observations recommendations of UN human rights treaty bodies and the special procedures of the Human Rights Council.
