>> Louis Myers: Hello, everyone,
and welcome to today's webinar
on overview of tree research
and international agreements.
My name is Louis Myers, and I am
a legal reference librarian here
at the Law Library of Congress.
Before we get started,
I do want to note
that I will be doing my best
to leave time at the end
of this webinar to
answer questions.
If you have a question
during the presentation,
I ask that you type your
question in the Q&A box.
If your Q&A box does
not immediately show up,
click the button at the
bottom of your screen,
it looks like a cartoon talk
level, to open the chat feature.
If we don't have time to answer
all the questions, however,
please send any additional
inquiries you have
to the law library's
ask a librarian service.
There is a link to ask a
librarian at the top of law.gov
and a copy of the link
on the last slide.
We will also e mail the slides
at the end of this session.
I have left active
hyperlinks to many
of the resources we will
look at in the slides,
and we'll also provide
some other materials
at the very end of the session.
So, I always like to start
by giving a little overview
of what you can expect to be
covered in this presentation.
And first, we are going to go
over some basic treaty
practice information.
This will include some important
terms and some other concepts.
Second, we are going to look
at researching multilateral
treaties
or treaties among multiple
parties using online resources.
Next, we will look
at researching non U.S.
bilateral treaties,
or treaties between two
countries using online
resources, and then we
will do the same thing
with U.S. treaties.
And after that, I do want
to highlight some different
materials and strategies
that are especially helpful when
researching historical treaties
and researching historical
treaties especially
from non U.S. jurisdictions
frequently requires the use
of physical materials since many
things have not been digitized
and are not readily
available online.
And finally, we will briefly
discuss travaux preparatoires,
which are sort of like
a legislative history
for a treaty.
So, just some basics
on treaty practice.
Treaties are typically divided
into two main categories;
multilateral and bilateral.
A multilateral treaty is
a treaty involving more
than two parties, while a
bilateral treaty involves an
agreement between two parties.
There is often a
resource overlap
when researching multilateral
and bilateral treaties.
However, researchers can find
distinct resources focusing
on each category.
Treaties are entered into based
on domestic legal procedures
in the United States, for
example, a treaty is considered
and consented to
by the U.S. Senate,
which then authorizes the
president to ratify the treaty.
Once you determine if you
are working with a bilateral
or multilateral treaty, you can
then identify the primary treaty
document using a
citation or by, sorry,
or by searching a depository
database or a compilation
by category, subject,
or keyword.
When researching treaties,
you may encounter terms
that have specialized meanings
within this area of research.
For example, ratification
of a treaty occurs
when the parties consent to
be bound by the agreement.
And a session to a treaty
occurs when a party consents
to be bound by a previously
ratified amendment or agreement.
And you may also see the term
reservation while researching.
And a reservation
is an act by a party
where they exclude a certain
provision of a treaty,
but agree to the rest
of the provisions.
Awareness of these terms and
their meanings will enable you
to identify treaties
and related instruments
and acts more effectively.
Some helpful resources for this
include the Vienna Convention
on the Law of Treaties,
their statement third
foreign relations law
of the United States,
and the treaty handbook,
which is published by
the United Nations.
So, now let's talk a little bit
more about some important terms.
So, there are several terms
that have specific meanings
within treaty practice.
You can treat them kind of
like they're a term of art.
And I've also included a link
at the end of the presentation
to a glossary of terms that's
published by the United Nations,
which is going to
include the terms I'm
about to talk about,
and then many others.
So, these are just some
important examples.
And acceptance and approval.
And this is the instruments
of acceptance or approval
of a treaty have the same
legal effect as ratification,
and consequently express
the consent of a state
to be bound by a treaty.
A session is the act whereby
a state accepts the offer
or the opportunity
to become a party
to your treaty already
negotiated
and signed by other states.
It has the same legal
effect as ratification.
Adoption is the formal act
by which the form and content
of a proposed treaty
text are established.
As a general rule, the
adoption of the text
of a treaty takes place through
the expression of the consent
of the states participating
in the treaty making process.
A declaration merely
clarifies the state's position
and do not purport to exclude
or modify the legal
effect of a treaty.
Usually declarations are made
at the time of the deposit
of the corresponding instrument
or at the time of signature.
And treaty into force,
typically the provisions
of the treaty determine the date
on which the treaty
enters into force.
Where the treaty does
not specify a date,
there's a presumption that
the treaty is intended to come
into force as soon as all
the negotiating states have
consented to be bound
by the treaty.
And finally a reservation is
a declaration made by a state
by which it purports to exclude
or alter the legal effect
of certain provisions
of the treaty
in their application
to that state.
And there's also
a treaty doctrine
for other states' succession.
And this question came up
during the last session
on public international law.
And I just wanted to take a
quick minute to address it now.
And generally a successor state,
whether that be a newly
independent state,
or a former territory that
has gained independence,
is going to be bound by treaties
they were functionally a part
to, if they expressly agree,
or if they constructively agree
based on their contact conduct.
