AGLC4 Rule 12.1.1: Basic Documents: Constitutive Documents

The founding instrument of a tribunal or court is cited under whichever part of the Guide suits its form, such as chapter 8 for a treaty or chapter 9 for a Security Council resolution. Where a Security Council resolution made the statute, the first citation ends with a short title, usually the statute's name or a shortened form of it, and later references use that short title with a pinpoint. Where an amendment matters, the amending instrument is added after the original citation, and the short title then follows the amending instrument.

AGLC4 page 176

Format

Quoted from the Guide, page 176
Short Title Pinpoint.
Citation of Original Constitutive Document, as amended by Citation of Amending Instrument.

A boxed element is filled in with the source's details; everything outside a box is written exactly as shown.

Formatting

  • The citation of the founding instrument itself follows the chapter that fits its form (treaty, UN resolution and so on); there is no separate chapter 12 layout.
  • The short title is italic, inside curly single quotation marks, inside round brackets, and sits at the very end of the first citation.
  • Where the statute is an annex to a resolution or agreement, the word annex is written out in roman lower case after the citation, separated by a space and no comma, and the short title follows it.
  • Amendment form: the original citation, a comma, the words as amended by in roman lower case, then the full citation of the amending instrument.
  • On a first reference that cites an amendment, the short title goes after the amending instrument, not after the original instrument.
  • A subsequent reference is the italic short title, one space, then the pinpoint, then a full stop.
  • Pinpoints follow rule 8.7 and are usually to articles (art) or paragraphs (para), abbreviated without full stops.

Examples

Quoted from the Guide, page 176
  1. 1
    Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, opened for signature 17 July 1998, 2187 UNTS 90 (entered into force 1 July 2002).
  2. 2
    SC Res 955, UN Doc S/RES/955 (8 November 1994) annex (‘Statute of the International Tribunal for Rwanda’).
  3. 3
    SC Res 827, UN Doc S/RES/827 (25 May 1993), as amended by SC Res 1877, UN Doc S/RES/1877 (7 July 2009) (‘ICTY Statute’).
  4. 4
    Agreement between the United Nations and the Government of Sierra Leone on the Establishment of a Special Court for Sierra Leone, signed 16 January 2002, 2178 UNTS 137 (entered into force 12 April 2002) annex (‘Statute of the Special Court for Sierra Leone’).
  5. 5
    SC Res 1966, UN Doc S/RES/1966 (22 December 2010) (‘MICT Statute’).

Forms in the rule

Quoted from the Guide, page 176
  • as amended by

See also

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Formats, examples, passages, tables and the forms marked Not are quoted from the Australian Guide to Legal Citation (4th ed, Melbourne University Law Review Association, 2018), with the page of the Guide they appear on. Titles, summaries and explanations are our own.