Dag Hammarskjöld Library at Uppsala University
International Tribunals
- © United Nations
In recent times, the Security Council has been focusing more often on the issue of protecting civilians in armed conflict.
The serious violations of international humanitarian law in the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda caused the Security Council to establish two international tribunals with the aim of prosecuting persons responsible for such violations.
The tribunals are subsidiary organs of the Security Council within the terms of article 29 of the UN Charter. As such they are dependent on the UN in administrative and financial matters, although as judicial institutions they are independent of any State or group of States, including the Security Council.
Documentation
Report on the Security Council action protecting human rights and civilians in armed conflict is published in the annual report to the General Assembly in the series Official Records of the General Assembly. Supplement no. 2, Report of the Security Council. A complete collection of supplements in print is held by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, Uppsala, and the Libraries at UN Headquarters in New York and Geneva. The supplements for recent years are posted on the UN Official Web Site, section Documents, General Assembly, Session Documents.
The major documents dealing with the work of the Tribunals are posted on their official web sites:
International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia (ICTY), and International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda (ICTR). There you can find information about mandates, basic legal documents, cases and judgements, reports and publications.
An annual survey of the work of the Tribunals is published in the Yearbook of the United Nations.
Since October 2008 the complete full text collection of The United Nations Yearbooks is available
online at http://unyearbook.un.org/.
Databases and Indexes
Full text documents from the Tribunals can be retrieved through the United Nations Official Document System - ODS.
References to documents from the Tribunals with links to full texts are accessed through the UN Library catalogue - UNBISnet.
Printed Indexes
References to all documents from the Tribunals are published in the United Nations Documents Index. A complete collection of indexes is held by the Dag Hammarskjöld Library, Uppsala, and the Libraries at UN Headquarters in
New York and Geneva.