Treaty Research Guide: Rule 21.4 of Bluebook

NEW: The Bluebook (22nd ed. 2025) includes T1.5: Tribal Nations.  Bluebook Rule 21.4.2: Treaties and Other International Agreements: Parties to the Agreement (p. 217) states "do not abbreviate the name of a Tribal Nation party."  See two examples of an agreement between a Tribal Nation party and the U.S. in Rule 21.4 (p. 216) and in Rule 21.4.2 (p. 217).   

This guide's top-level tab: Rule 21.4 of Bluebook provides a pull-down menu of links to many preferred treaty sources highlighted in The Bluebook's treaty rule.

Frequently Used Finding Aids:

1. If you do not know what the abbreviations in rule 21.4: Treaties and Other International Agreements (p.215-) stand for, Table 4 (p. 332) of The Bluebook: A Uniform System of Citation (22nd ed. 2025) provides full titles of abbreviated treaty sources. 

2. To apply rule 21.4, determine whether the U.S. is a party to the treaty.

Sources that answer this threshold question:

• United Nations Treaty Collection, MTDSG, tab: Status of Treaties
  • Provides cites/parties to multilateral treaties registered or filed with the United Nations.
  • Enter treaty's title or keywords 
• U.S. Department of State, 2020 Treaties in Force + 2021 – 2023 Supplement to Treaties in Force 2020
  • Provides cites to treaties currently in force to which the U.S. is a party.  You will see cites to previously published United States Treaties and Other International Agreements series (U.S.T.) and to currently published Treaties and Other International Acts Series (T.I.A.S.).
  • If Treaties in Force index does not reference a recent U.S. treaty, try consulting these U.S. Department of State Office of Treaty Affairs web pages: Recent Actions for Treaties for Which the United States is Depositary and Treaties Pending in the Senate.  
• Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London (host), Flare Index to Treaties 
  • Provides cites to 2,000+ multilateral treaties (scope: "key multilateral treaties from the 1600s onwards" + "key bilateral treaties from 1353 to 1815"). 
  • Cites include Bluebook-preferred sources.   
• Westlaw > Secondary Sources > Law Reviews & Journals
  • Search by a treaty's title or popular name and note how scholarly legal journals have cited to the treaty.  

3. If you find a cite to the treaty, copy the cite.

4. If the U.S. is a party to the treaty, apply either rule 21.4.5(a)(i) [primarily: bilateral treaties] or rule 21.4.5(a)(ii) [multilateral treaties].

5. If the U.S. is not a party to the treaty, apply rule 21.4.5(b).

• Requires researchers to cite to one source published by an international organization.
• If a treaty does not appear in a source published by an international organization, researchers can cite to the treaty in the unofficial document collection: International Legal Materials (I.L.M.). Finally, if a treaty does not appear in International Legal Materials, researchers can cite to the treaty as posted at a government's website, an intergovernmental body's website, or other sources listed in rule 21.4.5(c) of The Bluebook.

Components of a Bluebook-compliant treaty cite:

• Treaty name
• Abbreviated names of treaty parties (include only if treaty is between 2 parties)
• Reference to a specific treaty article (example: art. 1) or subdivision, if you wish to create a pinpont cite
• Date of signing (or, if parties signed treaty on different dates: date opened for signature, approved, ratified or adopted & indicate significance of date in italics)
• Treaty source or sources

Examples:

NEW: See two examples of an agreement between a Tribal Nation party and the U.S. in Rule 21.4 (p. 216) and in Rule 21.4.2 (p. 217).   

Bilateral treaty & U.S. is a party:

Convention for the Avoidance of Double Taxation and the Prevention of Fiscal Evasion with Respect to Taxes on Income, U.S.-Austl., art. 1, Aug. 6, 1982, 35 U.S.T. 1999. 

Multilateral treaty & U.S. is a party:

North Atlantic Treaty art. 5, Apr. 4, 1949, 63 Stat. 2241, 34 U.N.T.S. 243. 

Multilateral treaty & U.S. is not a party:   

Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties art. 32, opened for signature May 23, 1969, 1155 U.N.T.S. 331.

This LibGuide was last substantively updated:

On: June 22, 2025

At:  8:57 AM

By: Jean Davis