U.S. treaties are officially published in a variety of sources, all of which are available in the Treaty Publications section of the HeinOnline Treaties and Agreements Library.
Since 1950, treaties have been published in United States Treaties and other International Agreements (UST) (S9.12:[vol./pt.]). This series is current only through 1984.
Treaties are also published in slip form in the Treaties and Other International Acts Series (TIAS) (S9.12:[no.]), which currently runs through 2000. Later ratified treaties are issued by the Department of State with a treaty number. TIAS combines two predecessor series, the Treaty Series (1908-1946) and Executive Agreement Series (1929-1946).
Treaties prior to 1950 were also published in the Statutes at Large, and republished unofficially by the State Department in a series of sources, the most comprehensive of which is Treaties and Other International Agreements of the United States of America (Bevans) (Documents S 9.12/2:1-13).
Unratified treaties are included in Treaty (formerly Senate Executive) Documents, which are submitted by the executive branch to the Senate for its advice and consent as part of the ratification process.
All of these sources are also available electronically in the Lexis U.S. Treaties library and in the Westlaw USTREATIES library.
There are a variety of treaty indexes, the first two of which are available in the Treaty Guides and Indexes section of HeinOnline's Treaties and Agreements Library.
Treaties in Force (Documents Ref. S 9.14:[year]), published every January by the Department of State, is a list of treaties currently in force. Divided into two sections, the bilateral treaties are listed alphabetically by country of opposite party, then by subject, while multilateral treaties are listed by subject only.
Guide to United States Treaties in Force is a commercially published companion to TIF, which provides more detailed indexing by subject, as well as chronological and numerical indexes.
United States Treaty Index (Ref. KZ235 .K38 2000) indexes all treaties ever ratified by the U.S., including treaties no longer in force, by treaty number (including proprietary numbers for unpublished treaties), date of conclusion and entry into force, country of opposite party, subject (for multilateral treaties), and by country of opposite party/subject.
There are two ways to search for treaties in the Treaties and Agreements Library.
First, you can search for treaties directly through the Treaty Metadata Search engine. This search engine permits you to search across all treaty collections using various specialized criteria, including treaty number, country name, multilateral party names, keyword, short title, descriptor, various relevant dates, and by related treaty.
Second, you can search for treaties indirectly by first retrieving the contents of one of the indexes, and then using the "search within results" link to identify the treaty desired. Then use the treaty number found to retrieve the treaty using the Treaty Metadata Search engine.
For more information on searching for U.S. treaties, see HeinOnline's Treaties and Agreements Library webinar.
The Office of the Assistant Legal Advisor for Treaty Affairs provides access to several useful databases, including TIAS from 1996-1999, a selection of non-treaty agreements that entered into force, 1982-2006, and 2006-2009, that have not yet been published in TIAS, as well as a list of treaties currently awaiting Senate action.