There are many other
details within this concept.
I would recommend reviewing
the 1978 Vienna Convention
on the succession of states
in respect of treaties
for more information about that.
So, let's talk a little bit
about multilateral
collections and citations.
Multilateral treaty
research generally follows a
straightforward approach.
Most modern multilateral
treaties have been deposited
with the United Nations
treaty collection,
which is an excellent place
to start your research.
Article 102 of the charter
of the United Nations
states every treaty
and every international
agreement entered
into by any member
of the United Nations
after the present charter
comes into force shall as soon
as possible be registered
within the secretariat
and published by it.
You can also find the text
of multilateral treaties
through the index or
repository from the jurisdiction
of individual parties
to the treaty.
And these are just some common
citations that you might see.
The League of Nations Treaty
Series has that LNTS citation.
The United Nations
Treaty Series is UNTS.
International Legal
Materials is ILM.
And the Consolidated
Treaty Series is CTS.
And so now let's look through
some examples of multilaterals.
And hopefully my
screen is sharing.
Okay, got confirmation
that it is.
So, the first example
we're going to look at is
from the United Nations
Treaty Series.
And for our first
search, we are going
to use the advanced search
function to research some ocean
and environmental
related agreements.
So, what I'm going to do
here is a subject search.
And first we're going
to filter two treaties.
And you'll see we have several
different options to filter
in participants,
registration numbers,
and then finally
subject term here.
And then I'm going to input
Whaling because I want
to look at Whaling Treaty.
So, you see that these are
two different subject terms.
And then just in
case, I'm also going
to add wildlife protection.
And I'm going to add that
to our search query here,
and then we're going to
go ahead and search it.
And so it gives us 124 results.
But we can use the
list options here
to possibly pinpoint
what we are looking for.
So, we'll go over
here to treaty type.
And you'll notice that
we're listing by bilateral.
And I want to look at
multilateral treaties.
So, going to click that until
we have our multilaterals
listed first.
And so on this first page here,
you can see down here if we look
at this, this is an amendment
to paragraph 17 of the schedule
to the International Convention
for the Regulation of Whaling.
So, keep in mind, an amendment
to a treaty is a way
to modify a treaty.
And then is agreed
upon by the parties,
and is frequently
governed by provisions
in the original treaty.
Let's go ahead and open this
up so you can see the
informational page.
So, here it does provide us
with some helpful information.
It gives us a registration
number, which is 2124.
And it also gives us
our UNTS citation,
which is Volume 161 in page 72.
It also provides us
with a PDF of the volume
where this amendment and
the actual treaty are going
to appear.
So, we'll go ahead
and pull that up.
So, we do know the page
that it appears on.
But let's just look at the
table of contents really quick.
And you'll notice with the
United Nations Treaty Series
that it's published in English,
and it's also published
in French.
And they usually switch
on and off with pages.
So, here we can see our
International Convention
for the Regulation of Whaling,
and then its corresponding
amendments.
And it is pointing
us to page 72.
So, we are going to go ahead
and go directly down to page 72.
But keep in mind the
pagination on the actual volume
and on the PDF is
slightly different.
So, I'm going to take an
unscientific [inaudible] here
and just go to page 80 and
see if that gets us close,
which it does pretty close.
So, at least hold on
a little bit more.
And then here at page
72, we have the full text
of the International Convention
for the Regulation of Whaling.
And then the amendments are
going to appear after that,
and they're in French.
So, here at the first
page of the treaty,
you can see some helpful notes.
And then I do want to point
out here in article 2,
it's article 2, paragraph 3,
it's defending whale capture,
just keep that in mind, because
we're going to revisit this here
in a couple minutes, and that's
actually going to change.
So, I do want to go
down to this amendment.
And the amendment
actually is on page 104,
but we're going to stick to 116.
And so this is an amendment to
paragraph 17 of the schedule
to the convention, which
is what we initially opened
up when we did our search.
And what this amendment is
doing is it's just amending some
different regulations and
obligations for [inaudible].
So, with that, we now know the
actual title to the treaty,
so we're going to reverse
engineer our search,
and we're going to look at it
by title, because that's going
to actually show us
some other information.
So, we're going to
back out of here.
And we're going to
go back to here.
And we're going to get
out of advanced search.
We're just going to go
over to title search.
And then I'm going to put the
actual title of the treaty in.
All right, so now again,
we're filled up with all
of these amendments, but I'm
just going to switch and do this
in reverse alphabetical order.
And from here, we can see
that we have this protocol,
which was signed, entered
into force in 1959.
And then we have the actual
treaty here from 1946.
So, I am going to
open that quickly.
It obviously has
the same information
from the amendment page,
because it's the same treaty,
so it's the same registration
number, same citation,
but when you pull up from
the actual treaty title,
you get all this
participant information,
which is really helpful, because
the participation information
tells us who ratified
it, who's adhering to it,
who's withdrawing from it, and
then what date they did that on.
And it also will show you
different declarations,
when available, and it
will show you reservations.
