Digest of United States Practice in International Law 2001

The Office of the Legal Adviser is pleased to announce the publication of the Digest of United States Practice in International Law for calendar year 2001. In order to assist readers in locating the full text of documents which are excerpted in the 2001 Digest but readily accessible elsewhere, the volume includes citations to Internet or other public sources. The listing  here has been created for documents  that are not readily available.

In his Introduction to the 2001 Digest, William H. Taft, IV, Legal Adviser for the Department of State, commented:

The past year will likely prove to have been a watershed in the development of international law. In this field, as in so many other ways, the tragic, traumatic events of September 11 altered the landscape of U.S. practice. Issues of use of force, self-defense, and counter-terrorism, which have always been important, have posed unforeseen challenges in unanticipated contexts. Policymakers have been confronted by new questions related to humanitarian law, the law of war, and international criminal law. The various domestic and international responses to terrorism, including economic and trade sanctions, the freezing and seizing of assets, claims for compensation, and civil litigation, have each generated new and unique problems, to which the legal responses continue to develop.

At the same time, 2001 witnessed many other significant developments not directly related to the events of September 11,both through United States participation in international fora and developments in the application of international law in the United States. These cover the full range of topics in international legal practice, from treaties to consular affairs, the environment, and private international law.

These events and developments underscore the importance of making available, on a timely basis, documents and other information about current U.S. practice in international law for use by practitioners, academics and the interested public.

The 2001 volume continues the approach adopted for the 2000 Digest. It relies heavily on sizable excerpts from relevant documents introduced by short explanatory notes to provide the reader with some background for understanding the significance and context of the items which have been included. Selections were made based on judgments about the significance of the issues, their possible relevance for future situations, and their likely interest to scholars and other academics, government lawyers and private practitioners.

A few organizational refinements have been made, reflecting both lessons learned from the first volume and new issues in the 2001 materials. As a result, several chapters have been reorganized and we have added three chapters. The new chapters include Educational and Cultural Affairs (Chapter 14), International Conflict Resolution and Avoidance (Chapter 17) and U.S. Response to Terrorist Attacks (Chapter 19). The decision to create Chapter 19 reflects our determination to present materials in a way that will be most useful and accessible to the reader. It pulls together materials related to the September 11, 2001 attacks rather than distributing them among the other relevant chapters, including Chapters 3, 16 and 18. There may well be different events and issues in future years that will occasion their own special chapters of one or more years' duration.

The current volume has been edited by Sally Cummins and David Stewart of this Office. Work is under way on additional volumes covering the years 1989 through 1999, and on a volume for 2001.

--  List of Documents