Treaties and International Agreements: Citation to Treaty Documents

Bluebook Rule 21.4 gives citation preferences for treaties:

• Bilateral treaties should list one U.S. treaty source.
• Multilateral treaties should list both one U.S. treaty source and one international treaty source.

Table 4 lists sources you can use to cite to treaties in order of preference.

• If the United States is a party:

1. United States Treaties and Other International Agreements (U.S.T.) or Statutes at Large (Stat.) if the treaty was entered into prior to 1950
2. Treaties and Other International Acts Series (T.I.A.S.), otherwise the Treaty Series (T.S.) or Executive Agreement Series (E.A.S.) if published prior to T.I.A.S.
3. Senate Treaty Documents (S. Treaty Doc.) or Senate Executive Documents (S. Exec. Doc.)
4. If none of the above are available, use an unofficial source such as International Legal Materials (I.L.M.) or other compilations.

For multilateral treaties, a parallel citation to a source published by an international organization may be added. For example, the United Nations Treaty Series (U.N.T.S.), the League of Nations Treaty Series (L.N.T.S.), or the Organization of American States Treaty Series (O.A.S.T.S.).

• If the United State is not a party, citations default to a source published by an international organization, such as the U.N.T.S. or L.N.T.S.

With the lag time in publishing the U.S.T., most recent American treaty documents will have to be cited to using the online version of T.I.A.S. from the Department of State website, or to other unofficial sources.