There's no reservations
on this particular treaty,
so we don't have
to look for them,
but it would be listed here.
And so just keep in mind that
these terms like ratification
and adherence and withdrawal
are all terms that are used
within treaty practice.
So, you would want to refer
back to the UM glossary to find
out what the actual
definitions are.
Let's go back and talk
about this protocol.
So, a protocol is slightly
different from a treaty.
As UN guidance suggests, it
is a less formal agreement.
In many cases, it may modify
or add new obligations
or objectives to
a previous treaty.
So, in the case of our
Whaling treaty, go ahead
and pull this up, and it was on
page 366, so we'll go down to
like 374, and that's
close, so, and you'll see
when I told you guys all
to remember that article 2
of the 1946 Whaling convention,
in this protocol is updated
the definition of whale capture
from just a ship to include
helicopters or other aircraft.
So, just for some context,
the original treaty
was signed in 1946.
The original drafters
probably didn't anticipate
that Whaling could have been
performed using aircraft.
However, by 1959,
apparently things had changed,
and they needed to
update the treaty.
So, that is an example
using the UNTC.
And I'm going to actually
stay here and look at a League
of Nations example now.
And the League of Nations is
essentially the predecessor
to the United Nations.
And it's set up pretty close to
the same way, but it's helpful
to walk through an example,
because this is a really hopeful
collection when you're looking
at historical treaties.
So, for this example,
we're going to actually
look at the volume search.
And for the sake of an example,
let's pretend we are
researching foreign relations
of Ireland after World War I.
For context, Ireland's official
title now is the Republic
of Ireland.
But between 1922 and
1937, it's actually known
as the Irish free state.
So, for this research, we
are going to use the index
to find entries under
the Irish free state.
And I am using this example
to illustrate the different
steps you may need to go
through to identify
historic treaties,
because some countries have gone
by different names in the past.
So, it's important to note
the correct name of a country
for the time period
you are researching.
So
>> We've gotten a request
to zoom in on the page,
that it's a little small.
>> Louis Myers: How's that?
>> Thank you.
>> Louis Myers: All
right, hold on.
My e mails are going off too.
I need to turn that off.
Okay, now, back to our
League of Nations example.
So, we're going to open up
this volume of 1929 to 1931.
And I'm going to use the
index to kind of identify
where we need to start.
And you'll notice again
that this is in French.
And then there's also
an English version.
But the index for the English
contents doesn't actually start
until page 307.
The nice thing with the League
of Nations series is the
pagination actually lines
up with the PDFs.
So, you can just go
right to page 307.
Let's do that again, just
to try and be helpful here.
And so this starts at
alphabetical index.
You can control ask
this document.
So, we can just search
for Irish free state.
And it's going to pull us
up the different results,
but it's going to take
us sort of out of order
from what I was looking for.
So, this actually took
us backwards to page 281,
and just to spare everyone from
the scrolling, and page 388,
and that's where the actual
alphabetical index has Irish
free state.
And so from this index, we can
see that we have two agreements.
One is for the compensation
for war damages.
And the other is a resumption
of diplomatic relations.
If you look over here
on the far right,
it gives us a treaty
number of 2314 and 2268.
It also tells us which
volume and which page.
So, the first one
is in Volume 100,
or Roman Numeral C at page 459.
And the other one is in Volume
99, or Roman Number XCIX.
And that one appears at page 61.
So, now that we have that
citation information,
we can go back to
this main page.
And we can go find our
corresponding volume.
So, we're going to
go all the way down.
And we're going to look at,
let's look at Volume 100.
So, that's our Roman Numeral C.
And we can go ahead and view it.
Again, it's in French
and it's in English.
This example is pretty
straightforward,
because it's actually just
the last treaty that's entered
in here.
So, I'm just going to take us
down so we can see
what page number it's
on within the contents.
[ Inaudible ]
It's right here.
So, number 2314, and
it appears on page 461.
And I know that's the
French version [inaudible].
And then we can pull up
our entire text here.
And that also shares with us
the signatories and the dates
if we're going to
go all the way down.
So, we can repeat the same
process with the example
from Volume 99 over here.
I'm not going to do it
right now, but it's,
it would just follow
the exact same steps.
So, let's move on from
the United Nations.
And this time we're going to
use the Flare Index to Treaties.
And if I do that, just
go to search page.
So, Flare is a powerful
database that provides links
to online treaties
when available.
But also provides citations
to print collections
when an online version
is unavailable.
So, for this example,
let's say we are looking
for the Berne Convention, which
is an intellectual property
and copyright treaty from 1886.
And it's still applicable
in 2022.
And through this example,
we're going to see why
it's so applicable.
So, the first thing I'm going to
do is I'm just going to search
for Berne and see what
results we come up with.
So, this gave me three results.
And I can see that none of
them are from this 1886 state.
But it does give me
the actual title here
to the original Berne
Convention from 1886.
So, what we're going to
do is we're going to keep
in mind this protection
of literary
and artistic works language.
