Have a question? Need assistance? Use our online form to ask a librarian for help.
Background documents showing the drafting history of treaties are known as travaux préparatoires. These documents are similar to legislative histories relied upon for statutory interpretation in U.S. legal research. Travaux préparatoires are not always available for specific treaties, however there are certain strategies researchers can rely on to identify and locate these documents. In some instances, a treaty's accompanying history will have been compiled and published either online or in print format. When these compilations are not available, researchers may need to turn to secondary sources related to the background of the treaty.
The Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties External provides that these documents can be relied upon when interpreting a treaty that appears ambiguous. Travaux préparatoires may include a variety of materials, including drafts of a treaty, negotiation or meeting notes, and any relevant legislative reporting. These are considered primary source materials as they relate to treaties.
The subscription resources marked with a padlock are available to researchers on-site at the Library of Congress.
The resources below include general resources for travaux préparatoires research.
Below you will find a list of selected legal reference materials relating to treaty interpretation from the Law Library's collection.
The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional digital content are provided when available.
The Law of Treaties Beyond the Vienna Convention by 
Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties: A Commentary by Below you will find a list of selected examples of travaux préparatoires from the Law Library's collection.
The following titles link to fuller bibliographic information in the Library of Congress Online Catalog. Links to additional digital content are provided when available.
Collected edition of the "travaux préparatoires" of the European Convention on Human Rights = Recueil des travaux préparatoires de la Convention européenne des droits de l'homme by 
The Genocide Convention: The Travaux Préparatoires by 
The System for Settlement of Disputes under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea by 
The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by 
