Problems with Sources of Information in International Law and Relations: The Case of the World-Wide Treaty Jungle

Abstract

We live in a complex and interdependent world. Our planet seems to have become much smaller than it used to be only a few decades ago. We know almost instantaneously what is happening in places thousands of miles away, and we also know that most world events are interrelated and affect us all, wherever we might live or whatever nationality we might belong to. Movements of goods, people and ideas across national borders and the constant interplay of national interests of states continuously create situations which demand and command international attention and cooperation. States and intergovernmental organizations are thus required to assume the roles of principal actors on the world stage where the contemporary human drama is being played with much greater number of participants and intensity than ever before. The number of independent nations has increased dramatically during the last decades. Their mutual relations accordingly require a multitude of various formal and informal arrangements unprecedented in quantity as well as complexity. It is a fact of life that no nation today can afford to live in complete isolation from all its neighbors. The economic and political realities simply do not permit it. As a result, therefore, networks of international agreements under a variety of names (for the purposes of this paper we shall call them all treaties) have been growing like mushrooms after a good autumn rain, attempting to define, reconcile, harmonize, adjust and regulate the whole spectrum of competing national interests, aspirations and needs of the multimember family of nations. The sheer number, diversity and complexity of the world treaty picture has reached such a degree of difficulty in recent years that some scholars have described the situation as a “state of confusion” or even a “treaty jungle”. Librarians are very much in the middle of this situation, being called upon to provide bibliographic guidance to and through this “jungle”. It may therefore be useful to present here, within the prescribed limited confines of this paper, a quick look on the degree of accessibility to treaty information in the world today, to discuss briefly some of the types of treaty research tools that are and are not available, and to conclude with a number of suggestions for possible improvement.