And I'm just going to go
back and type that in.
I'll search for that.
And I'll zoom in again.
Sorry about that.
And so, again, I'm
getting some years
that aren't quite what I want.
But if I go down just a
little bit, I get to the 1886,
which is going to be the
original treaty information.
And so from here, we can see
it's posted online hopefully
from WIPO, or the
World Intellectual
Property Organization.
And the World Intellectual
Property Organization is
actually the administer
of this treaty.
So, they're what's
actually going to hold a lot
of the different
information that I'm going
to show you that in a second.
But you can also see
where it's published
in some physical
collections here.
Remember that CTS, or
Consolidated Treaty Series,
that we talked about earlier,
that's the citation
for it there.
And then they do have the treaty
hosted here, and it does tell us
that the depository is WIPO.
This link is actually dead,
so I'm not going to use it.
But I'm going to show
you quickly that here,
if you go to the treaty page,
it gives you the latest news.
So, it shows you that there was
actually a session in January
of 2022, which means there's
a new party to the treaty.
And then it shows you
the historical versions
of the treaty, so as they've
kind of evolved over time
from the initial
entry from 1886.
And then it also will give
you some other information
that could be helpful with the
travaux preparatoires research.
So, moving on from Flare,
let's look at some
regional repositories.
So, the first one
I'm going to pull
up is the Organization
of American States.
And then their online resources.
And the Organization of
American States, or OAS,
compiles bilateral and
multilateral agreements.
For this example, we're going
to focus on multilaterals.
You can see from this page here
that they have several
different search formats,
including by text,
by signatories,
and by central authorities.
Central authorities are
designated entities that oversee
or administer a specific treaty.
And the OIS is made
up of 35 members.
And they cover most
of the Americas,
including the Caribbean.
Since coverage of this
database is pretty limited,
searching is relatively
straightforward.
So, let's just look
at some examples.
First, you can just
browse directly by subject.
And for this example, I'm just
going to scroll down and look
at the disability convention.
And that's the inner American
convention on the elimination
of all forms of discrimination
against persons with
disabilities.
And so from here, we
can review the text.
You can also review
the text in Spanish.
And then if you click
here, you get kind
of that similar information
that we got
from the United Nations website.
It includes the dates,
the entry into the force,
and then it also has a slot for
where the UN registration is,
but they haven't updated the UN
registration for this example.
And then it also shows us this
information of who's ratified,
when they ratified, or when
they acceded to the treaty.
So, just another
quick example here
to illustrate something else.
If we go back and
research by member states,
and then [inaudible], and
this time we're going to look
at the inner American convention
on the international
return of children.
And I'm just going to pull
us down to that quickly.
So, this pulled us
to the signatories
and ratifications
information page first,
since we searched
slightly differently.
And you see the usual
information that they just saw.
But also this particular
entry shows us reservations
and declarations.
Most of the declarations in this
case are just referring back
to a central authority
designation by each country.
However, you'll also note here
that Venezuela has expressed
their reservation regarding
article 34.
So, that can be some important
information that you might miss
if you were to look this
treaty up elsewhere.
So, let's see, I'm going to
go ahead and switch gears now.
And we're going to look
at bilateral treaties.
And if we have time, I
do have another example
of multilaterals, but I want
to make sure we get
through everything.
So, bear with me.
I'm going to switch
back to our PowerPoint.
Let's talk about
non U.S. bilateral
and U.S. bilateral
collections and citations.
So, researching foreign
bilateral treaties are
between nations other than the
United States can sometimes be
difficult or tricky.
And many nations deposit
their bilateral treaties
with repositories, such
as the United Nations
treaty collection.
If you are unable to locate the
text of the treaty through any
of the more common
resources, you may need
to explore domestic resources
for the jurisdiction
you are researching.
Frequently, countries will
make their treaty information
available online through
the foreign policy arm
of their government.
They may also publish treaties
in a specific collection.
And they may also leave notice
in their legal [inaudible].
For U.S. treaties, it
can sometimes be simpler,
and we've kind of
spelled out some
of the different
resources you can use.
If you're researching
from 1795 to 1945,
you can use the treaty
series collection.
And it generally
comes in a bound form.
However, it's also reprinted
in the United Nations
Statutes at Large.
And those are organized
chronologically.
You can also use the Treaties
and other International Act
Series, also known as TIAS.
And this is the official print
publication format for treaties,
and it's published by the
Government Publishing Office.
It was published on
paper until 2006.
But it's now available online
from the state department
and the GPO.
And then you can also use
United States treaties
and other international
agreements, which is going
to be UST citation
you see there.
And in addition to TIAS,
the U.S. Department
of State has also since
1944 produced treaties
and force published yearly.
This resource provides a
listing of all the bilateral
and multilateral
treaties and agreements
to which the United
States is a party that,
as the name suggests,
are still in force.
The bilateral treaties and
agreements are organized
by country or international
entity.
And we'll look at some examples
of that here in a few moments.
