Principle judicial organ of the UN, 1945-present. The Peace Palace Library has a good research guide on the ICJ.

Judicial arm of the League of Nations, predecessor of the ICJ, 1922-1946.

The first permanent intergovernmental organization establishing a dispute resolution mechanism for states using arbitration and other peaceful means. Created by the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of Disputes, which came out of the 1899 Hague Peace Conference, it is still a valuable forum for dispute resolution. Its case search tool is quite useful. The Peace Palace Library has a good research guide on the PCA.

The judicial body created by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS III, 1982).

Established in 1923, the ICC-ICA is one of the primary international arbitration institutions.

The World Bank's international investment dispute resolution mechanism, with a searchable database of ICSID Panels.

Useful source for information on international arbitration in the London Court of Arbitration, one of the leading international arbitral venues. Includes a database of arbitrator challenge decisions.

Portal for international arbitration information based in Paris, one of the leading international arbitration venues. Contains French arbitration law and rules, translated into many languages.

Originally created under the auspices of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), a 1994 reform created the International Council of Arbitration for Sport (ICAS) to govern an expanded, two-tier (ordinary & appellate) dispute resolution mechanism.

Great search tool for researching international investment disputes.

Search and browse the RIAA, the UN's collection of reports of international arbitration (between states only).

Intellectual property dispute resolution through WIPO includes Alternative Dispute Resolution (WIPO-ADR) and Domain Name Dispute Resolution.

Browse & search WTO disputes, access statistics, and more.

Your one-stop shop for researching international criminal law.

The ICC website.

ICC statute commentary & much more.

Via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a collection of the working papers for the drafting of the ICC Statute.

Documents from the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court are available in the searchable interface at documents.un.org (the search portal for the Official Documents of the UN website). just enter PCNICC/ in the Symbol search box. You can search full-text within those documents by using the Full-text search box.

This is an online version of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) study on customary international humanitarian law, originally published in print in 2005. The 2005 study consists of two volumes: volume I (rules) and volume II (practice). The database makes the rules and the practice underlying them accessible online. Its practice part is regularly updated. The rules remain the same as in 2005.

From the Geneva Academy of International Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, this systematically qualifies situations of armed violence using the definition of armed conflict under international humanitarian law. RULAC also identifies the parties to these conflicts and applicable international law.

Very comprehensive, including historical cases.

The Mechanism was created after the sunsetting of the two ICTs (ICTY & ICTR) and is mandated to perform a number of essential functions previously carried out by them.

The archived website of the ICTY, now hosted by UNMICT.

The archived website of the ICTR, now hosted by UNMICT.

ICTY Court Records database (requires free registration). There is a problem with their https certificate that causes a security error, but it is the real site.

An interactive tool designed by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network to provide an overview of court rulings on the crimes that were committed during the wars in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s

This hybrid national/international court was established to adjudicate alleged crimes by the Khmer Rouge. [Note: This website is down often.]

The Residual Special Court for Sierra Leone (the old website of the Special Court for Sierra Leone has been taken off-line). The included RSCSL Court Records Database is quite useful.

The official website for these panels is no longer up, but there is an archive of the indictments and judgments. Regulation 2000/15, the "statute" of the tribunal, is no longer officially available, but we have a copy of it here: UNTAET/REG/2000/15 (PDF). The International Center for Transitional Justice has a good retrospective report that analyses the panels, their process, and their results (PDF).

Special Tribunal for Lebanon finished its mandate on 31 December 2023. Their website is no longer functioning, and there does not appear to be a residual mechanism or archive as of June 2024. The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine does have an archived version. Historical documents are also available on the UN archive.

Note: The original website is long gone. This version is via the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

The ICTY referred some cases here.

They took over prosecution for referred cases from the ICTY.

From this UN Mission, links to the Official Gazette, UN Secretary-General Reports, & key documents are available.

From the Library of Congress, links to the official reports.

From Yale's Avalon Project, links to the judgments and official reports.

From Stanford University, This archival collection provides access to a digital version of Nuremberg IMT courtroom proceedings and documentation, including evidentiary films, full audio recordings of the proceedings, and approximately 250,000 pages of digitized paper documents. These documents include transcripts of the hearings in English, French, German and Russian; written pleadings; evidence exhibits filed by the prosecution and the defense; documents of the Committee for the Investigation and Prosecution of Major War Criminals; the judgment. All 9,920 collection items are searchable and viewable in digital form.

Search Harvard's Nuremberg Military Tribunal documents (US zonal war crimes trials in Nuremberg, not yet complete)

From the University of Virginia, an archive of materials from the IMTFE. This collaborative archive includes digitized IMTFE materials from collections at the University of Virginia Law Library and the Virginia Historical Society listed below. These roughly 7,000 documents consist of personal papers from members of the prosecution and defense sections, official IMTFE records, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other related trial materials. Please note that there is a problem with their https certificate that causes a security error, but it is the real site. From other collections (not a part of the UVa archive), the Charter and the Judgment are also available.

This portal features comprehensive case summaries of these war crimes trials and links to relevant archival materials hosted by other websites.

