International treaties

kwaterford
Hello

Is there a good place to download Zotero references to major international human rights treaties? How do I work with international treaties generally? I am using the AGLC style which is specific to Australian lawyers.

Regards
Kate
  • bwiernik
    If you are doing legal research, I would recommend switching to Juris-M, a third-party version of Zotero with much expanded legal support, including I believe a treaty item type.

    https://juris-m.github.io

    I don’t know of a source for standardized treaty data, but maybe @fbennett might.
  • fbennett
    I always refer our students to UNTS. We don't have a translator for it, but it's a solid source for most official texts. (Not sure how much work it would be to set up a translator for it.)
  • adamsmith
    I've created a ticket for UNTS -- it's not something that could be done in 10mins, but since we don't have anything comparable, would likely be worth it.
  • studentpete
    Hi all,
    Is there any update with this?
    Also @kwaterford, what have you found is the best method to use Zotero for AGLC for international treaties? I've settled on 'manuscript' for item type, with the date details in the "type" field, but it feels a little awkward...
  • bwiernik
    The best way to enter treaties currently is to add `Type: treaty` to Extra. That will format treaties correctly in styles that support them.
  • ialphabright
    Hi,
    I know the question has been asked in the past (https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/65766/what-kind-of-document-type-should-i-choose-for-a-un-convention), but is there any update regarding adding the Treaty item to Zotero? Is it worth opening a github issue on this? 
  • adamsmith
    No update but also no need for a github issue -- there have been no updates to fields at all since the beginning of this thread and treaty is definitely on the radar of developers.
  • sicahjes
    What does everyone else do for treaties? This is a real problem for me. Statute is close, but it does not have a place/location or depositary.
  • bwiernik
    A treaty item will be added in a future version. For now, you can cite treaties by adding ‘Type: treaty’ to the top of Extra (note that treaty needs to be lowercase). Other fields can also be added to extra as needed. See the section at the bottom of this page: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/item_types_and_fields
  • sicahjes
    edited October 21, 2020
    Thank you for the advice. It's nice to know that it is being added.

    I'm not sure what the 'Type: treaty' does to the record (I added it anyway), but being able to add other fields is helpful.

    Note: I used the 'Event Place' per the guide, and when I refreshed Zotero the treaty location was not included in the citation. However, when I used 'Place' it worked.

    Edit: the weird symbol included in statutes was removed, so I'm guessing the 'treaty' type reformatted things. The item types are similar.
  • bwiernik
    That tells the citation processor to treat the item as a treaty, rather than whatever type you have it as in Zotero. For styles written to include special formatting for treaties (e.g., APA), the item will be cited accordingly.

    What exactly did you enter in Extra for event place?
  • sicahjes
    edited October 21, 2020
    That makes sense.

    For event place, I entered:
    Event Place: Yaoundé, Cameroon

    That didn't work, but it did work when I typed:
    Place: Yaoundé, Cameroon
  • bwiernik
    What style are you using? “Place” is mapped to both Event Place and Publisher Place (for historical technical reasons). It’s possible that the citation style you are using is expecting treaties to have a publisher place, not an event place.
  • sicahjes
    Chicago 17 :-)
  • craigxmartin
    Sorry to ask what may be a silly question - and maybe something has happened since 2020 that makes this moot, but where is the "Extra" field that people are writing about here? I too am trying to add treaties, and am stymied...
  • damnation
    Both in the Web Library and the Zotero Desktop app, on the right in the Info tab for an item, there is a field called Extra at the bottom of it.
  • ybanens
    Would there be an 'Extra:' type for Memorandum of Understanding? "Extra: mou", perhaps? I'm trying to follow AGLC4 Rule 8.6.
  • yvonneyguo
    edited yesterday at 1:18pm
    How do I get zotero to use abbrieviated treaty names after the first mention? It does not detect the "short title" even after indicating the "Type: treaty" under "Extra".
  • ybanens
    It’s all down to the CSL (citation style) you are using. It’s not Zotero itself which does it but the CSL file, which has to be written to expect the ‘Type: treaty’ value. If the CSL isn’t written to expect it, nothing will happen when you put that value in. What style are you using?
  • yvonneyguo
    Thanks! I'm using OSCOLA style. I think it does detect the "Type: treaty" as it italicised all my treaties after I put "Type: treaty" into the Extra field. However, I can't seem to get it to use the "short title" after the first reference to each treaty.
  • ybanens
    I'm no CSL expert but I looked at the built-in OSCOLA style in the style editor and it looks like it's supposed to give the short title for subsequent citations provided something is in the Short Title field. Lines 576-587 look like the ones. If it's not working for you, maybe double-check capitalisation, trailing spaces, etc? I've had similar trouble before and I think it was capitalisation for me. You could even try typing "Type: treaty" into a plain text editor and pasting it back in, to make sure it only contains the relevant Unicode characters.
  • ybanens
    I've been playing with this a bit. The OSCOLA style never seems to render short titles at all when recording treaties as Item Type: Manuscript (per @adamsmith demo page) or as Item Type: Statute. Maybe there's an issue with the way the style processes treaties, like the main Item Type triggers some other rule that suppresses the display of the short title, regardless of what's in the Extra: field.

    AGLC4 will display the short title correctly in the first citation if set to Item Type: Statute, but still display full treaty title on subsequent footnotes. I think this is per AGLC rules so that's OK. If set to manuscript, no short title gets displayed at all, regardless of what's in the Extra: field.

    What are you putting in the main Item Type field for your treaties?
  • yvonneyguo
    edited today at 8:51am
    Thank you for the tips and for testing this on your end! I've pasted "Type: treaty" from Notepad, so this doesn't seem to be the issue.

    I've also tried experimenting with each of the main Item Types individually and can confirm that no matter which Item Type is used, the short title will not show up if "Type: treaty" is indicated in the Extra field.

    If "Type: treaty" is removed, the short title shows up from the second citation onwards when the main Item Type is set to "Case" or "Statute".
Sign In or Register to comment.