The most recent edition
of treaties
in force is found online
from the U.S. Department
of State's website.
And now we are going to switch
back to the screen and go
through some more results.
So, for the first example,
we're actually going
to go back to the UNTC.
And actually going to take us to
the main front page this time.
And so I'm zoomed in
here, so I'm going to have
to scroll a little bit, but
you can see from the front page
that there's a lot of different
ways that you can search
for information on this website.
This United Nations Treaty
Series is how you get
to that main search
function that we looked
at when we were researching
multilaterals.
But you also can look and see
what the latest registered
treaties are.
So, let's open that up and see.
So, over the last 12
months, there's been 500.
But let's just take
that down a little bit.
And then we'll see
here that there's 263
in the last six months.
And the most recent treaty,
it looks like, was registered
on June 28th of this year.
So, it's updated
pretty frequently.
I don't know like the lag
time off the top of my head,
but it's generally going to be
about the most accurate
resource you can find as far
as recent treaties go.
But let's also look at
a different example.
So, we'll go through
our database.
All right, well, we will come
back to this example and see
if the website oh,
there it goes.
Never mind.
Okay, so for this example,
let's look at some agreements
entered into by Canada.
And so we're going to
do our advanced search,
which we're already at.
Change this filter
to participant.
Try that again.
So, I'm going to go
with participant,
and looking at Canada.
So, I added Canada to
the search criteria.
And then also going to stick
with our Whaling topic.
But we want to go
beyond Whaling now.
So, we're going to
broaden our search
to include fisheries
related treaties.
So, now I'm going
to add to our query.
I'm going to go back
to subject term.
And just going to see.
Let's add fishing and fisheries.
We'll add that.
And have Canada as our party.
And then we're going
to go ahead and search
and see what that comes up with.
And so this gave us 92 results.
And I can see right here
our first result is Canada
and France.
And then we have another one
with Canada and Thailand.
But I want to actually
refocus our search now and see
if we can narrow it down.
So, we're going to refocus
our search so we can stick
with Arctic countries.
And so to do that, we're going
to go back and we're going
to remove Canada
from our search.
We're going to go back to
participants and add Denmark.
I'm going to add Canada.
And so now we have our
fishing and fisheries.
And we have our participants
of Canada and Denmark.
And if I search that, that
gives me four results.
And there's an important reason
that I am showing this example.
So, let's pull up this agreement
concerning [inaudible] fishing
off the cape and coast.
And you'll notice here that it
gives our typical information.
But it also shows
us which language,
languages it's publishing.
So, we have our English,
and we have our French.
But if you open up
the other option,
we actually have
the Danish text.
And move it up here.
We have the text
available on [inaudible].
So, that's just sort of
one of the added features
that you sometimes get when you
use this particular repository.
So, moving on from the
United Nations once again,
I'm going to look at a
country specific repository.
And this time we're going to
use the Israeli's Ministry
of Foreign Affairs
for the example.
See if it went page
correctly there.
Okay, so from their main
website, if you go down,
you can actually open up their
treaty database right here.
And their treaty database has
several different functions
that kind of show us,
they're pretty similar
to the search functions
that we've seen
in some other examples.
But just as a quick example,
we're going to just
look up the [inaudible].
And we'll see that
it gives us the text,
and then the entry into force.
And then here we have it in
English, Hebrew, and Arabic.
So, again, when we're
doing these bilateral,
especially non U.S. examples,
if you look at their
international database,
or a country specific database
like this, you're going
to get the treaty text in
different languages, which,
depending on if you're doing
the research for yourself
or if you're helping
someone else do the research,
it can sometimes be helpful
to have these resources
available in another language.
So, I did just want to note
that these online resources
that I pointed to,
so the example using the Israeli
treaty database is not the only
online treaty database available
from an individual country.
There's a lot of other
countries that have them.
And if you know which country
you're trying to research,
you can use our guide
to law online nations
to find different ministry or
departmental or agency websites
from non U.S. countries.
And you can check and see
if they have their own
online treaty database.
I also have several examples
using physical resources
that I'm going to present
towards the end of this session.
And these focus more
on old treaties prior
to the UN becoming the
de facto repository.
So, now we've done
a couple examples
of foreign or non U.S. treaties.
Now let's turn to U.S.
bilateral treaties.
And for this, we're going to
go through several examples,
but we're going to start
with the resources available
from the Law Library
of Congress.
So, to get over to the
law library website,
I'll just go to law.gov.
And we're going to look at some
examples using the statutes
at large.
And then we're going to look
at some other examples using
some other treaty compilations.
So, to get there, you
go to collections,
and digital collections,
and then down here
towards the bottom,
we will see the United
States statutes at large.
And also see United
States treaties
and other international
agreements.
So, like I said, our
first example is going
to be using the statutes
at large.
If you look here, the statutes
at large, generally it's
where like public laws are
published, or session laws.
And if you scroll down, you
can see that all treaties
between the United States
and foreign nations from 1789
to 1845 are going to be
hopefully listed at Volume 8.
