First, the easy way: PERRLA
Choose International Conventions & Treaties (under Legal References). There are no kinds to pick: it's one form for every treaty, convention, and international agreement. Fill in Convention or Treaty Title, the full Signing or Approval Date, the URL, and the site's name in Website Name, like OHCHR. PERRLA keeps the name in plain type and title case, writes the date day, month, year, sets the website in italics, and leaves off the https://.
PERRLA can't look up a treaty by its name or citation. Pasting a treaty's web page into the reference search builds a webpage entry, not a treaty entry, so add treaties with the form.
Not using PERRLA yet? Here is how to build the same works cited entry by hand.
The parts of the works cited entry
1. Name of the treaty
Start with the treaty's full official name, exactly as the treaty text gives it, in title case. MLA sets the names of laws, treaties, and similar political documents in plain type, with no italics and no quotation marks, even when the treaty sits inside a larger website. End with a period.
Convention on the Rights of the Child.
There's no author. A multilateral treaty belongs to all the countries that join it, so don't list the United Nations, the World Health Organization, or the countries as the author. The name goes first, in the Works Cited entry and in the in-text citation.
2. Date signed or adopted
Give the date the treaty was signed or adopted, written day, month, year, with the month abbreviated (except May, June, and July). Use that date, not the date the treaty entered into force or the date a country ratified it. A U.N. convention takes the date the General Assembly or conference adopted it.
20 Nov. 1989.
3. Website and URL
MLA cites the version you consulted, so next comes where you read the treaty: the website's name in italics, a comma, and the URL without https://, then a period. Use the name the site gives itself.
OHCHR, www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child.
Read it on the World Health Organization's tobacco treaty site? That site calls itself FCTC. On a government site, name that site, like IBWC for the International Boundary and Water Commission.
4. Description (optional)
For an agreement between two or three countries, MLA lets you add a short description at the end of the entry to name the parties, when the name doesn't already say who signed it.
Treaty between the United States and Mexico.
Skip it when the title names the parties, as the 1944 water treaty's does, and for a multilateral convention open to every country, like the U.N. human rights treaties.
Examples
A U.N. convention read online
The Convention on the Rights of the Child, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly on 20 November 1989, and read on the U.N. human rights office's site. Article 24 covers children's right to health care, so the in-text citation points to it.
Works Cited
Convention on the Rights of the Child. 20 Nov. 1989. OHCHR, www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-child.
- In-text citation(Convention, art. 24)
- Narrative citationThe Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes every child's right to the highest attainable standard of health (art. 24).
A global health treaty
The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, adopted by the World Health Assembly on 21 May 2003 and read on WHO's FCTC site. It entered into force in 2005, but the entry takes the adoption date. WHO is part of the name here, not an author.
Works Cited
WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. 21 May 2003. FCTC, fctc.who.int/convention.
- In-text citation(WHO Framework Convention)
- Narrative citationThe WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control commits its parties to …
An agreement between two countries
The 1944 water treaty between the United States and Mexico, which governs the Colorado River, the Tijuana River, and the Rio Grande, signed in Washington on 3 February 1944. It's read here in the International Boundary and Water Commission's copy, a scan of the 1946 government printing (Treaty Series 994), and the title comes from its title page. That title already names both countries, so the optional description isn't needed.
Works Cited
Utilization of Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande: Treaty between the United States of America and Mexico. 3 Feb. 1944. IBWC, www.ibwc.gov/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/1944Treaty.pdf.
- In-text citation(Utilization)
- Narrative citationThe 1944 treaty Utilization of Waters of the Colorado and Tijuana Rivers and of the Rio Grande divides …
In-text citations
An MLA 9 in-text citation for a treaty uses a short form of the treaty's name, because the name is the first element of the entry. Shorten it to the first noun and any words before it, leaving off a leading A, An, or The, and keep it in plain type.
