yaml-cpp will parse any file as specificed by the YAML 1.2 spec. Internally, it stores all strings in UTF-8, and representation is done with UTF-8. This means that in

std::string str;
node >> str;

str will be UTF-8. Similarly, if you're accessing a map by string key, you need to pass the key in UTF-8. If your application uses a different encoding, you need to convert to and from UTF-8 to work with yaml-cpp. (It's possible we'll add some small conversion functions, but for now it's restricted.)

For convenience, Richard Weeks has kindly provided a google gadget that converts Unicode to a string literal. It's a Google Gadget, so unfortunately it does not work on GitHub. Patches welcome to port it to a usable format here:

<wiki:gadget url="http://hosting.gmodules.com/ig/gadgets/file/111180078345548400783/c-style-utf8-encoder.xml"/>