During this time, she has researched and retrieved foreign and international legal materials for some of the nation's leading law firms. A special acknowledgement is due Barbara C. Rainwater, International Law Reference Librarian, Georgetown University Law Center Library, whose handout at a March 1997 workshop of the Law Librarians' Society of Washington, DC was used as a reference for this column.
International law relates to agreements between nations.
The words treaty and agreement are sometimes used as generic names for all of these, as well as being used as a specific term in a proper name. If the only information you need is the title of a treaty, when it was negotiated, or when it took force, and the U.S. was one of the parties, you can often find this information in a source that is available in most law offices. While the texts of treaties are not printed in the U.S. Code , you will find the implementing legislation there. Frequently, the basic information about the treaty is in the implementing legislation. When you need to verify citations in legal briefs, this can be a real time saver.