And you'll also notice that
in Volume 7, it's treaties
between the United
States and Indian tribes.
And I do want to take just
a moment to address treaties
with indigenous tribes.
Native American law is a
really complex area of law,
and it truly warrants
its own presentation.
I just can't do it justice with
the time we have allotted today.
However, you can review treaties
with Native American tribes
from this statutes
at large volume,
and from another collection
called Kappler's Indian Law,
which contains all treaties and
other laws related to tribes.
And just to add a little bit
of context to that, in 1871,
the United States stopped making
formal treaties with the tribes.
But prior to that,
from 1774 until 1832,
non tribal members actually
needed to carry their passport
to cross through tribal lands.
And I've left a link
to Kappler's
and to the law library's
recently published indigenous
law research guide,
which is going
to be an excellent resource
for those of you interested
in treaty practice with tribes
and for general Native
American law.
And I've left those links at the
end of the slide presentation,
so you'll get those
e mailed out to you.
But let's turn back to Volume 8.
And this is really going
to be the best resource
if you are looking at
historical U.S. treaties.
So, for example, if we open up
Volume 8 here, and we have to go
through a couple
steps, so, for example,
this has a table
of contents here.
And we'll notice that this has
the original treaty language
for the peace treaty
with Great Britain
after the Revolutionary War.
And that's right here.
So, this definitive treaty of
peace between the United States
and America and His
Britannic Majesty
who would have been
the king at the time,
and that appears at age 80.
You can also do a
control F search in here.
It is indexed, so you
can search that way.
But I'm just going to
slip down to page 80.
[ Inaudible ]
So, you can see here it's
got the text of the treaty,
but it also has annotations.
So, this is going to
show you case citations,
which could be really helpful
if you're looking into kind
of the historical aspects,
or you need to know maybe
if there's some sort
of precedential case
that could affect treaty
practice in the United States,
or even internationally.
So, again, this is a
really helpful resource,
especially with these
older treaties.
So, moving on, let's get
out of the statues at large.
And now we're going to look at
the United States Treaty Series,
which is this compilation
here from Charles Bevans.
You'll frequently hear this just
simply referred to as Bevans.
So, if you hear Bevans, this
is what they're talking about.
And, again, we got
here from going
to our digital collections page.
And we can see here that we
have several different options
to view Bevans.
You can look at it, you can look
at multilateral treaties
by year.
And then you can look at
bilateral treaties by country.
And then, of course, we
have them indexed here
in [inaudible] 13.
So, we'll go ahead and
get that opened up.
And our index.
So, I'm going to put us
through another treaty
with my ocean theme.
And we're going to
go ahead and look
up Whaling treaties
in this index.
So you can control F this.
And it gives me four results.
But I want to go down a little
bit, and then I'll zoom in.
So, I have some treaties on
Whaling regulations here.
And actually that 1946 treaty is
from the very first
example we looked at.
But also there are some treaties
specific to Whaling ships.
And one of those is with
the Hawaiian Islands.
And you'll see that it
gives us a year of 1849.
And then this is referring
to Volume 8, page 866.
So, from here, we're going to
return back to our main page.
And pull up Volume 8 here
in the bilateral treaties.
And then we can go ahead
and navigate to page 866.
That wasn't quite matching
up with the pagination,
so we'll just slip
down here to 870,
that got me a little closer.
Okay, so here's a treaty
with the Hawaiian Islands,
and that's not the one
they're looking for.
We're actually looking at
this treaty of friendship,
commerce, and navigation.
You'll notice that it
starts at page 864,
but the entry index
was from 866.
So, we'll move down to page 866.
And we'll see here in article
7 that there is a discussion
of whale ships, sorry, and
what this treaty is basically
distinguishing is there are
different rights for whale ships
as opposed to other merchant
vessels when it comes
to using the ports of the
Hawaiian Islands at the time
of this treaty in the 1850s.
And would appear that whale
ships, or whaling ships,
actually had more options
available if they needed
to enter into a port
in Hawaii at the time,
whereas a merchant vessel had
kind of more specific reasons
that it needed to reply in order
to go into those same ports.
So, that's an example
using Bevans.
And I'm going to introduce
another resource now.
And I will take us away
from the whaling example.
So, we're going to switch gears
now and we're going to look
at the Pan American Highway, or
Inner American Highway, which,
of course, is a 19,000 mile
highway from the Arctic Ocean
in Alaska, and it goes all
the way down to the tip
of Patagonia in Argentina.
And for this example, we're
going to, again, look at Bevans.
We're going to look at
United States Treaties
and other International
Agreements, or TIAS.
And I'm also going to introduce
us to the treaties in force,
which is that state department
publication that indexes all
of the international agreements
the U.S. is a part of.
And I'm going to pull
up the recent version,
which is available online.
And just leave it there.
Just go to the state
department website.
We'll just pull it up this way.
And you'll see that there's
the 2020 version available.
And then there's
also a supplement,
which just updates it until
they completely republish the
new version.
