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- UNBISnet provides a database of speeches delivered at the various bodies of the United nations, including the General Assembly, the Security Council, the Economic and Social Countil and the Trusteeship Council.
- Scroll down to Index to Speeches and opt for New Keyword Search.
- From this page, you can search by a speaker's name, a country or organization of origin, topics, speech dates and more. Choose your options from the drop down menus in the search boxes. Be careful to call your country by the official name: for example Russia is Russian Federation.
- To find speeches given in the General Assembly, limit your search to General Assembly in the Limits box.
- The Drew Library has Index to Proceedings of the General Assembly (Reference JX 1977.A44 session/part) which indexes speeches at the General Assembly for each session by corporate name/country; by speaker; and by subject. Part II lists speeches by country/people. This print resource is probably easier to use and more reliable than UNBISNET. Drew Library owns these publications from the 8th Session onward. Helpful tip: sometimes heads of States give speeches at the opening session of the General Assembly (and other venues, like the Security Council). At the end of the listing for your country (Part II of the Index to Proceedings), see if there is a section for President or Prime Minister or some such designation where speeches by heads of States would be listed. The document for these speeches will look like this: A/63/PV. numbers. Here the A represents the General Assembly, the 63 refers to the Assembly session, and the PV refers to verbatim record. Usually, the following number is a low number, like a .5 or .16. Type the document number into the _Symbol _box in the ODS Advanced database to pull up the full text of the document. You can search within the full text PDF, using the binocular icon, to find where your head of State's speech is located within the document (either search for his/her name or the name of your country.)
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- Most UN Resolutions are adopted without a recorded vote. Only those votes that are recorded indicate how a country voted. The Resolutions and Decisions Adopted by the General Assembly during a stated session is a compilation of votes taken during a specific GA session. The document lists how countries voted when a roll call vote was actually taken for a specific resolution. This document can be found on ODS Advanced. In the search box labeled Words of the title, type in the following phrase: "resolutions and decisions adopted by the general assembly during its" and search. Notice that the number 49 will appear in most of the UN document symbols in the resulting list of documents. Use the binocular icon to search for your country (make sure you use the proper name: example - Russian Federation, not Russia).The Drew Library has these documents in print, located on A-level in compact shelving.
- The Voting Records option in UNBISnet - this option provides “the full text of voting records for all resolutions which were adopted - either without a vote or by roll-call or recorded vote - by the General Assembly beginning with its 38th session (1983-) and the Security Council beginning with its 1st year (1946-).” Most records provide only a summary of the vote (i.e.the number of yeas and nays).
- Public Law 79-264 requires that the U.S. State Department report to Congress U.S. participation in the United Nations; the report includes a voting record for the U.S. The reports and voting record are available online from 2000 through 2006 from the State Department. A comparison of how the U.S. voted on key issues to votes by other countries is also available in these. U.S. participation in the United Nations is also available from the State Department.
- Reports of more recent votes in the United Nations can be found at the UN's Press Releases advanced site. Search globally for recent votes, or by organization (e.g. General Assembly, etc) in the "Select" drop down box at the bottom of the Press Release page. In the "Keyword(s) in headline" box type in vote. You can change dates "Date" box. Click "Find" to search.
Human rights/ peace and security issues/ sustainable development/economic development/health issues - country profiles:
Human Rights
- Ratification of Human Rights concerns by countries can be found at Human Rights in the World.
- The Country Reports on Human Rights Practices submitted annually by the U.S. Department of State to the U.S. Congress are available online from 1999 to the most current report. Print copies are available at the Drew library: 1986 through 1993 on A-level: Y 4.F 76/1-15: (YR) and 1994- 2005: Y 4.IN 8/16-15: (YR).
- University of Minnesota Human Rights Library
- European Court of Human Rights HUDOC - free online access to the case-law of the European Court of Human Rights, the European
- Human Rights Index of United Nations Documents - provides access to human rights information found in United Nations documents, related to countries and/or specific rights.
- Ref JC571 .A44- Amnesty International Report. Ref JC571 .F66 - Freedom in the World
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