Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Wilcox: Digest of United States Practice in International Law, 2009

Elizabeth Wilcox (Office of the Legal Adviser, U.S. Department of State) has published Digest of United States Practice in International Law, 2009 (Oxford Univ. Press 2011). The 2009 Digest and other volumes covering 1989 to the present are also available online here. Here's the abstract:

Co-published by Oxford University Press and the International Law Institute, and prepared by the Office of the Legal Adviser at the Department of State, the Digest of United States Practice in International Law presents an annual compilation of documents and commentary highlighting significant developments in public and private international law, and is an invaluable resource for practitioners and scholars in the field.

Each edition compiles excerpts from documents such as treaties, diplomatic notes and correspondence, legal opinion letters, judicial decisions, Senate committee reports and press releases. Each document is selected by members of the Legal Adviser's Office of the U.S. Department of State, based on their judgments about the significance of the issues, their potential relevance to future situations, and their likely interest to scholars and practitioners. In almost every case, the commentary to each excerpt is accompanied by a citation to the full text.