A good overview of the UN Human Rights System, with explanations and links.

Description of the UN Human Rights Treaty Bodies.

Search this database for cases (called "jurisprudence" in the UN system), reports, etc., from the UN HR Treaty Bodies.

The UHRI allows you to explore over 230.000 observations and recommendations made by the international human rights protection system, including the Treaty Bodies, the UN Human Rights Council's Universal Periodic Review and
Special Procedures. You can search by country, mechanism, human rights subject theme, or concerned persons/groups.

Before the official UN websites were really useful for research on the work of the Treaty Bodies, bayefsky.com was the best, and only, way to go. It was a joint effort of the UN OHCHR and Professor A.F. Bayefsky of York University in Toronto, supported by grants from the Ford Foundation and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. It has not been updated since 2011, but still remains useful as a historical resource.

From the University of Virginia Law Library, this is a fully-searchable archive of the travaux of the UN human rights treaties.

(in existence, but will be merged into the African Court of Justice & Human & Peoples' Rights)

Not yet established nor is the statute in force, this merged court will begin 30 days after the deposit of the 15th member state ratification. As of the last update in January 2019, 15 countries had signed the protocol, but none had yet ratified nor deposited ratification. (link to PDF showing signature/ratification/deposit).

The judicial branch of the European Union, the CJEU reviews the legality of the acts of the institutions of the European Union, ensures that the member states comply with obligations under the treaties, and interprets European Union law at the request of the national courts and tribunals.

The European Union's external auditor is not actually a court, but is included here as an internal investigatory body of the EU.

The judicial body enforcing the European Convention on Human Rights, it is an organ of the Council of Europe (not the European Union). Its primary research tool, the HUDOC case-law database, includes all judgments, decisions, opinions, reports, etc., of the ECHR and its predecessor, the European Commission of Human Rights.

The court for adjudicating disputes between the European Free Trade Association states that are a part of the European Economic Area (Iceland, Liechtenstein, & Norway). The remaining EFTA state, Switzerland, is not a member of the EEA. The EFTA Court's jurisdiction over these 3 states roughly corresponds to the CJEU's jurisdiction over the EU member states.

The FRA Case-law Database provides a compilation of Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) and European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) case law with direct references to the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union.

The IACHR is a principal and autonomous organ of the Organization of American States (“OAS”) whose mission is to promote and protect human rights in the American hemisphere. The reports & decisions of the IACHR can be found at the IACHR Decision Archive. Loyola (LA) has a great database with an article-by-article list of American Convention violation cases (both IACHR & IACtHR), with links to great case summaries and other information about each case: Violations Against The Inter-American Convention On Human Rights.

The IACtHR is an autonomous legal institution whose objective is to interpret and apply the American Convention on Human Rights. Their case-law may be found using their Jurisprudence Finder. As mentioned above in the IACHR entry, Loyola (LA) has a great database with an article-by-article list of American Convention violation cases (both IACHR & IACtHR), with links to great case summaries and other information about each case: Violations Against The Inter-American Convention On Human Rights. For just the Court, there are also 2 Spanish-language treatises available for free:

• Anotada y concordada con la Jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos: This is a Spanish-language treatise (PDF) that digests the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights by IACHR article.


• Análisis de la Jurisprudencia de la Corte Interamericana de Derechos Humanos en Materia de Integridad Personal y Privación de Libertad: This is a Spanish-language treatise (PDF) that digests the case law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights on IACHR articles 5 & 7.

Their advanced case search is very useful.

Dispute resolution under the United States—Mexico—Canada Agreement (USMCA), formerly the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) & US Canadian Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA)

Provides information on the CIS Economic Court, the Central American Court of Justice, the PCIJ, International Commissions of Inquiry, and the International Prize Court. This also now offers a mechanism to search the case law of a large number of international tribunals, although I have not tested its accuracy.

Overview and explanation of the UN Internal Justice System.

An independent office, based in New York, responsible for the overall coordination of the formal components of the UN’s internal justice system.

Established in 2009 to provide legal advice and representation to United Nations staff members (and former staff or affected dependents) who wish to appeal an adverse administrative decision, or who are subject to disciplinary action.

The “first instance tribunal” of the UN’s internal justice system, is the tribunal UN system staff members apply to when they decide to challenge an administrative decision made by an entity over which the UNDT has jurisdiction.

The second level appellate review tribunal within the internal justice system, UNAT reviews, within its specific jurisdiction, appeals against judgments rendered by the UN Dispute Tribunal, the Dispute Tribunal of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), as well as appeals of decisions taken by the Standing Committee acting on behalf of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Board (UNJSPB), and by those organizations, agencies and entities that accepted UNAT’s jurisdiction.he second level appellate review tribunal within the internal justice system, UNAT reviews, within its specific jurisdiction, appeals against judgments rendered by the UN Dispute Tribunal, the Dispute Tribunal of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), as well as appeals of decisions taken by the Standing Committee acting on behalf of the United Nations Joint Staff Pension Board (UNJSPB), and by those organizations, agencies and entities that accepted UNAT’s jurisdiction.