Oxford LibGuides: United Nations: Starting your search and links to resources

Useful resources

Exhaustive list of UN resources/search tools/databases
UNdata
A single entry point for the statistical resources of the UN System.
UN Homepage
A wealth of information on the UN and its various sub-organizations, and links to their respective homepages. Most pages have documents or publications links that you can use to see the documents that each agency puts out.
United Nations Human Rights Treaties
(via bayefsky.com)
User friendly free access to the Human Rights Treaties
UN Member States on the Record
Provides direct access to official documents reflecting the views of the United Nations member states.
UN Treaty Collection
Collection of treaties and international agreements registered or filed and recorded with and published by the Secretariat since 1946, persuant to Article 102 of the Charter. The UNTS includes the texts of treaties in their authentic language(s), along with translations into English and French, as appropriate.
more...less...
The collection currently contains over 40,000 treaties and a similar number of related subsequent actions which have been published in hard copy in over 1,900 volumes. The treaty reference information made available for the UNTS at this site corresponds to treaties and subsequent actions registered up to April 1998. The complete text of treaties corresponds to treaties and subsequent actions registered approximately up to February 1998. Currently, the UNTS is being expanded at the rate of over 100 new volumes per year
Yearbook of the United Nations
The Yearbook is the principal reference work of the United Nations and provides a detailed overview of the Organization's activities. Each Yearbook is fully indexed and includes all major General Assembly, Security Council and Economic and Social Council resolutions. The website allows cross searching of all volumes form 1946-2005 enabling trends in UN history to be traced.

Starting your search

At the beginning of your research?

The Yearbook of the United Nations is a good starting point for information on a particular topic. The Yearbook stands as the authoritative reference work on the activities and concerns of the Organization.
Research guides: The United Nations has produced a large range of research guides to guide you in your research, topics include: human rights, international law, UN resources and climate change.
UN Documentation an overview Advice on searching for the different types of records generated by the UN to include: meeting records, letters, resolutions and decisions, documents and press releases.

United Nations documentation resources and tools

United Nations Digital Library includes UN documents, voting data, speeches, maps, and open access publications. The platform provides access to UN-produced materials in digital format and bibliographic records for print UN documents starting in 1979. System features include linked data between related documentation such as resolutions, meeting records and voting, and refining of searches by UN body, agency or type of document.

ODS Search Official Documents of the United Nations: 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.
Sales Publications The United Nations produces many reports that are released as sales publications, these are catalogued and made available via SOLO. The latest sales publications are listed on the United Nations publications website

(Please note the UNBISNET and UN-I-QUE search tools have now been retired and replaced with the United Nations Digital Library)

UN News Centre

You can select RSS news feeds by subject or region.