Search help

The search engine used on the Human Rights Index of United Nations Documents allows queries throughout the annotations and documents on this website.

The use of the search engine on this website is made available through two different interfaces. The first one is the simplified interface included on the home page. This interface offers limited options but is contextual. The second one is the advanced interface, available by clicking the “Advanced Search” tab located at the bottom of the left-hand side of the simplified annotations search box. The advanced search provides a broader range of functionalities.

  1. Annotations Simplified Search
  2. Advanced Search
  3. Search Results Interpretation
  4. Search Engine Specifications

1. Annotations Simplified Search

The research in the annotations allows queries on all the annotations included in the Human Rights Index of United Nations Documents. The simplified search is accessible via the home page. The simplified search is of the boolean type and offers few options. However it still allows you to limit the search field to these parameters:

2. Advanced Search

The advanced search allows you, at the opposite of the simplified search, to precise some search criterions and in various ways. It also offers the possibility to refine research results by including different parameters and filters. Filters used in a search are automatically added in a Search Criteria Box. This box is located just above the Search Parameters. It allows the user to visualize all the selected criteria for any query. A red cross allows the user to erase quickly one or many selected criteria he doesn’t want to select anymore.

2.1. Search Field

The search engine allows you to make a full text search through the annotations and through the documents. You can also specify your search field when you click either on the “Annotations” tab or on the “Documents" tab. If you proceed to a research through annotations, the search criteria box will be orange, and it will be green if you search through the documents.

The Search field choice has an impact on the pages titles and on the results pages. It also affects the results to be displayed. They will be different, depending on which field you searched in.

2.2. Search Parameters
2.2.1. Search type
a) All of these words

When the mode "All these words" is selected, AND operators are added between each word of the query.

For example, the query genital mutilation will become "genital" AND "mutilation". The resulting annotations and documents will be those containing each of the two words, regardless of their location in the file.

b) One of These Words

When the mode "One of these words" is selected, OR operators are added between each word of the query.

For example, the query genital mutilation will become "genital" OR "mutilation". The resulting annotations and documents will be those containing one word or the other.

c) The Boolean Query (AND, OR, NOT)

This is the default mode. That means that when the query contains more than one word, the search engine automatically inserts a logical operator between each query term. These operators should be in upper case and used jointly with the boolean mode.

For example, the query "woman child" becomes by default "woman" OR "child". By default, the operator OR is added between each word of the query. The resulting annotations and documents will be those containing each of the two words, regardless of their location in the file.

All of the operators described below should be used together with the boolean mode.

Search All these Words (AND)

The operator AND, when inserted between two words, indicates to the search engine to look for the annotations and documents containing both of the words. You will get the same results by using the mode "All these words".

For example, the query woman AND child will find all of the annotations and all the documents including both the word woman and the word child.

Search One of the Words (OR)

The operator OR, when inserted between two words, indicates to the search engine to look for the annotations or documents containing one word or the other, or both of them. You will get the same results by using the mode "One of these words"

For example, the query woman OR child will find all of the annotations or documents including the word woman, all of the documents including the word child, and all of the annotations or documents including both the words woman and child.

Exclude One of the Search Word (NOT)

The operator NOT, when inserted before a word, indicates to the search engine to exclude from the results the annotations and documents including this word.

For example, the query woman NOT child will return all of the annotations or documents including the word woman and not including the word child.

Proximity Search (“ ”~n)

It is possible to search for occurrences of terms located within a specific distance in a text by adding a “slop” parameter. The slop parameter consists of a tilde (~) character, followed by a numeric value. The terms composing the query must be placed in quotes. The search engine will search for occurrences of the query terms separated by the maximum number of terms allowed by the slop.

For example, this query : "women asylum"~3 will find annotations or documents containing the words women and asylum located with less than 3 words to each other, like “women asylum seekers” or “women seeking asylum”.

Phrase Search (" ")

To restrict the search to an exact phrase, the user can place the terms composing the phrase within quotes.

For example, a query like "human rights" will only return annotations or documents that contain the terms “human” and “rights” placed in the same sequence and without any term between them.

Evaluation Order of Operators in a Query

By default the search engine evaluates search operations in the following order:

  1. Search a sequence of words;
  2. Search with the OR boolean operator;
  3. Search with the boolean operators AND, NOT.

When two operators of the same ranks need to be evaluated, the search engine prioritizes the one located at the very left of the query.

To change the default evaluation order, it is possible to prioritize an operation by placing it in between parenthesis. The effect of such a modification of the evaluation order is illustrated by the following example.

The query women OR children NOT rape ask the search engine to first look for annotations or documents including the word women only, those including the word children only and those containing the two words. Among those documents, the search engine will then exclude those including the word rape, in such a way that this last word will not be present in any search result.

The query women OR (children NOT rape) prioritizes the exclusion of the word rape from the annotations or documents including the word children. It then adds to the search results all the annotation or documents including the word women. At the opposite of the previous query, some resulting documents will include the word rape.

2.2.2. Order by (annotations search only)

You also have the possibility to classify your query results, according to these parameters:

2.2.3. Annotation type (annotations search only)

The user has the possibility to search, in the Search Parameters, exclusively in the Observations or only in the Recommendations. By default the search is made in all annotations types. The Observations are annotations linked to reports of established facts and observed situations by the bodies regarding the Humans rights. The Recommendations are annotations linked to the recommendations delivered by the bodies. By default, all types of annotations are displayed in the search results.

2.3. Filters

The user has the possibility to specify his query by using different kind of filters.

