The United Nations Charter was signed on June 26, 1945, and became effective on October 24, 1945. The Charter serves as a sort of "Constitution" for the United Nations, describing the UN's structure and explaining the functions of its principal organs. There are six principal organs in the UN: the Security Council, the General Assembly, the Economic and Social Council, the Secretariat, the International Court of Justice, and the Trusteeship Council. As seen in the chart below, however, there are many bodies within some of the main organs. The UN publishes huge volumes of documents each year.
The UN produces many types of documents, including:
For background information on the United Nations, there are several helpful resources.
Encyclopedia of the United Nations and International Agreements
Nearly 6,000 articles explain essential concepts and philosophies, the role of the U.N. in international law and finance, the missions and accomplishments of non-governmental organizations [NGOs], and the galaxy of committees that work within this massive institution. In the newer edition (2003), readers will find an all-new set of entries on peace-keeping activities, and full coverage of every international treaty since the founding of the League of Nations, with generous quotations or full text for all key treaties, conventions, pacts, protocols, and declarations. The law library has the 1985 edition of the work (KZ4968 .O86 1985).
ASIL's Electronic Resource Guide on the United Nations
A very thorough research guide on finding different types of UN documents
UN Research Guide
The UN's Dag Hammarskjold Library has excellent research guides, which you can search (1) by subject area or (2) by body of the United Nations, which tells you where to find that body's documents.
Yearbook of the United Nations
The Yearbook of the United Nations is the authoritative reference text on the activities of the United Nations for each year. You can browse or search the yearbooks for every volume.
There are several ways to search for United Nations documents, all starting from the UN Documents homepage:
By Citation:
Most United Nations documents have an official document symbol, a unique identifier that the researcher can search by. Simply enter your document symbol (ex. A/63/100) in the "Search by symbol" box on the UN documents page.
The Official Document System allows researcher to conduct a keyword search to locate UN documents. On the results page, researchers can filter by results using subject, date, or UN body.
UN-I-QUE (United Nations Info Quest) is another keyword search tool. UN-I-QUE focuses on recurring documents and publications, such as annual reports of committee, major conference reports, etc.
UNBISnet, the United Nations Bibliographic Information System, is a catalogue of UN documents and publications indexed by the UN Dag Hammarskjold Library and the Library of the UN Office at Geneva. Users can keyword search, and can also search for voting records for resolutions before the General Assembly and Security Council, as well as speeches made to the General Assembly, Security Council, the Economic and Social Council, and the Trusteeship Council.
Documents by Body of the UN:
From the main UN documents page, researchers can search for documents from a particular body. For example, researchers can search or browse General Assembly resolutions or Security Council meeting records.
Documents by Member State
Researchers can search for documents reflecting the view of United Nations member states from UN Member States on the Record. Each country page includes links to documents of speeches made before bodies of the UN by the country delegate, as well as draft resolutions sponsored, and reports concerning the country with regard to various human rights conventions.