Conventions and declarations

Striving to uphold the principles set forth in the Charter, the United Nations has adopted numerous declarations and resolutions.

Principles of the United Nations

The aim of the United Nations is to achieve the objectives stated in the Charter. Among these we find

• peace and security
• social and economic development
• respect for human rights
• international law.

To approach these goals, the UN has adopted a number of declarations and resolutions.

Article 102 of the UN Charter states that all treaties entered into force by member states of the United Nations are registered and published by the UN Secretariat.

Declarations

Declarations are not legally binding but carry considerable moral force and serve as a clear indication of the commitments of the international community. Declarations often originate from resolutions adopted by the General Assemby. Some declarations later become conventions.

Conventions

Conventions are binding formal agreements. When a convention is ratified in sufficient numbers, it enters into force and becomes legally binding on the states that have ratified and signed it.

• To sign indicates the preparations for ratification.
• To ratify confirms an agreement to be legally bound by the convention, with legislative changes taking place within a member state to adhere to the agreement at the domestic level. The process between signing and ratification may take several years.
• To accede means that a state accepts to become a party to a convention already negotiated and signed by other states.

• United Nations Treaty Collection. Information regarding the activities of the Treaty Section of the United Nations Office of Legal Affairs including multilateral treaties deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations and those formerly deposited with the League of Nations. Their latest status and a link to the full texts.
  • United Nations Treaty Series (UNTS) is a collection of treaties and international agreements, published since 1946, in accordance with Article 102 of the UN Charter.
  • Multilateral Treaties Deposited with the Secretary-General. All signatures and ratifications are updated annually.
  • An explanatory Glossary of terms relating to Treaty actions. Published by the UN Office of Legal Affairs
  • UN Treaty Collection : Overview.
• Human Rights, Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, International Law. Human rights conventions and declaration with links to full texts and ratification information.
• Human rights conventions, see DagDok: Human Rights Conventions and Declarations.

• UN Charter in Swedish | in English
• UN System Chart
• Yearbook of the United Nations
• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Swedish | in English
• Vienna Declaration and Programme of Action
• Statue of the International Court of Justice

• Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Swedish | in English
• Resolution 217 A (III) / (A/RES/217) adopted by the UN General Assembly in Paris on 10 December 1948 during its 183rd plenary meeting.
• The Core International Human Rights Instruments and their monitoring bodies.
• Universal Human Rights Index - UHRI. Human rights recommendations from all parts of the UN system: the UN Treaty Monitoring Bodies, the Human Rights Council mechanisms Universal Periodic Review and Special Procedures. Each document links to other related information in the database.
• Charter-based Body Database. Documents and reports of the Human Rights Council, its predecessor and their subsidiaries and parent organs. Maintained by OHCHR (Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights). 
• Treaty Body Database. Full text documents from the UN human rights treaty monitoring bodies.
• Yearbook on Human Rights 1946-1988
• OHCHR website for background information, documents and reports.
• Research guides by Dag Hammarskjöld Library:
  • Treaty research. 
  • Human rights documentation

• United Nations Digital Library offers UN documents and open access publications, UN voting data and speeches, UN maps, Content in 6+ languages. Replaces the traditional online catalogue UNBISnet.
• UN iLibrary UN publications online covering different topics.
• ODS full-text UN documents published from 1993 onward and scanned documents published between 1946 and 1993 in the official languages of the UN.
• Daily list of documents (ODS). Documents published for the day, with full text links, can be found in the United Nations full text database ODS.
• UNBIS Thesaurus a multilingual database of the controlled vocabulary used to describe UN documents.
• Index to proceedings is an annual bibliographic guide to the proceedings and documentation of the major UN organs. The index includes:
  • a list of all documents
  • a comprehensive subject index
  • an index to speeches
  • a voting chart of resolutions
• United Nations Documents Index (United Nations Digital Library) References to all documents by subject area are published. A collection of indexes is held by the Dag Hammarskjöld and Law Library, Uppsala, and the Libraries at UN Headquarters in New York and Geneva.