Please refer to the Bluebook section(s) below before beginning your research.
Bluebook Rule 21: International Materials:
Due to their frequency in journal article citations, this page will highlight some additional search tips for treaties, international law cases, United Nations sources, and European Union documents.
If you have a treaty without a citation, the first step is to find the correct citation using either Google or FLARE Index to Treaties.
Treaties where the United States is a party or multilateral treaties (three or more parties) are generally easier to find. If your treaty has a Stat., U.S.T., T.I.A.S., U.N.T.S., L.N.T.S., or I.L.M. citation (e.g. 32 I.L.M. 289), use the database HeinOnline to retrieve your treaty in PDF.
Bilateral treaties (between two parties) where the U.S. is not one of the parties, can be difficult to find. Try and locate the treaty through the governmental body in charge of foreign affairs. In the United States, the State Department maintains a list of Treaties in Force. In Australia for example, a similar list is maintained by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Only if no other formal treaty citation is available may you cite a book or periodical.
While many of these decisions are available on Westlaw, it is generally preferred that you cite to the official print reporters, or if not available, to the court's official website. See Bluebook rules 21.5.1-21.5.9 for clarification.
International courts are courts that have the ability to settle disputes between countries. These are separate and distinct from foreign courts such as the Canadian Supreme Court. For help locating a foreign case, use the Foreign Law tab instead.
For International Court of Justice (I.C.J.) and European Court of Justice (E.C.J.) cases use HeinOnline for PDFs or the court websites.
There are many other international courts of law including (but not limited to) the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR), the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS), and several specialized International Criminal Tribunals like the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR).
You're in luck! Many U.N. documents are available online in PDF through either: 
Tip: Use the U.N. Doc. symbol to locate your document (e.g. S/RES/986) rather than keyword searching.
The Official Records are the preferred source for United Nations citations, but masthead documents and documents drawn from U.N. websites are acceptable. Bluebook rule 21.7.
Special types of U.N. documents:
Unless otherwise specified by the Bluebook, cite European Union documents to the Official Journal (O.J.).
For EU case law, see International Law Cases, Bluebook rules 21.5.2 and 21.5.3.
For EU treaties, see Treaties and Other International Agreements, Bluebook rule 21.4.5.
For EU documents not published in a traditional source (e.g. reports, green papers, white papers, press releases, etc.) cite according to Bluebook rules 21.7.3, 15, and 18.
While Westlaw and Lexis are great sources of information for U.S. law, they lack many international documents and the documents they do have are not in PDF.
However, Westlaw and Lexis may still be useful for help if you have an unclear or incomplete citation.
See our International Law guide for more general research tips (not specific to citechecking).
Contact Melissa Abernathy
Foreign & International Law Librarian
USD Legal Research Center
(619) 260-4734
mabernathy@sandiego.edu
