University of Pittsburgh School of Law – Barco Law Library
International Legal Research Class
Fall 2008 Mondays 12:00-12:50 Room 111 contact: tashbook@pitt.edu
Researching International Agreements
“How do you find out whether an international agreement exists and what it says?”
Goals: Learn to use treaty indexes, to identify major information leads within international agreements, and what to do if you’ve heard of an agreement but can’t find it.
Method: Work through various treaty research scenarios to ascertain what kinds of information treaties have (identify dispute resolution method, sets forth responsibilities, organizes major issues, tells how treaty coverage relates to domestic law, presents phrases)
Read segments from the Convention for the protection of cultural property in the event of armed Conflict –The Hague 14 May 1954.
page 1 – reasons for getting countries to agree to this matter — definitions/general obligations
page 2 - train military about significance of cultural property, some property can be sheltered in a place of refuge
page 3 - explanations about preventing attacks on cultural property while it is being transported away from the danger zone.
Page 4 - personnel who are supposed to protect cultural property and who, along with the cultural property, are captured by enemies have to be allowed to continue their duties to protect the cultural property. Also – convention applies during any armed conflict even if one side doesn’t recognize that it’s a war.
Page 5 - execution of the convention. Example: parties may call upon UNESCO for help organizing a system for protecting their cultural property.
Page 6 - sanctions: parties use their own criminal justice systems to prosecute violations of the convention (ie—nobody can argue over jurisdiction). Ratification (define—making treaty a component of national law).
Page 7 - accession: (define—joining into the convention after it has already been in effect; this is the way non signatories become parties to an international agreement.) entry into force (three months after five countries have fully ratified it) denunciation (how to get out of it).
Pages 8-13 - procedural details about labeling cultural property, identifying representatives to attend meetings about the convention, transporting cultural property, etc…
Signatories: When did they sign it? Approximately how many signed? (20-30-ish) How many ratified or acceded to it? (over 100) Did all of them ratify it in 1954? Which years seem to be the earliest for ratification? How many have posted reservations limiting their agreement to certain parts?
Protocol 14 May 1954 separate agreement regarding the deals between owning countries and the countries that hold and shelter the owning countries’ cultural property during hostilities.
Second protocol 26 March 1999 – example: more details about the kinds of crimes that have to be identified as punishable in national codes, detailed explanation of jurisdictional issues, instructions regarding prosecutions…
—— How to find treaties. First show the treaty flow chart. http://www.law.pitt.edu/library/International/treatyguide The flow chart shows treaty resources from the Senate, the State Department, the UN, the Library of Congress, Hein Online, and EISIL.
Then, go through online scavenger hunt using planted questions (citation, country name, subject, date).
Recently enacted multilateral treaty:
Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities December 2006. Can you get it directly from the UN? (UN treaty page—don’t go to treaty service or status of treaties on deposit, roll down to recently deposited treaties.)
When and what was the most recent Senate treaty action on The Singapore Treaty on the Law of Trademarks? (Senate Treaty Actions)
What is the treaty cited as TIAS 12522? (Hein Online)
What is the treaty cited as KAV 8007? (Hein Online)
The US and India currently have one active bilateral treaty with each other on the topic of meteorology. What is it called? (TIF)
