The Treaty Section of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs is responsible for two key areas of work:
The Treaty Section also provides training and legal technical assistance in its areas of work and produces a range of publications to facilitate effective engagement by all States in the international treaty framework.
The United Nations Treaty Collection (UNTC) is a global portal providing on-line access to comprehensive information relating to the work of the Treaty Section. The Collection is divided into the following key sections:
This section provides authoritative information relating to the depositary functions of the Secretary-General in respect of over 560 multilateral treaties.
The Status of Treaties page within this section allows users to access authoritative and up-to-date information on the status of each of the treaties deposited with the Secretary-General, including:
Users may also access all depositary notifications issued by the Secretary-General in relation to those treaties on the Depositary Notifications page and can sign up to automatically receive such notifications on the Automated Subscription Services page.
Additionally, specific pages provide access to Certified True Copies of each treaty deposited with the Secretary-General, photos of treaty ceremonies and model instruments that may be used by Member States when completing actions in relation to those treaties.
This section also provides access to information on treaties deposited with the League of Nations.
This section provides information relating to the registration and publication of treaties in accordance with article 102 of the Charter of the United Nations.
On the United Nations Treaty Series Online page, users can access information on the more than 250,000 treaties or treaty actions that have been registered and published by the Secretariat. This database includes the texts of treaties in their authentic language(s), along with translations into English or French.
In this section users can also access the Monthly Statements produced by the Treaty Section detailing the treaties registered each month, registration and publication checklists and technical guidelines to be used by Member States when submitting treaties for registration and a description of the partial publication and limited publication policy applicable to some treaties.
Through the League of Nations Treaty Series users can also access those treaties registered in accordance with article 18 of the Covenant of the League of Nations.
This section contains publications and documents prepared by the Treaty Section aimed at providing guidance and information to users with regard to participation in multilateral treaties, the drafting of treaties, the depositary practice of the Secretary-General, and the registration of treaties.
In this section users can access information on both the training and legal technical assistance activities of the Treaty Section.
This section provides information on both the annual and special Treaty Events organised by the Treaty Section. Such events are intended to facilitate the participation of Member States in the multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-General.