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Government Documents: HIST 296: Genocide and Modern Slavery: United Nations Resources

Guide created for Yuma Totani's HIST 296 course, Genocide and Modern Slavery

Introduction to the UN and Intergovernmental Organizations

The UN system includes the main bodies of the United Nations as well as other agencies like the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), the World Bank, UNESCO, and other agencies which work with specific communities for humanitarian causes.

The UN and its IGOs produce resolutions, reports, meeting records, letters, articles and more related to research topics such as international tribunals, human rights violations, genocide, or trafficking in geographical areas of interest such as Rwanda or Yugoslavia.

United Nations Research

UN Official Document System (ODS) search screenshot

ODS features comprehensive, though not complete, coverage of all types of publicly-available UN documentation, including:

  • Resolutions going back to 1946 (Security Council, General Assembly, Economic and Social Council and Trusteeship Council)
  • Selected Security Council and General Assembly documents going back to 1985
  • Meeting Records 
  • Reports
  • Letters
  • Daily Journals and Bulletins
  • Administrative Issuances
  • Administrative Tribunal Judgments.

In the ODS search screen, type your search terms into the "Full-text search" box, such as "Guantanamo Bay," as pictured below. 

You can also specify the language of documents you're searching for, and the type of full-text search you want to run (find any of the words, find all of the words, etc.).

When your search results come up, you can see

  • the UN session or year that the document comes from
  • the date it was published
  • and the related subjects.

UN Digital Library Homepage screenshot

Advanced search screenshot

Screenshot of UN iLibrary advanced search screen

Human Trafficking

Genocide

Human Rights

Rwanda

Yugoslavia

Intergovernmental Organizations Research

These resources are helpful to your research when you want to gain an international perspective. IGOs include organizations such as the UN, NATO, the World Bank, and the European Union (EU).

  • The IGO Custom Search Engine searches across hundreds of IGO websites, enabling users to research topics such as active IGOs working on treaties on human trafficking, or genocide prevention, among many other topics. It provides a way to search the websites of IGOs related to human rights, trafficking, genocide, and related issues.
  • Some of them include:

  • Audiovisual Library of International Law 

  • International Committee of the Red Cross

  • International Court of Justice

  • International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda

  • International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (UN)

  • International Labour Organization

  • Inter-Governmental Consultations on Asylum, Refugee and Migration Policy

  • Association of Southeast Asian States

  • United Nations organizations. 

  • These websites provide access to primary sources such as recordings and treaties, and secondary sources such as articles and reports.

  • SEARCH TIP: Use Boolean operators such as AND & OR, all capitals, and quotation marks around phrases to find more specific results.
    • For example, search for genocide AND Rwanda, or "human trafficking" OR "sexual slavery" AND Japan.

Screenshot of boolean search in IGO search engine

Growing list of IGOs that Google's IGO engine searches through.