The just-released Treaties in Force 2009 publication by the U.S. Department of State will tell you what bilateral and mulitlateral treaties to which the United States is a party are currently in force.  This is an annual publication also available in print and on HeinOnline (subscription database available to Yale community only).

Treaty research can be complicated so there are plenty of research guides and databases to help with your research.  You will find them on our Foreign and International Research Resources page.

The Institute of Advanced Legal Studies has released a new easy-to-use treaty index: FIT, the Flare Index to Treaties.

FIT is searchable by any one or a combination of the following:

• keywords drawn from the official, popular and alternative titles which have been used for each treaty
• additional keywords relevant to the subject matter or organisations associated with the treaty
• the date on which the treaty was concluded
• the place where the treaty was concluded

For example, a free-text search for "genocide" will redirect you to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.  When you click on the Convention, you'll discover that the treaty was concluded on 9/12/1958 in New York, and is published at 78 UNTS 277 (and many other places).  There are also several links that will take you to the full-text of the convention.

For more resources related to treaty research, including a drafting history (travaux preparatoires) research guide and an annotated list of databases, see the Yale Foreign and International Resources page.

 The Library of Congress has launched a series of multinational, comparative legal studies on the rights of children.  

"Children’s Rights examines sixteen nations, across five continents: Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Israel, Japan, Lebanon, Mexico, Nicaragua, Russia, and the United Kingdom (England and Wales). For each nation, the study focuses on the domestic laws and policies that affect child health and social welfare, education and special needs, child labor and exploitation, sale and trafficking of children, and juvenile justice. Children’s Rights also lists which pertinent international treaties the nation has ratified and implemented."

The reports, as well as an overview (providing a summary of relevant global and regional legal instruments, including human-rights related instruments and international agreements on child protection and placement), are available in both html and pdf format, with footnotes and hyperlinks.  The overview and the country reports, as they become available, can be accessed from the project's main page.

Two new congressional publications of interest to to those researching in treaties and international agreements:

1. Senate print (S. prt. 106-71) "Treaties and other international agreements: the role of the U.S.Senate" .

2. CRS Report (RL 33865/2008) "Arms Control and Nonproliferation: a Catalog of Treaties and agreements"

Source: [Int-Law] listserv