But for this example,
we can just stick
with the 2020 version.
So, I'm just going to
jump start our search.
This functions like
any other index.
So, you can see here that
it's organized by country.
But I want to find this
interAmerican highway.
So, we're going to
do our control F.
And this first result, I
believe this is in El Salvador.
And I want the agreement
from Honduras [inaudible].
And this one here
is from Honduras.
I know it says Hungary, but
if you scroll up the page,
it's still the Honduras page.
So, here I wanted to
focus on this example
because the original
treaty was signed in 1942,
which means we're going
to be squarely in Bevans
to find the original
treaty text.
But there was also
an amendment in 1955,
which is when we're going
to look at the TIAS.
And so we now have our two
citations of 8 Bevans 945
and then 6 UST 3763,
or TIAS 3376.
And we can go back to our
law library collections,
and we can see what's going
on with both of these.
So, the first 1942 treaty
is actually in that Volume 8
that we already looked at.
I'll go ahead and
put that back up.
And what we're going to do
is we're just going to go
down to page 945 and actually
[inaudible] a little bit.
So, this is the original
text of the agreement.
It gives us the citation
information.
It also tells us that it's been
amended by a 1955 agreement.
So, we're going to have to
return back to our main page,
and then we'll go to the TIAS,
and we'll find it for 1955.
And here we see that
Volume 6 is in five parts.
We know that we have a
page citation of 3763.
If in doubt, let's
start in the middle,
and let's see what
our page range is.
So, from here, I keep zooming
in, I apologize, we'll just go
down to the table of contents,
we notice that the text
starts at page 2731.
Our citation is to page 3763.
And this is a 1,400
page document.
So, that means we're probably
going to have page 3763 in here.
The pagination, again,
is going to be off.
But I actually had
this one prepared.
So, skip right to it.
And you'll notice here
that the citation to 3376,
which is what we found
over in treaties in force,
this time the Spanish
language version
of the treaty is
presented first.
And then if we scroll down, we
can find the English language.
And what this amendment
was doing,
just to provide some context,
is it was just updating
the highway project
that was originally started
in 1942 because they wanted
to modernize some of the
different dimensions,
or things for the
highway to make sure
that everything was consistent.
So, moving on once
again, we can also look
at modern U.S. treaties
using resources available
from congress.gov.
Congress.gov.
And obviously congress.gov
has all
of the legislative
information you need.
But if you go down here to the
treaties section, I'm just going
to do a blank search
for treaties.
And we're just going to
kind of work through some
of the filtering
options from there.
So, we're going to
look over here.
And you have all these
different filter options.
I like to use the status of
a treaty document options.
And this is hopeful because it
shows us all the different steps
a treaty takes as it makes
its way through the Senate.
So, for this example, let's
just look for treaties
that were approved
by the Senate.
And then if I do
date [inaudible].
So, here we're going to notice
that this is the most
recently act upon treaty.
And it was actually agreed
to by the Senate on July 19th
of this year, which was
exactly two weeks ago.
And you'll also notice that this
was treaty document 115 dash 3.
But there's also all
of these other numbers
that appear kind
of out of order.
And the reason for that is
treaties can actually be carried
over from congressional session
to congressional session.
So, sometimes you
might see numbers
that don't necessarily add up.
In this case, treaty 115 dash
3 was sent to Congress in 2018,
but it was actually acted
upon just this summer.
So, from the page,
we can actually see
helpful information,
like there is an executive
report for this hearing,
so that can be helpful for
your travaux preparatoires.
And then there's also hearing,
but there isn't a hearing
transcript available online
right now.
>> Sorry, Louis, could
you expand again?
>> Louis Myers: Yeah.
How's that?
>> Great.
>> Louis Myers: Okay, sorry.
So, like I said, there's
an executive report here
that's available.
And then if you scroll down, it
says there is a hearing held,
but we don't have a
link to the transcript.
If we backed out, you
can actually find hearing
transcripts if you
click on this,
this little filter instead.
But we are going to move on.
And I do have a couple
of examples using
physical resources
that I wanted to highlight.
And then we're going to briefly
discuss travaux preparatoires,
and then I should have
just a couple minutes left
for questions.
So, we're going to switch
back to a PowerPoint now.
We don't have to worry about
me forgetting to zoom in,
because everything
should be visible now.
So, two important resources
for historical treaties are
the manual of collections
of treaties and of collections
relating to treaties,
a compilation by Dennis Myers.
And that is no relation to me.
Although we seem
to be interested
in the same areas of research.
And this compilation was
published by Harvard University
in 1922, and remained
an important finding aid
until it was [inaudible] in 1955
by the U.S. treaty collections,
which is a United
Nations product.
And that is actually
available in our newspapers
and periodicals reading room.
But the materials that you
find indexed within both
of these are available
in the law library,
so that's what I was
going to show you now.
So, let's look at an example
using these 1922 materials.
You'll notice from the table
of contents that we can search
for treaties organized
under this general collections
heading, or by state.
