International Law Collection
When the Olivart collection of international legal materials was acquired in 1911, the study and teaching of international law was already important at Harvard. Today, the international dimension of United States legal practice is emphasized in the curriculum as never before, and the School is engaged in an effort to internationalize the curriculum as a whole.
The Library supports this effort through intensive collecting of the primary materials of international law: bilateral and multilateral treaties, and the documents of international organizations. The Library is a depository for the documents of the European Union. Documents of the United Nations are acquired selectively, with an emphasis on Official Records of the six principal organs and legal publications; Widener Library is a full depository for United Nations documents. The documents of WTO and OSCE are collected comprehensively; documents of other intergovernmental organizations are collected selectively, in cooperation with other Harvard libraries, to ensure research-level coverage within the University.
The secondary literature of international law is acquired very extensively. The Library subscribes to the titles indexed in the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals. Monographic literature on international law is acquired in all Western European, Slavic, and East Asian languages. Special emphasis is given to international trade law, international tax law, and human rights. Until recent years, the Library also collected heavily in the area of international relations. The Library no longer duplicates other libraries within the University in this area, except for basic periodicals and reference works.
The Library's collections are augmented by access to the international law materials available in Lexis, Nexis, and Westlaw, and the databases of the European Union. Document delivery through RLG's Eureka system is available for materials indexed in the World Law Index and the Index to Foreign Legal Periodicals.
The current international law collection is housed in the International Legal Studies division of the Library located in the Lewis International Law Center. Maps and descriptions of the classification schemes used for the collection are available.