In recent decades, international organizations, meaning both intergovernmental organizations (IGOs) and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs), have developed into important players in the international legal community. Your research problem may center on one of these organizations, or you may need a document produced by one of them. Therefore, locating information that concerns them and finding their documentation is a necessary skill for one working in the area of international legal research. The United Nations (UN) and the European Union (EU) are two international bodies that exert an enormous amount of influence in the world and issue an impressive amount of information, they are also two primary examples of IGOs. The below section will primarily focus on conducting research on the UN and EU.
The specialized agencies of the UN serve to coordinate world wide activities in specific subject areas.
Virtually all of the UN related IGOs have a website. The UN maintains a central site linking to all UN affiliated groups. You can search through UN resources through the Dag Hammarskjöld Library research guides.
Examples of current IGO websites include:
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