2.3.1. Filter by Regions or Countries

You can filter your query either by region or by country member of the United Nations (http://www.un.org/members/index.html)

2.3.2. Filter by Clusters or Rights (annotations search only)

This filter allows the user to specify his query. He can choose between the rights or type of rights concerned by the annotations. These rights are classified from the annotated documents composed by committees, special rapporteurs from the United Nations and independent experts regarding the Human rights.

2.3.3. Filter by Body Types or Bodies

This filter offers the user the possibility to restrict his search results either by body type like the Treaty bodies, or by body like the Committee against Torture. The bodies represent the United Nations bodies who wrote the documents, which have been annoted. The Observations and Recommendations are written by two main international experts bodies: the Special Procedures of the United Nations Human Rights Commission and the seven Treaty bodies, which supervise the implementation of the international treaties concerned by human rights.

2.3.4. Filter by Affected persons (annotations search only)

With that filter, you can exclusively select through the type or types of affected persons, like the indigenous, the children or the girls, who are concerned in the Observations and Recommendations annotations. That kind of filter represents the category of persons concerned by the annoted text.

2.3.5. Filter by Year

That filter allows you to restrict your search results precisely by specifying the year of publication of concerned documents. You have the possibility to do it, either by exact year or by period of time. The annotations and documents of the Human Rights Index are compiled since year 2000, and only a few older documents are in the Index. The older documents are reachable through the Official Document System of the United Nations website (ODS: http://documents.un.org/).

2.3.6. Filter by Symbol

With that filter, you can limit your search of annotations or documents by using the United Nations official reference. This reference is attributed to documents written by or for the United Nations. United Nations documents are identified by document symbols which consist of a combination of letters and numbers with each element separated from the next by a stroke (/). Details about UN document symbols are available on the ODS website. (http://documents.un.org/Help_E.htm#Search_DS).

3. Search Results Interpretation

3.1. Annotations Search Results
3.1.1. Type of Annotation

When you search annotations, search results can be displayed by type, either by Observation, by Recommendation or both. You can choose it by using tabs located at the top of the search results.

In order to facilitate the visualization of the annotation type, a specific icon associates each of them. The Observations are identified by a camera and the Recommendations are represented by a bulb.

3.1.2. Search Results Interpretation
Annotations results example
  1. Indication of the type of annotation, either Recommendations (bulb) or Observations (camera);
  2. Text of the annotation. The acronyms used mean:
    English French Description
    c) p) The body is concerned, deeply concerned, notes with concern, etc.
    w) f) The body welcomes, notes with satisfaction, etc.
    n) n) The body notes, etc.
    r) r) Recommendations and requests (the body recommends, encourages, urges, requests, etc.)
    i) i) The body requests information

    When an annotation is not translated in the language of screen, it is mentioned and the text is shown in its original language.

    The query terms are registered in boldface;

  3. Reference to the paragraph linked to the annotation. You have the possibility to display a version of the paragraph just by clicking on the reference;
  4. Reference to the document linked to the annotation. This reference includes the symbol of the document, the acronym of the body who published the document, and the year of publication. You also have the possibility to view different linguistic versions of the document in different file formats, just by clicking on that reference;
  5. Country (ies) affected by the annotation;
  6. Right(s) affected by the annotation;
  7. Affected Person(s) affected by the annotation.
3.2. Documents Search Results
3.2.1. Search Results Interpretation
Documents results example
  1. "Title of the document" The link on the title allows you to display a HTML version of the document in the language of screen. When the title is not translated in the language of screen, a mention appears about that fact;
  2. The highlightment of the terms allows you to display the document with the query terms highlighted in yellow;
  3. The automatic abstract allows you to display summarily where the query terms are located in the document. The query terms are highlighted in boldface;
  4. "View all annotations for this document" allows you to reach a new search results page including all the annotations linked to the concerned document. By clicking on that link, you leave the document search pages to reach the annotations search pages;
  5. "Reference to the document". This reference includes the symbol of the document, the organ’s acronym who published the document, and the year of publication. You also have the possibility to view different linguistic versions of the document in different file formats, just by clicking on that reference;

4. Search Engine Specifications

4.1. Capitalization of Characters (Upper Case / Lower Case)

The search engine used on the Human Rights Index of United Nations Documents is insensitive; the use of upper or lower case in the query does not have any impact on the search results.

For example, by typing Woman, you will get search results including woman, Womanor WOMAN.

4.2. Special Characters

The search engine used on this website supports the searching of words including French diacritical marks (accents, cedilla, diaresis). The search engine also supports the UTF8 variable-length character encoding. It allows the user to represent thousand of characters of any type and languages. (Arabic, Chinese, Russian).

The hyphen (-) and the apostrophe (') can be included in the query, but their value is the same as a blank space in the sequence of words.

4.3. Words and Characters Reserved for the Search Syntax recherche

When a word or a character reserved for the search syntax (AND, OR, NOT…) is being included in the text field, it is interpreted as an operator and is not searched itself. You should note that these words must be in capital letters and that you should have selected the boolean query interpretation mode.

For example, for the query Children rights AND protection, the word «AND » is considered as a boolean operator. In fact, the search engine will not only search for annotations and documents including “Children rights and protection“, but instead all the annotations and documents including the expressions “Children rights“, and “protection“.

To force the search engine to use the operators as ordinary words, they can be put between double quotes (" "), either alone (eg: Children rights "AND" protection) or with the other words (eg: "Children rights and their protection"). However, that technique does not work with generic characters.

The following table illustrates the words and characters which the search engine used on the Human Rights Index of United Nations Documents reserves for the search syntax and summarize their meanings. They are, for most of them, described in details in the sections described above.

Operators Signification
AND OR NOT Boolean operators
( ) " " Characters allowing the grouping of words or characters
& | ( ) {} [ ] ^ “ * ? : \ . Reserved characters