United Nations  Treaty Collection Search Instructions

     Regardless of the option selected, the search is accomplished in 4 steps:

1)  Enter the information you have about the treaty into the search form and press "begin search"; 

2)  Examine the list of retrieved documents that satisfy your search parameters and select the
     specific treaty you are interested in;

3)  View the complete information available for that particular treaty;

4)  View (or print) the full text of the agreement in the relevant language 

The difference between the Basic Search and the Advanced Search is that the later provides for a more detailed search form, allowing you to be more specific about the parameters for the search  
(e.g.title, date of signature/adoption, subject term, registration number, etc.).

Step 1: Filling up the search form (Basic Search)

This type of search is done by entering a key word (or words) that you believe are present in the title of the treaty. If you enter more than one word you can adjust the search to:

Find those words exactly as they are entered (MATCH THIS PHRASE)

Find all the words entered independently of the sequence you entered them (MATCH ALL THESE WORDS)

Find all treaties that have at least one of the words you entered in the title (MATCH ANY OF THESE WORDS)

Click on the button "Search UNTS" and the system will display a list of documents that satisfy your search parameters.

Step 2: Browsing the Search Results list

The number of documents found in the database is identified on the screen along with the internal command used by the system to execute your search. A list of documents is displayed in groups of 25 in each page. If more than 25 are found you can click on the link "NEXT"  to have the next 25 documents listed, or the link "PREVIOUS" to return to a previous group of 25. 

Each entry in the list is assigned a sequential number and it will have a summary of the information available for the treaty such as the names of the participants (or the word MULTILATERAL), the title, place(s) and date(s) of signature or conclusion, entry into force information and other relevant information.

Please note that when you eneter the key word(s) in the relevant search field you are not searching on the full text of  treaties, as this capability is not presently available. The search in these instances is based on the official title of the treaty and on the entire summary information for that treaty.This set up allows you to combine various types of searches, such as the name of a country (for bilateral and closed multilateral agreements only) and a key word search in the title to refine the search further (Example: <France>and< Agriculture>).

Step 3: View the complete information for the treaty selected

On the top of each entry, you can click on the link "ORIGINAL AGREEMENT" and the system will display another page with the complete information available for that specific treaty. On this page you will also find the words "ENGLISH", "FRENCH", "OTHER" in the right upper corner of the page which are links to the complete text of the treaty in the corresponding language. In those rare instances when the text of a treaty is not yet available,a message will be displayed "TEXT NOT AVAILABLE". For the multilateral agreements where the Secretary-General of the United Nations acts as depositary there will also be the link "CHECK CURRENT STATUS", which takes you to the publication "Status of the Multilateral Treaties deposited with the Secretary-General" with the most up-to-date information on all actions recorded for that specific agreement.

Step 4: View (and print) the complete text of the treaty in the selected language

Viewing the text of a treaty:

When you click on the links "ENGLISH", "FRENCH", "OTHER" the system displays the first page of the treaty in the language selected. Most of the time, the first page will have a number, which is the registration number assigned to a treaty by the United Nations, the name of the participants, the title of the agreement, place and date of conclusion, the origjnal languages of the treaty, registering party and date of registration. This information will be in English and French, regardless of the language chosen. The following pages will then be displayed in the selected language. All languages other than English and French are grouped together under the link "OTHER".

The pages are displayed one at a time and the links on top of the page allow you to go to the "NEXT", "PREVIOUS", "FIRST" and "LAST" pages. You can also "ZOOM IN" or "ZOOM OUT" to make the page fit to your screen, if necessary. 

Printing the text of a treaty

If you need to print the entire treaty you should first install the AlternaTiff plug-in. You can then click on the link "DOWNLOAD ALL PAGES", which will start the plug-in and make all pages of the treaty available for printing (or viewing). It is recommended that you use the printing function of the plug-in instead of the browser. You can click on the icon representing a printer in the upper left corner of the document or you can use the right button of the mouse to bring a menu of options (cursor should be over the document). The print function is the first menu option.