1. Human Rights Law Resources
Kate Jackson, Michaelmas term 2015

2. What are we going to cover?
• Getting Started
– General Sources
– Journal indexes
– Others (theses, dissertations, research papers)
• Primary sources
– United Nations
– Law reports
• Searching by region
• Keeping up to date BUT …..

3. We can skip/add things

4. General Sources of help
• Research guides
• Libguide on Human right law
• Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Law
• Oxford Reports on International Law

5. Journal indexes
• Social Science Citation Index (via Oxlip+)
• Westlaw International (via Westlaw UK)
• Google Scholar @ http://scholar.google.com

6. Other sources
• ProQuest Theses and Dissertations for Social
Sciences and Humanities (via Oxlip+)
• SSRN – Social Science Research Network (via
Oxlip+)

7. Primary Sources
Unless you know a good database/source that is
easy to search then always start off with the
institution that created it…….
Image by Eugene
Regis

8. United Nations
• Huge organisation
• Lots of different bodies
– Treaty based bodies
– Charter based bodies
• Good starting point for thematic
research
• Good research guides

9. Finding UN Materials
• Official Document System
• UNBISnet
• UNI-QUE
• HeinOnline
• Research Guides
– UN Documentation guide
– Oxford Libguide on UN materials

10. Finding Law Reports
• Website of relevant court BUT….
• There are general collections
– Oxford Reports on International Law
– Westlaw
– Worldlii
– Interights

11. Finding materials by region or country
• UN list by country
• Universal Human Rights Index Database
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/Pages/U
niversalHumanRightsIndexDatabase.aspx
• Human Rights Watch
• Amnesty International
• Red Cross

12. Europe
• Treaties and Basic Documents:
– Council of Europe website
– European Court of Human Rights main page
• Case Law
– ECHR – case law database – HUDOC
– Databases such as Westlaw (for the EHRR reports),
Justis and Oxford Reports of International Law
– Free resources - Worldlii

13. Inter-American
• Treaties and Basic Documents
– Organisation of American States
– The Inter-American Court - main website
• Case Law
– The Inter-American Court – under jurisprudence

14. Africa
• Basic Documents and Treaties
– The African Commission of Human and Peoples'
Rights
– African Court of Human Rights
• Case Law
– African Court of Human Rights - case law section
– Human Rights Case Analyser

15. Keeping up to date
• RSS feeds
• Table of Content Services
• Alerts (legal databases)

16. Any Questions?