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War, War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity - Legal Research Strategies and Tips

This guide is prepared for a law seminar class at Washington University School of Law

Staying current is important

Oxford Law Reports Citator: 

The law school's subscription database Oxford International Law Reports has a citator. 

Use the Citator to:

  • find a definitive citation for a piece of legal information

  • find other things that discuss or mention something (e.g. a case, or a legislative or treaty provision)

  • find other items in the same subject area or from the same jurisdiction, and

  • link onwards to reliable full text of relevant sources, on OUP services or the wider web

  • From any content page, click the Oxford Law Citator icon above the Table of Contents on the left side of the screen to go to the Citator record for that document.
  • The Citator record will open in the same browser window. If you want to open it in a new tab, keeping your original document open, right click on the icon with your mouse and select “Open in new tab”

  • Alternatively, click on any bibliographic link in the content to call up a box containing the full citation, together with a link to the Oxford Law Citator for that item, and a link to the full text where available on an OUP service.

News sources There are many newspapers and news portals out  there. I recommend that you check out: http://jurist.org/  JURIST is a web-based legal news and real-time legal research service powered by a mostly-volunteer team of over 60 part-time law student reporters, editors, professors and web developers 

So are blogs: Here are a couple of blogs that you may want to check in with: 

  • The Opinio Juris, http://opiniojuris.orgOpinio Juris was the world’s first blog dedicated to the informed discussion of international law by and among academics, practitioners and legal experts.
  • The International Law in Brief, http://www.asil.org/blogs/ilib International Law in Brief (ILIB) is a forum that provides updates on current developments in international law from the editors of the American Society of International Law (ASIL).
  • EJIL;Talk, http://www.ejiltalk.org/ the European Journal of International Law blog
  • IntLawGrrls https://ilg2.org/ A blog authored by women who teach and work in international law, policy and practice.  Within years, IntLawGrrls ranked among the top law professors’ blogs.
  • Just Security https://www.justsecurity.org/ A blog authored by expert authors  with significant government experience, academics, civil society practitioners, individuals directly affected by national security policies, and other leading voices.
  • Voelkerrechtsblog https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/ Völkerrechtsblog A blog authored by scholars on all matters of international public law and international legal thought.

Remember to sign up for alerts whenever this option has been made available to you.