Treaties exist between many nations on many subjects. From mutual defense to copyright to exchanging meteorological data, chances are there is at least one treaty between at least two nations on almost any subject you can think of. This week's Guide of the Week will help you navigate this crowded field:

Treaty Research: Sources and Tips (Debbi Schaubman, Michigan State University, 1999) Last updated 10/27/2006 by Terri Miller.

This guide aims to be a starting point for the most important sources to treaty finding. It is divided into five sections:

• General Bibliographies and Indexes: World Coverage
• General Bibliographies and Indexes: Regional/National Coverage
• Treaty Texts
• Treaties between Native Americans and the United States or Canada
• Tips for Tracking Recent Treaties and Treaty Actions

Some of the resources include:

• Treaties and Alliances of the World
• Canado-American Treaties
• United States Treaties and Other International Agreements
• Avalon Project: Treaties between the U.S. and Native Americans
• Texts of Recently Deposited Multilateral Treaties

In addition to Terri's guide, there are currently at least six other guides on international treaties. Explore them all at http://wikis.ala.org/godort/index.php/Exchange_Subject_T#Treaties.

On 1 July 1968, the United States, the United Kingdom, the former Soviet Union, and over 50 other countries signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), one of the most significant multilateral arms control achievements of the nuclear age. Today, 187 countries have joined the treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is entrusted with the key role as the international safeguards inspectorate.

To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the signing of the Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), the National Security Archive has opened up the nuclear vault and published their briefing book, "The Impulse towards a Safer World", a thorough and intriguing history of "one of the most significant multilateral arms control achievements of the nuclear age" along with declassified U.S. government documents on the process of negotiations. The documents highlight...

...the dialogue between and among U.S. officials (negotiators, diplomats, and policymakers) and representatives of Asian-Pacific, European, and Latin American governments, these documents highlight the range of problems that made the U.S., the Soviet Union, and other governments want to negotiate an NPT, but also which it so difficult to negotiate and to win unanimous adherence to the nonproliferation system.

Cross-posted from LegalResearchPlus.com
(written by our newest teammate, Sergio Stone. Sergio is Stanford's first Foreign, Comparative and International Law Librarian.)

U.S. international agreements on Dept. of State’s Case Act Databases

An often overlooked free source for recent U.S. treaties and other international agreements is the Department of State’s Reporting International Agreements to Congress under Case Act database.

Selected bilateral and multilateral agreements in full-text are available from 1982 through 2008. Unfortunately, the site does not include a keyword search function. The database consists of agreements submitted to Congress by the Dept. of State as required by the Case-Zablocki Act, P.L. 92-403, 86 Stat. 619, 1 U.S.C. 112b. (1972). The agreements appear on this site before they are published in the official compilations of Treaties and Other International Acts Series (T.I.A.S.) and United States Treaties and Other International Agreements (U.S.T.).

Agreements from 2006 through 2008 are available here.

Agreements from 1982 through 2006 are located at the Department of State’s FOIA site.

Here's some great news for those of you who have not heard: the UN Treaty Series Collection online can now be accessed without subscription! That's right ... "Every treaty and every international agreement entered into by any Member of the United Nations" is now available for free.

The United Nations Treaty Series is a collection of treaties and international agreements that have been registered (or filed and recorded) with and published by the Secretariat of the United Nations since 1946, pursuant 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.

The collection currently contains over 158,000 treaties and related subsequent actions which have been published in hard copy in over 2,200 volumes. Currently, the UNTS is being enhanced to include the latest desktop published volumes.