Digesting International Law

One of my earliest encounters with international law was in graduate school when I studied the use of international legal discourse in the 1895 U.S. crisis with Great Britain over the Venezuela/British Guyana boundary line. In researching the U.S. diplomatic statements of the time, I discovered John Bassett Moore’s 8 volume, Digest of International Law. From it, I quickly learned the joys of using digests to find “official” primary source material involving the United States and international law. As many Opinio Juris readers undoubtedly know, Moore’s 1906 edition was followed by the State Department’s publication of two more Digest sets, one edited by Green Hackworth (1940-1943), and the other by Marjorie Whiteman (1963-1971). From 1973-1988, the Digest was published annually under the editorship of Arthur Rovine, and later Marion Nash Leich.

And there the trail ended for some time. In 2000, however, the Department of State (in concert with the International Law Institute) resumed publication of the Digest under the editorship of David Stewart and Sally Cummins. From 2000-2003, they published annual volumes digesting U.S. practice in international law for that period as well as a volume covering the years 1989-1990. But that still left a significant gap in coverage – 1991-1999.

This past Monday, however, the State Department issued a press release, announcing that the gap had been closed with the publication of a two-volume set covering the period from 1991-1999. So, for the first time in a long time, there’s now a complete set of materials detailing all U.S. practice in international law from the Founding up until the present (volumes for 2004 and 2005 should appear this year). Considered collectively, a full set of all of these Digests is an expensive proposition, but if, like me, you enjoy (or need to do) historical research on international legal subjects, they are simply a “must-have.” And even if you’re reticent to spend the cash for hard copies, I’m happy to report that the State Department has begun to provide many of the primary source materials from the later Digests (1989-2003) on-line here.