- Parenthetical: (Convention) for the Convention on the Rights of the Child, (WHO Framework Convention), or (Utilization) for the 1944 water treaty
- A specific article: treaties have articles, not pages, so add art. and the number after a comma: (Convention, art. 24)
- Name in your sentence: give the full name in your sentence and only the article in parentheses: The Convention on the Rights of the Child recognizes every child's right to health care (art. 24).
- Two treaties with the same short form: if you cite two conventions, add words from each name so your reader can tell them apart: (Convention on the Rights of the Child, art. 24).
There's no year in an MLA in-text citation and no author name. Write treaty names in plain type in your sentences, never in italics.
Common mistakes
- United Nations. Convention on the Rights of the Child.Convention on the Rights of the Child.A multilateral treaty has no author, and MLA sets treaty names in plain type, like the names of laws. The name leads the entry.
- Convention on the Rights of the Child, Nov. 20, 1989, 1577 U.N.T.S. 3.Convention on the Rights of the Child. 20 Nov. 1989. OHCHR,That's the legal citation form APA follows. MLA writes the date day, month, year, and names the website where you read the treaty instead of a legal series citation.
- Convention on the Rights of the Child. 2 Sept. 1990.Convention on the Rights of the Child. 20 Nov. 1989.Use the date the treaty was signed or adopted, not the date it entered into force or the date a country ratified it.
- (Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989, art. 24)(Convention, art. 24)MLA in-text citations don't take the year. Shorten a long name to its first noun, unless you cite two treaties that would look the same.
- "Convention on the Rights of the Child." OHCHR,Convention on the Rights of the Child. 20 Nov. 1989. OHCHR,A treaty isn't a web page title. Its name stays in plain type even on a website, and the website's name is what goes in italics.
Quick checklist
- The treaty's full official name, in plain type, with no author
- The date it was signed or adopted, day, month, year
- Where you read it: the website's name in italics, and the URL
- Optional: a description naming the countries, for an agreement between two or three
- In text: a short form of the name, plus art. and a number for one article
Questions students ask
Which date do I use for a treaty in MLA?
Use the date the treaty was signed or adopted. For a U.N. convention, that's the day the General Assembly or conference adopted it: 20 Nov. 1989, for the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Don't use the date it entered into force or the date a country ratified it. The treaty's page on the United Nations Treaty Collection lists the adoption date first.
Do I need the U.N.T.S. or U.S.T. citation in MLA?
Not for a treaty you read online. MLA cites the version you consulted, so a treaty you read on the U.N. human rights office's site gets that site's name and its URL, not the legal series citation lawyers use.
How do I cite a specific article of a treaty?
List the whole treaty once on your Works Cited page, then name the article in the in-text citation: (Convention, art. 24). If the treaty's name is already in your sentence, the article alone goes in parentheses: (art. 24).
Do I cite a treaty as a webpage if I read it on the U.N. website?
No. The treaty's name leads the entry, just as it would in print, and the website comes after it as the place you read it. Don't put the treaty's name in quotation marks the way you would a web page's title: treaty names stay in plain type.
Does it matter whether my country ratified the treaty?
No. The entry looks the same either way. The United States signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child but never ratified it, and you cite it exactly as shown here. If ratification matters to your argument, say so in your sentence.
Do I list the countries that signed it?
Not as authors. For an agreement between two or three countries, you can add a description at the end of the entry, like Treaty between the United States and Mexico. Multilateral conventions with dozens or hundreds of parties list no countries at all.
Related guides
Rules checked against the MLA Handbook (9th ed.), chapter 5 (the core elements and containers) and chapter 6 (in-text citations and shortened titles), and the MLA Style Center's post Documenting Legal Works in MLA Style (follow the MLA template; cite the version you consulted; names of laws, treaties, and political documents in plain type; its treaty examples, the Kyoto Protocol and the Beijing Treaty, with a closing description; and its Universal Declaration of Human Rights and executive order examples for a document's own date before the container). Example sources are the ones verified for the APA 7 page: each treaty's United Nations Treaty Collection record, the treaty texts on the OHCHR, WHO FCTC, and IBWC sites, and the title page of the IBWC's scan (Treaty Series 994) for the water treaty's title.