The general form for citing constitutive documents of the United Nations is as follows:

Eg Charter of the United Nations, art 27.

Cite resolutions and decisions of the General Assembly, Security Council, Economic and Social Council and Trusteeship Council according to this rule.

Eg Universal Declaration of Human Rights GA Res 217A (1948), art 2.

Eg Resolution on the Definition of Aggression GA Res 3314 (1974).

Eg SC Res 2397 (2017), preamble.

(a) Title

Give the title in italics. Security Council resolutions generally do not have official titles in which case do not include a title.

(b) Resolution number

Give the resolution number. If a session number is given (found in roman numerals after the resolution number), do not include this.

Use the following abbreviations: “GA Res” for General Assembly resolutions; “SC Res” for Security Council resolutions; “ESC Res” for Economic and Social Council resolutions; and “T Res” for Trusteeship Council resolutions.

Eg Strengthening of the United Nations system GA Res 51/241 (1997).

Eg Mainstreaming a gender perspective into all policies and programmes in the United Nations system ESC Res 2016/2 (2016).

(c) Year

Include the year of the document within round brackets at the end of the citation.

(d) Pinpoint reference

Include any pinpoint reference after the year.

In general, it is sufficient to cite other United Nations materials using the United Nations document number.

Early United Nations materials, however, do not have document numbers. When citing such material, include the session number.

Eg Report of the Economic and Social Council for 2005 UN Doc A/60/3
(15 August 2005) at 5.

(a) Author and title

Include the author’s name if given. Give the title in italics.

Eg Fatma Zohra Ksentini Report of the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights and the Environment UN Doc E/CN.4/Sub.2/1994/9 (6 July 1994).

(b) Session number

If the document does not have a United Nations document number, give the session number.

Give the session number in Roman numerals after the title followed by a comma. If the document is from a special session, indicate this by putting “S-” before the session number.

(c) United Nations document number

If available, give the United Nations document number exactly as it appears on the document (including slashes and full stops). Preface the number with “UN Doc”.

(d) Date

Include the full date of the document within round brackets at the end of the citation.

(e) Pinpoint reference

Include any pinpoint reference after the year.

Cite material in the Yearbook of the International Law Commission (YILC) in this way:

Eg 2269th Meeting – International liability for injurious consequences arising out of acts prohibited by international law [1992] vol 1 YILC 97 at [42].

Eg Diplomatic Protection – First report on diplomatic protection, by Mr John R Dugard, Special Rapporteur [2000] vol 2, pt 1 YILC 205 at [31].

Eg Report of the International Law Commission on the work of its fifty-fourth session [2002] vol 2, pt 2 YILC 1.

(a) Document title

Give the title of the document in italics with spelling and capitalisation as it appears on the title page of the book (unless the original is in all capitals, in which case capitalise only the first letter of significant words). A subtitle may be preceded by a colon if it is not preceded by any punctuation mark on the title page. Remove any unnecessary punctuation from the title.

(b) Year

Give the year of the yearbook in square brackets.

(c) Volume number

Give the volume of the yearbook. As the yearbook is divided into both volumes and parts, indicate that the number is a volume number by putting “vol” before it.

Note that volume 1 contains a summary of the International Law Commission’s meetings and volume 2 contains reports to the General Assembly.

(d) Part

If the volume being cited is divided into parts, write “pt” and then give the part number. Separate the volume and part numbers with a comma.

(e) Page number

Give the page number on which the document being cited begins.

(f) Pinpoint reference