For this example, I looked
at entries under Liberia.
And you'll see that there
is one entry for Liberia,
and it covers the
years 1848 to 1892.
And I did have this in the
law library collection,
so I pulled it up.
And here's the cover.
And then this is
just an example.
This is a treaty between Liberia
and then what was then known
as the Kingdom of
Sweden and Norway.
So, again, this just
illustrates that concept
that when we do treaty research,
we do have to keep in mind
that countries have
different official names
at different points throughout
history, so you want to be aware
of that when you're
doing your searching.
So, as another example using
this list of treaty collections,
it provides a bibliographic
compilation of materials related
to treaties organized
by subject and country.
The last update was 1955,
but it is incredibly helpful
in researching historical
treaties
and even historical legal
materials generally.
So, I have two examples
in the slides,
but we're just going
to look at one.
But I did want to note that
you can look at collections
by subject matter,
and then by state,
and then they also have this
option for general collections.
And if you notice here, although
this is kind of the successor
to the manual of collection of
treaties, they do have it noted
in their bibliography
as a resource.
And so for the example
I'm going to work through,
we're going to look at
historical Afghani treaties.
Or in this case, these
are treaties that dealt
with what is now Afghanistan.
And we can see that there's
this entry of a 14 volume set.
And I actually pulled
up Volume 10 of this.
That's what the title
page looks like.
And then from there,
I found this treaty
between the Persian government,
and then the Province of heart,
which was a province
in Afghanistan,
and modern Afghanistan.
So, that just gives you
the text of the old treaty.
It's from 1853.
But another kind of
neat little feature
of this was there was a map in
the pocketbook, or in the book
of the pocket, and you'll
see this is an old map
of Afghanistan and Balochistan,
and then over on the left side
of the screen is
actually it's bordered
with what was then Persia.
And this map was from 1891,
so it's kind of helpful,
it provides just some
different context
when you're researching these
older historical treaties.
And sometimes that's something
you're only going to get
in these physical resources.
So, moving on, this was another
example, but we're going to skip
through it for right now.
It's in Australia.
And then I do want to just
mention travaux preparatoires
really quick.
And these are background
documents
that show the drafting
history of treaties.
They are similar to
legislative histories,
relied upon for statutory
interpretation
in U.S. legal research.
They're not always available
for specific treaties.
However, there are certain
strategies researchers can rely
on to identify [inaudible]
documents.
In some instances, a treaty's
accompanying history will have
been compiled and
published either online
or in print format.
The Vienna Convention on the Law
of Treaties, which is a treaty
on treaties, provides that these
documents can be relied upon
when interpreting a treaty
that appears ambiguous.
Travaux preparatoires may
include a variety of materials,
including drafts of a treaty,
negotiations or meeting notes,
and any relevant
legislative reporting.
These are also considered
primary source materials,
as they relate to their treaty.
What I have got here
on the slide is just three
helpful online resources.
There's the audio/visual library
of international law,
which is from the UN.
There's global X, which is a
really excellent comprehensive
FCIL database.
And then Yale has also
done a nice compilation
of collected travaux
preparatoires,
and made it available online.
And so there's also
compilations available in print.
And I did pull the
travaux preparatoires
from the Genocide
Convention, which, of course,
is the convention on the
prevention and punishment
of the crime of genocide.
And it came about in 1951.
So, with it being a
rather significant treaty,
it takes two volumes to cover
all the travaux preparatoires.
I think it's about
2,000 pages combined.
But it's got different
searching aides within it.
So, for example, in the
image I just pulled up,
the complete list of documents
with full titles, which is kind
of an easier way to search
through the materials.
So, with that, I'm going to see
if I can answer a
couple questions here
in the last few minutes.
But if I don't get
to your question,
or if you have any
other questions,
please do submit a
request on ask a librarian,
and I will do my best
to address it that way.
So, I do see a question about
publish treaty collections,
including text as amended,
or must the researcher try
to find amendments, and then see
how they modified early text.
The answer on that
one is it depends.
In certain instances, you'll
see, like in that first example
that we looked at from
the United Nations,
you could see all the
amendments within the text.
So, if it, say as
like a baseline,
if it was amended a while
ago, you'll probably be able
to find the amended text
with the actual treaty.
But if it's been recently
amended, you're probably going
to have to look in
multiple places.
Let's see.
So, I see another question
about U.S. treaties,
which official documents confirm
that the U.S. executive
branch has ratified a treaty.
So, [inaudible] that
treaty's in force volumes
that I showed, you
can look there.
Also, frequently the White House
will, or the president, rather,
will issue a proclamation
statement
when a new treaty has
been entered into,
or when a new agreement
has been entered into.
And so with that, it's now 2:00.
I hope everyone enjoyed
the presentation.
If I didn't get to
your question,
please do submit it online.
And other than that, the webinar
is recorded, so you'll be able
to review the webinar once it's,
the recording has been
finalized and put online.
And the presentation slides will
be e mailed out to everyone.
Thank you.